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time to understand that I’m really back?”
    “It’s not that, no,” he said. “I think they just need more time to understand why you’re back and what that means to their lives. Maybe you think that’s selfish, but I’d bet you anything they’ve been talking to each other just about every day since you’ve been back and trying to figure out how to deal with this thing. You woke up from a nap and everyone was older and different, but they’ve stayed up a lot of nights thinking about you, Travis. They’ve grieved you for years and now they’re being asked to un-grieve you, and, sadly, that just isn’t something that very manypeople understand because, well, it’s never been a possibility before now.”
    “Did Lawrence go through this too?” I asked, feeling like this wasn’t the first time Dr. Saranson had had this conversation.
    “He did. Yeah. But I’ll let him tell you about that. I think it would be really good for you. For both of you. What do you say?”
    “I think I’m ready.”
    “Great. I’m going to give him your number, and I bet he’ll be calling you very soon.”
    “Thanks,” I said.
    “Travis?”
    “Sir?”
    “It’s all going to work out. I promise.”
    “Sure it will,” I said.
    “And I’ll see you next week, right? For your first checkup? I’m flying down on Wednesday. You can tell me all about school.”
    •  •  •
    Three days before my first day back to school, Mom came into my bedroom and woke me up. I looked at my alarm clock, and since I was in that just-awake haze, it took me a second or two to figure out if it was midnight or noon.
    “Lawrence Ramsey’s on the phone for you,” she whispered, sitting on the edge of my bed.
    “What?” I sat up, squinting my eyes. It was definitelydaytime because sunlight was filtering in through the curtains and heating up the side of my face.
    “Lawrence Ramsey. He’s waiting for you.” She held a cordless phone with one hand, her other covering the bottom of it.
    “Can you give me, like, five minutes?” I said, yawning.
    “What do you want me to do, Travis? Chit-chat?”
    I couldn’t tell if she was annoyed or amused, but I didn’t care. I nodded my head and got up to use the bathroom. When I came back, she was sitting in the same spot and repeating “Yeah . . . yeah . . . uh-huh” into the receiver. She waved me over.
    “Okay, Mr. Ramsey. Well, here’s Travis. Yes. You too. Okay. Bye-bye.”
    “Hello?” I said, sitting down.
    “Well, if it isn’t the man of the hour!” he said.
    He had a kind voice, one much less animated than his public persona used. I’d seen him in so many interviews that I knew his whole story. I knew how he lost both of his parents to cancer by the time he was out of college. I knew he met his wife ten years before by accident when he, then an air-conditioner repairman, showed up to the wrong house and she pretended her A/C was broken just to get to know him. I knew they named their twin daughters after their respective grandmothers, Francine and Delilah. And I knew that he was thirty-six years old when they told him he would die. You could ask anyone you met and they’d tell yousomething about the life of Lawrence Ramsey and how it was a miracle that such a “good man” had been given a second chance to be happy, that he would get to see his children grow up after all.
    “Huh?”
    “You’re all over the place, kiddo. Letterman even made a joke about you in his monologue last night. Funny stuff.”
    “Am I ever going to get used to all this?”
    “Well, the public’s known about you for, what, a week or so? They’re still hassling me and I’ve been back for six months. So sorry to say, but I doubt it.”
    The Saranson Center had officially announced my reanimation the week before, so the news had been flooded with all these stories about how I got sick and volunteered for the surgery and all. They kept showing old photos of me because, thankfully, my age allowed me