Postcards from a Dead Girl Read Online Free

the way kids do to indicate crazy.
    â€œMe,” she says, practically in italics, then jabs her finger hard into her breastbone. “Me?” she says again, her voice laced with cruel implication.

chapter 8
    I decide to give Gerald the Post Office Guy another try at explaining my postcard mystery. I think he might have been rushed last time.
    I find my place in line, content to watch other customers as they drop off packages or collect their stamps. It’s eventually my turn, and no one is behind me. And while I don’t have anything to deliver, the more questions I ask the more Gerald seems okay with chatting. He talks to hear the sound of his voice, and I listen for the same reason. His philosophical meanderings are entertaining and there is something comforting about knowing someone is in charge. I ask him about faraway regions, places where deliveries might be difficult or easily botched.
    â€œAlaska’s especially challenging,” he says. “It’s beautiful, but so remote.”
    I nod, fascinated.
    â€œThere are parts of Alaska where our guys use snowmobiles.”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œOh yeah. Ever since the Homeland Security Act, parcels that received payment for ground delivery need to stay on the ground. No Cessnas flying those packages. Our guys use snowmobiles.”
    Our guys. I like that. Like he’s a part of a real team, something bigger, that gets big things done. Like the armed forces, without the arms or force.
    â€œBut overall, Air Priority is the best route no matter what you’re sending,” Gerald says. “It’s a good way to go.”
    â€œI like the good way.”
    He smiles, and clears his workspace of paper scraps. Several new customers make their way in through the glass doors.
    â€œPretty unique ways to deliver,” he says.
    Have they considered moose, I wonder.
    â€œHave a good day,” he says.
    I walk away to make room for the new customers. After a few steps, I really want to share the moose line with Gerald, so I turn back. But he’s already asking a lady if she’s sending anything liquid, perishable, or fragile.

chapter 9
    At the time of my father’s death, my family lived together under one roof. I was twelve and Natalie was sixteen. Mom was figuring out how to manage life with no husband and two kids, and it was tough because there were always reminders that he was gone. Not like photos or old clothes, but less obvious things that couldn’t be boxed up or thrown away. They were welcome and crushing at the same time. For months we’d get phone calls from telemarketers asking to talk to Dad. And that wasn’t cool at all because whoever answered the phone had to explain.
    And there were the more subtle mementos, like the copper pipes. Dad was a plumber, and he had fitted our house with copper pipes, the best kind to use for plumbing. He taught us the virtues of copper piping: versatility, strength, durability in extreme temperatures, biostatic qualities that don’t allow bacteria to grow. He talked to us like we were adults, coconspirators in his mission to convert every house in town to copper piping. “You get what you pay for,” he used to tell me, and also “Copper is a little more expensive but worth it in the long run,” and “There’s no way we’ll use anything but copper in our house.”
    I was a bit mystified by my dad’s white work truck, how the interior was lined with long sections of shiny pipe, the copper color morphing from brown to orange to red in the sun. He was like an alchemist to me, shaping and shifting metals, casting spells on homes by infusing them with his special brand of invincibility.
    I used to think that the water we drank was better than our neighbors’ because we had copper pipes. It was a great secret I kept from my friends. And for a long time after Dad died, I thought about him every time I turned a faucet.
    Other reminders of