Fade to White

by Tara K Ross

  “Oh, yes dear. A cup of tea.” Her voice weakens at the end.

  I slide my fingers across the rippled veins of her hand. “Of course, I—”

  The door creaks open and light streams in from the hallway. I crouch next to her bedside table, lips pressed together hard for what feels like minutes. Mrs. Shen adjusts herself away from the light but remains silent. The door closes, footsteps fade away, and all that is left are her deep, gargled breaths.

  “Tea solves most problems, doesn’t it?” I say more to myself than to her. I lean toward her ear and take in the similar scents Grams had near the end of her life. Floral Avon perfume, mothballs, and root vegetables mixed with the earth from which they grew. So drawn into my own memories, I kiss her forehead, forgetting she’s not mine to love.

  She smiles in the same way Grams once did. Each deep line acting like a stream toward a joyful smile.

  “Thank you,” I whisper and then slide across the room to the door.

  Through the tempered glass, I make out Dr. Kowalski talking to a nurse and pointing in the direction of his office. The nurse responds, looks at the exit doors, then shakes her head.

  Who else can I call? I text Tom. “SOS! Need pick up NOW! At hospital.”

  In the darkness, I wait, sneaking glances out the window. Waiting for my moment to escape. Dr. K disappears from view, and sweat emerges from my every pore. My phone vibrates, and I jump back from the window. Tom. “Be there in 5. Patient drop-off doors. You OK?”

  I wipe my palms on my jeans and peer back out the door. For once, I’m thankful Mom works in this hospital. There are two exits off each floor, and the door codes rarely change.

  Dr. Kowalski reappears next to the nurse at a computer station, and I crack the door open. No movement from them. On hands and knees, I crawl toward his office. Once around the corner, I scramble to my feet and stride as casually as possible until I reach the end of the hallway.

  48510 ENTER. Please work. One loud click and I am in the stairwell. I tiptoe down the first flight, listening for the door and preparing my escape onto the next floor, but no one appears to be chasing me. Down the remaining stairs, I sprint until I arrive at the ground floor doors. My phone vibrates again. It’s Mom. Somebody must have called her. Please let it not have been Tom. My finger hovers over the PHONE button but then slides to END. I can’t trust you right now, Mom.

  The scents of burnt coffee and antiseptic seep through the stairwell exit as I open the door into the hospital lobby. The bustle of visitors, patients, and attendants offers me the confidence to slow my pace to match the crowd. I reach the front, rotating doors and swing through, half expecting security to stop me. The one sleepy guard doesn’t even lift his head. Apparently, teenage breakdowns don’t warrant a code yellow.

  A rush of cold air shocks me back to reality, but there is a stillness in the atmosphere that leaves me feeling no less suffocated. The absence of Tom’s Civic does nothing to help, either.

  A flagpole marks the center of an island around the patient drop-off route, and I head toward it, mesmerized by the slow, undulating movement of the material. How is it that nothing seems to move except its red-and-white material marking the ridge’s horizon with graceful, guided ripples. A car honks and lights flash before me. I stare back like a deer. The sound of my heart beating in my ears drowns out my brother’s voice.

  “Thea, get over here,” Tom hollers.

  I squint into the windshield of the car in front of me and stagger to the passenger side door that is already open.

  “What the heck is wrong with you? I almost pancaked you.”

  Without hesitation, I fall onto my brother and squeeze his neck.

  His hand rests heavily on my back. “Okay, Frizz, calm down.”

  Through his window, I catch sight of the metal pole soaring upwards. “The flag …”

  “What about it?” Tom nudges me back with his elbow to complete the arching turn.

  “It’s faith.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  “Thea, you are acting straight-out crazy.” Tom’s head shakes ever so slightly. He exits the hospital roundabout and veers south toward home. “Maybe Mom was right.”

  I vise-grip his arm. “You called Mom?”

  “Ow. Lighten up, Frizz. We talked this morning before she dragged you from your room. She’s just worried about you, and now I can see why.”

  I brush my fingers through tangles that scream to be removed by force. “What else did she tell you?”

  “Nothing important.” He takes another corner toward home, attending way too heavily to traffic that is not there.

  “What’s not important?”

  “Nothing. She just mentioned you were seeing someone. To air all your angst and stuff.”

  “I can’t believe she would …” I take hold of the knots. My quivering lower lip prevents intelligible speech. If Tom needed evidence of why Mom is so worried, he has it now. I inhale and attempt to speak without a tremor. “Can you take me anywhere but home?”

  “No way. Mom will go ballistic if she tries to pick you up and—”

  “I need to think, Tom. Please. Give me some time.”

  He glances over, sighs out loud, and veers off Hillside Road.

  “I’ll drop you at Ashley’s or Jade’s, but I’m going to text her.”

  “You can text her. Tell her I’m safe. But I can’t handle talking to anyone right now. Not even my friends. I need to be alone.” And I do. I get it now. I get why Dad didn’t want to be around me or any of us. My mind will explode if I have to answer another question or justify my anger right now.

  “Alone? The way you’re acting? You haven’t been this bad since Grams got her diagnosis.”

  I thought he’d forgotten about my initial fall into crazy. Although, how could he have? When Mom first saw me scratching, she made me wear mittens to bed for months. Once Grams was confirmed terminal, she rarely left me alone for fear I’d do something worse. But I never did. And Tom knows that. He was the one who convinced Mom to give me space—an outlet. To run. I need Tom on my side.

  “You of all people know alone is exactly what I need to stay sane right now. I’ll be fine. I just need to run.” The ridge that marks the northwest side of our town appears, and the stillness the forest provides in the late fall calls to me. “You can drop me at the upper entrance of the ridge.”

  “No.” His jaw clenches as though he is biting into iron.

  “I’ll take my running route and be back in an hour.”

  “I said no.” His voice rises. “I’ll take you to the track at school, but not the ridge.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. The entrance is just down the road. We’d have to go past home to get to the track. And school is the last place I want to be.” The intensity of my plea increases as he slows the car. “Running in the forest is what I need. Tom, please. I can’t see anyone. I don’t want anyone.” I grasp at his hand on the steering wheel.

  The tension seems to ripple through each of his knuckles straight into the worn leather of the wheel. He pushes my arm away and slams the car into park. His whole body shudders. “I took her there.”

  “What?” I follow his gaze and begin to connect the dots.

  He stares out the front window, silent. “Wonderwall” by Oasis chimes from his pocket. He reaches for his phone and presses it to his ear, still transfixed on the ridge ahead. “I’ve got her … Yeah … She’s ticked … Yeah … Well, obviously … Yes, I promise … Love you too.” He tosses his phone into the middle cup holder, straightens his shoulders, and shifts into drive.

  “Who did you take to the ridge?” The sound of my heart beating radiates above the renewed rumble of the engine. He ignores my question, attention now focused on his side mirror. “What were you saying? Tom, stop. Talk to me. I don’t care what Mom said. Listen to me.”

  But he’s done listening and starts to accelerate. If he won’t listen, then I can’t stay here. He was my last hope. My last chance of a physic
al anchor to safety and calm. I’m done having others decide what I should be doing. I need out. I need answers.

  I swing open the door and leap.

  I trip over the curb and careen into the grassy yard of a stranger’s suburban allotment. Tom’s car screeches to a stop. I bolt away from the vehicle and race toward the catwalk that leads to the next street. The Civic’s tires screech again. I heave, breathless, at the edge of the catwalk. What did I just do? I’m not some CIA agent in training. I run cross-country, not sprints. But all rational thinking is gone. My body hits flight mode. I need to escape.

  I reverse back out to the road leading to the ridge. Only a trace scent of Tom’s exhaust remains. The entrance to the Upper Ridge Conservation area is straight ahead. I can make it.

  A temporary relief cushions each pound of my feet when I hit the gravel path at the edge of the parking lot. I glance over my shoulder, waiting to see the silver gleam of Tom’s Civic entering. Waiting. Why am I always searching for someone to rescue me?

  But this is what you wanted, Thea.

  It’s true. I chose to come here because I knew. I knew the parking lot would be vacant. I knew no one would want to hike this early on a freezing morning. I knew I would be alone. It’s what I wanted. It’s what I need.

  ***

  The expansive air of the forest loosens the banded feeling on my chest. I run. My breath still heaves with the ascent, but I welcome the misted fog it produces with each exhale. Even with their vacant branches, the towering maples and oaks provide a comforting latticework of privacy. When occasional breaks appear, the sun remains buried within this endless field of clouds. The same monochromatic sky that has suffocated Ridgefield for what seems like weeks. That’s how I probably come across to the world—a promising teen who should be bursting with light, buried in a pile of depressing self-absorbed anxiety.

  What is wrong with me? I am not this messed up.

  Pull yourself together and stop wallowing in your pathetic first-world problems.

  I circle the area in all directions, confirming my isolation. A wail emerges from deep within my chest. Not a sound in response except the echo of my own cry.

  I fall to my knees. What am I doing? What am I expecting to get from being up here? Running has done nothing to remove the weight from my chest. I sink to the path and seek relief the only other way I have left. I pull strand after strand, hoping for the short but effective release it provides.

  One … Two … Three … Four … Each silent strand falls to the path, offering little respite from the frustration that continues to build. Dark hair rests lifeless against the bright palate of yellow, brown, and red that has replaced the gravel. I pick up a fallen maple leaf and twirl its stem between my thumb and finger. Even in its death, it holds more life than I feel within me. My pressing snaps the stem. Its support gone, the leaf hangs still and limp.

  The flag. A base. A support. The wind. An invisible Spirit.

  I need to feel the wind. I head for the edge of the ridge with renewed purpose in my steps. Though Khi was using the wind as an analogy for God’s Spirit, it’s all I have left to cling to right now—the only experience I have that makes any sense. I have no base, no support, but I hear the wind. And the best place to hear the wind—to have God hear me—is along the south wall.

  Ancient pines overtake the deciduous trees, leaving the path more barren and shaded as I approach the edge. There is no sign of recent travelers on the path ahead. The forest is silent, the wildlife already in hibernation or migrated south. All I can hear is a light rustling. The wind in the tallest of tree branches? When I gaze up, the sound does not match. It comes from ahead and closer to the ground. The path curves, ending at the summit of the ridge. I inhale sharply with the new view.

  Yellow-and-black plastic ribbon entangles a young birch, skirting the edge of the cliff. At the base of its trunk lies the wilted remains of a few gas station bouquets and an assortment of melted candles. The sight of the weathered and forgotten memorial sends a cascade of cold straight to my core. And yet I feel drawn to its ruins. Malin died two weeks ago, but this memorial feels as though her death happened last year. Doesn’t suicide grant you an immortal celebrity status? But this is not a memorial for any recently loved and lost icon.

  The scene becomes unfocused. A gust of wind hits my face and cools the tears as they fall freely. The caution tape snaps one last time, and then I release it from the pine; it floats up, then back down in a spiral over the edge toward the dark valley below. Before its final descent, I gaze toward the horizon. From this vantage, I see most of Ridgefield, the roads crowded with cars traveling to and from the grocery store. Parents picking up kids from practices, homeowners cleaning up yards or hanging up Christmas lights. Life being lived.

  Malin’s suicide didn’t change anything in this world other than her presence in it. Did she intentionally leap into the vast unknown? Or did she slip off the edge, not tethered to anything to keep her from drifting away into darkness?

  I lift my gaze higher, toward the muted sky, and raise my arms to allow the wind to swirl around them. I whisper into the wind—this Holy Spirit, this unseen gift from God—not knowing for sure, but feeling as though this is what Khi meant.

  “I don’t want to drift away. If there is a God, someone who knows a perfect love, who can keep me from spiraling down, please come after me. Show me what love is supposed to be. What my parents failed to share. My family is so lost.”

  I raise my voice, challenging God to answer me. “I am so lost. I have no anchor, no one to direct me, and I can’t do this on my own. I give up. I want you to guide me. To give me purpose in this world. A story beyond myself. I want someone to follow, someone to love me—even when I mess up. Someone who will always welcome me home.”

  The endless sea of clouds meanders past me, and I’m left staring in disheartened silence. I close my eyes and whisper one last plea. “Please don’t leave me alone. Please.”

  I stand there, silent, wanting nothing more than to give up, but knowing somehow Khi is right. I’m not meant for this world. There is something more. Someone more.

  Warmth touches my face, an unexpected comfort on a bitter November day. All my senses come alive, the unevenness of the rock beneath my feet, the rush of wind against the trees, the smell of earth holding on to the last fragments of life. I don’t need to open my eyes this time to know that light is shining through what seemed like an impenetrable sky.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  It’s peace like I had in my dream, but now fully awake bathed in light and warmth. I feel weightless. Perfectly still against the gentle breeze pushing past me into the forest. I search for a place where I can sit along the edge to absorb the heat from the sun, but leaves crunch under footsteps on the path behind me. I twist toward the noise, but my eyes refuse to adjust to the dark shadows of the forest. I lower my gaze and focus on the approaching footfall. Someone with black shoes runs directly at me. I stumble backward and grasp for the nearest branch to steady myself. Rough bark rips at my palm. I flinch at the pain, and my right foot slides out against the edge of the ridge.

  “Thea, watch out!” Tom shouts louder than my scream. He travels the short distance between us in a blink and grabs hold of my other arm just as my feet skid out from beneath me. He anchors a foot behind the trunk of the birch and yanks me to him. We crash backward to the ground, Tom breaking my fall.

  I punch his chest out of impulse and adrenaline. “You almost killed me.”

  “You almost died,” he screams back, rolling me off him and away from the ledge.

  What does he think he was doing? “If you hadn’t snuck up on me—”

  “If I hadn’t come, you would have …” He shakes his head and crawls away from me toward the birch tree. The one ringed with dead flowers. He retrieves a white pillar candle that must have been kicked aside by his efforts and places it back between raised roots. From under a bouquet he uncovers a framed picture of Malin—a flawless black-and-white headsh
ot. His entire body collapses inward as he brushes off dirt. “You could have—”

  “Destroyed the picture?” My voice comes out too harsh.

  His shoulders begin to quiver as he places the photo against the base of the tree. He doesn’t respond, but there is no need. He thought I was going to jump. That’s why he didn’t want to take me here. I lower myself next to him and place a hand on his back. “I wasn’t going to. I just needed time alone.”

  He pulls his keys from his pocket and twists at the loop of his flashlight to release it from his keychain. “She said the same thing. She said she wanted to be alone. That she knew the paths.”

  Beyond the ridge, the morning sun fights against the clouds. A shudder travels from my cheeks down to my fingertips. Now the past few weeks make sense. They worked at The Living Arts Centre together. He was out the night she went missing and was gone the next day before anyone had a chance to see him. Did he follow her up here too? I can’t ask him that. “I’m so sorry, Tom.”

  “It was dark. She was upset about something that happened at her rehearsal. I didn’t realize how messed up she was. If I’d known she was planning to … not come back, I never would have dropped her at the entrance. I would have gone after her.” He clicks on the light and props it against a rock to face the tree.

  My eyes well, and my muscles ache with a remorse he must have been carrying around with him for weeks. He needs to know this is not his fault. That she wouldn’t blame him. That her family would forgive him. The out-of-character black attire from his mystery outing rises in my memory. “This past Friday was her funeral, wasn’t it?”

  “Her wake.”

  “Do her parents know?”

  “I wanted to tell them, but I couldn’t find the right moment. They had no clue.” He faces the ridge and his voice shifts to a whisper. “She was so broken.”

  When I texted him at the hospital, my entire life seemed shattered. Our family is separating from one another. My friends are likely done with me, and I barely acknowledge that they have their own issues. And then Tom. He has already battled through his own demons. But even now, he is so close to breaking all over again, and I can’t let that happen. I wrap my arms around him in as best a bear hug as I can manage. “We all are. But we don’t need to be broken alone.”