by Lisa Tucker
You: “I was, that’s true.”
Me: “Were you really?” (Yeah, I know, I’m making this up. I’m not that crazy. It’s just that I like the direction my imagination is going.)
You: “Oh definitely. Your father thought I was the prettiest girl he’d ever seen. He told me I was beautiful all the time.”
Me: “I knew you were really pretty. Believe it or not, I have zero pictures of you. Dad said all the ones he had were ruined in a basement flood when I was a kid. But I knew you were pretty because my stepmother mentioned it once.”
You: “Well, your stepmother is probably just jealous. Ignore her.”
Me: “Easy for you to say, since you don’t live here.”
You: “Look, I’m getting tired of talking about this. Blame me for your problems or don’t blame me. Whatever floats your boat.”
Me: “ ‘Floats your boat?’ Now that’s a cliché.”
You: “No need to be snotty. Would you prefer, ‘Whatever bakes your biscuit’? How about ‘Whatever melts your butter’?”
Me: “Well, they’re OK, but—”
You: “How about ‘Whatever blows up your skirt’?”
Me: “That one is just crazy, Mother. At least the butter/biscuit suggestions had a down-home, southern feel. The blown-up skirt sounds like something a pervert would say.”
You: “How would you know anything about perverts? Oh God, I hope this isn’t one of those letters girls write to confess that their fathers have abused them.”
Me: “Come on, you know Dad isn’t a pervert. He’s a totally normal person who works and mows the grass and fixes stuff around the house, all the normal things. It’s not his fault that he has no idea what to do with a messed-up daughter. My stepmother thinks I’m not grateful for all the stuff my dad does give me: a roof over my head, clothes to wear, appointments with the shrink, my own car. She’s wrong: I know how lucky I am to have all this. I just wish it could fix me.”
You: “I met your stepmother once. Did you know that?”
Me: “Um, yes. I just wrote that imaginary sentence where you said you did. My dad never talks about your visit, but I remember it. You gave me a stuffed turtle and a puzzle with thick pieces shaped like fruit.”
You: “Are you sure about this? I don’t remember a puzzle or a turtle.”
Me: “No, I’m not sure. I feel like it happened, but nobody else agrees. Both my dad and my stepmother say you’ve never come to see me. Not once. But I remember it so well. It’s like my first memory. You were wearing a purple shirt and black pants. You had a really cool watch with big hands and a green face that glowed in the dark.”
You: “That watch sounds—”
Me: Sorry to stop you in midsentence, but I’m being summoned for church. It’s Sunday morning, did I mention that? They drag me to church every week, and there’s nothing I can do to get out of it. It’s pretty much to be expected here in Summerland, Missouri, home to twenty-nine churches and exactly one tiny library. I may need a shrink, but I need God, too—that’s what I’m told, and they’re probably right. After all, when you really need a reason for your life, who better to give you one than God?
FIFTEEN
At the beginning of April, when Courtney found herself still alive—if not well—she went to see a psychic. She used to think astrology and shamans and psychics were completely absurd. But this was back when she was so young that she found the idea that life had no meaning not only brilliant but also cool and even enjoyable. Of course life lacks meaning. What kind of fool pretends that it doesn’t?
The office of the psychic, or “intuitive” as the woman preferred to be called, was on top of a pizza parlor. As Courtney climbed the steps, she felt slightly nauseated by the strong smell of grease. The intuitive introduced herself as Evelyn Rose. She was a large woman in a shapeless olive dress that was fraying at the neckline. She’d come highly recommended—by anonymous people on the Internet. But even anonymous recs were more than most psychics had, though Courtney realized it was possible that Evelyn had posted them all herself.
The room was dark with the exception of the candles burning on the large mahogany buffet against the back wall and one dim floor lamp in the corner by a door. She took Courtney over to an area where two love seats faced each other. In the middle was a small round table with nothing on it. No crystal ball. No tarot cards. Not even the divination stones that Courtney associated with her mother’s annual trips to Santa Fe.
Her mother had been seeing psychics since Courtney was a little girl, but her mother had also had a psychiatrist who made house calls. Yet there was nothing wrong with her, or so she said. All of this was simply about “learning happiness.” Courtney herself had not gone near a psychiatrist since she’d been released from the hospital years ago. This trip to Evelyn Rose was the closest she’d come to letting anyone know about the problems she was having. She had no idea if this woman could help. If she couldn’t, Courtney would chalk it up as a wasted evening, but the evening would have been wasted anyway.
She sat down on one of the love seats and pulled down the back of her shirt over her jeans. Evelyn Rose sat down across from her and made small talk. But her eyes never left Courtney’s face.
“How does this work?” Courtney finally said. She still wasn’t sleeping, and she was much too tired to keep discussing the new farmers’ market and the weather.
“You want to know about the future,” the woman said. “But first, I need to ask a few questions about your past.”
Courtney sucked in her breath and bit her bottom lip. And waited.
Evelyn Rose leaned forward. “You have done something that you are not proud of, yes?”
“Yes.” Nearly everyone her age had done something in the past that they weren’t proud of, hadn’t they?
“You have lost someone very important to you.”
Courtney nodded. Again, at her age, who hasn’t?
“You blame yourself for this loss.”
She nodded again, but she crossed her arms to protect herself.
“And other people also blame you?”
She looked at the wall behind Evelyn and waited a moment. “I suppose.”
The woman took a deep breath. “Are they right?”
Courtney was blinking and biting her lip. “Don’t you already know?” she said, more than a little irritably.
Evelyn didn’t respond. After a moment, she stood up and smiled. “All right. Would you like a drink before we go on?”
A few minutes later, while Courtney was sipping weak raspberry tea, Evelyn waved her pale hand and said they could move on to the future now. “Fate is going to bring someone new into your life.” She paused. “Not romantically. It will not be a man.”
“I don’t want a man,” she said firmly, thinking about Stefan.
“Who does?” the woman said, and laughed a husky laugh.
Courtney smiled. Evelyn was impossible not to like. When she got home, she would add another web recommendation for the psychic, even if this session didn’t go anywhere.
“The person who is coming into your life,” Evelyn said slowly, dramatically, “will either be a woman or a child.”
Courtney forced a shrug. “I doubt it will be a child.”
Just last week, her doctor had finally said that something was wrong with her: she was suffering “premature ovarian failure.” She would never have guessed that her estrogen level had fallen so low it was equivalent to the level of an eighty-year-old woman. It seemed impossible because she still had her periods, though in truth they were more commas than periods, lasting only a day or two with no cramps and no real flow. The doctor had no explanation for why she’d ended up in menopause at thirty-eight years old. Though she’d never have risked having a child again, it still hurt to know that this phase of being a woman was already over. Over
before she’d even understood it—like most things in her life.
She was wearing her brand new estrogen patch on her hip. She wasn’t sure if it was doing anything, though she realized it might be the reason she’d had the energy to come here tonight.
“It will not be your own child,” Evelyn said, and gave Courtney a long look. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Courtney said flatly. Could Evelyn know what had happened with Joshua? Her questions about the past had made it seem like she did. But wasn’t that the way these things worked? Psychics made statements that felt like insights, but were really so general that most people found a way to apply them to themselves. Still, she desperately wanted Evelyn Rose to be the real thing. She needed help.
The psychic talked for a while about the mystery person, even though Courtney was anxious to get to the real reason she was there. She didn’t care about the possibility of a child coming into her life since she knew it couldn’t be Michael. After that day in the co-op—and the twenty-four hours she’d spent weeping after she left—Courtney had promised herself that she would never try to see David’s child again. Now if only her dreams would cooperate. Nearly every night, she dreamed of that little boy, always smiling, running toward her like he’d known her all his life.
The psychic admitted the mystery person was more likely to be a woman. And this woman will come from “far away.” (Don’t they always?) The mystery woman will be important in Courtney’s life. (Ditto.) There will be trouble, something will happen that Courtney won’t expect. (If Courtney already expected everything that would happen, it wouldn’t be much of a mystery, would it?) And Courtney will be changed forever by knowing this mystery person. Her whole life will be different.
If only.
“I told you on the phone what I’m worried about,” Courtney finally said. “Do you have an answer for me? Can you tell?”
The psychic paused for so long Courtney wondered if she was daydreaming about her grocery list or what she planned to do tonight. Courtney watched the smoke from the candles as it rose in spirals before it disappeared.
Evelyn clasped her hands together and said, “It will all be over soon.”
Without blinking, Courtney said, “Because I’m going to die?”
This was what she’d come to ask the psychic. The doctor had assured her that premature ovarian failure wasn’t life-threatening; it didn’t mean the rest of her body was failing, too. But she still felt like something serious was going wrong inside of her. Her heart had settled down a little, but she felt herself disconnecting from the earth, day by day, even hour by hour, and she just wanted someone to tell her how long she had. Before she died, she had to talk to David. She needed to hear him say, “I forgive you,” even if she had to beg for the words.
“No, dear,” the psychic said. “Because you’re going to live.”
Her smile was so gentle. If it was also a little patronizing, Courtney didn’t notice. She wouldn’t have cared anyway. If the psychic thought her fears were ridiculous, then maybe they really were.
When she got home, she put on her pajamas, flopped down on the couch, and turned on the TV; then she flipped the channel until she found Law & Order: Criminal Intent. The show was her obsession since she’d lost her job, but she’d seen every episode many times. It wasn’t distracting enough to keep her from thinking about what the psychic had predicted. Was it possible that it was true? Her life wasn’t over? She wasn’t about to die? She recognized the feeling in her chest—hope—though it was something she hadn’t felt in a long time. It scared her how much she wanted her life to change.
SIXTEEN
April 8
Dear Mother,
So it turns out that my first letter to you didn’t actually count for my assignment. My psych doc didn’t like that I wrote an imaginary conversation between me and you. (Yeah, I was stupid enough to tell him about that.) He shook his head and said that I “fell back on my habit of inventing reality” so I wouldn’t have to talk about what happened to me. I promised him I would try harder, so here goes.
It was September, school had started a few weeks before, and I had just turned seventeen. Dad kept calling me “sweet seventeen,” and though I shrugged like I was annoyed—I’d already had a year of being “sweet sixteen”—it was pretty close to true. I was a very innocent girl then. I’d spent the first three years of high school being quiet and getting straight As. I knew the popular kids considered me a dork, but I had two great friends: Leah, who was one of the smartest girls in our grade, and Kevin, who was so hilarious that I felt sure he was going to be a famous comedian someday. I also had friends in my youth group at church. You could say I was very sheltered, though of course I didn’t know it then.
Because she will turn out to be important in the story, I should also mention Renee. I have known Renee since we sat in the same row in Mrs. Applegate’s kindergarten class. She was my best friend for almost eleven years, but then in the middle of tenth grade, she stopped hanging out with me. She became one of the cool kids, probably because she’d grown up to be the prettiest girl in school. She looks a little like Angelina Jolie. Everyone says she could be a model if she wants, and I hope it’s true. Her family is really poor. They could use the money.
The doc has asked me a bunch of times how I felt when Renee dropped me, though I’ve told him over and over that I was OK with it. I even told Renee, when she disinvited me to her tenth-grade party, that I understood. She was having the party while her mother was out of town and all the cool kids and wild kids would be there. None of them really knew me or liked me, and Renee desperately needed them to like her. She never said this, but I felt like I knew it, the same way I knew that she was afraid of a stuffed turtle in kindergarten.
Wait. I’m supposed to remind myself that what I just said about her being afraid of the turtle isn’t reality. That’s what my shrink said. It’s a good example to show you how my stories used to work, though.
First I’ll tell you what really happened. I was five years old, and I brought the stuffed turtle you gave me to class for show-and-tell. The teacher told me to pass the turtle around and let everybody see it. When the turtle was given to Renee, she looked into its eyes for a minute and then she threw it on the floor and said it was dumb.
Then I realized why she did it. She thought the turtle’s eyes looked mean, which they kind of did if you didn’t understand that the turtle was supposed to be thinking hard, because he was a very wise turtle. She was afraid of those eyes, I told myself, and then before I knew it, I had spun this fear into a bigger story where Renee wasn’t the person who kicked people out of her way on the playground, but instead, a regular girl who didn’t have a bicycle or very many toys and felt sad a lot, but who was pretending not to be sad or scared.
According to the shrink, if I’d only thought all of this might be true, it would be OK. But I was convinced it had to be true, and because I believed my story, I was friendlier to Renee, and she was friendlier to me, and pretty soon, she wasn’t kicking people out of her way anymore. So the doc says it would have been understandable if I’d believed this particular story had changed reality, except that I never thought of it that way. I thought the story had always been the truth, and most people couldn’t see it.
I don’t see it anymore, either, but it’s not the shrink’s fault. This happened before I even met the doc. When Brad Jeffers called Kevin a “faggot,” because Kevin is gay, I had no story to explain Brad’s behavior. So instead I scratched his face until it bled and I got suspended from school, and that’s how I ended up at the psychiatrist’s office in the first place. It was my dad’s idea. He didn’t know what else to do for me.
But let’s get back to before. Back to last September, when my teachers loved me and I got great grades and had two good friends and my goal was just to be a nice person and get into a top-ranked college. Though my shrink says th
is Little Miss Perfect phase couldn’t have lasted forever (as opposed to those phases that do last forever, I guess—the doc is a good guy, but he’s always saying weird things like this), I don’t know if that’s true. Even now when I see no reason to continue with my life, I still wish I knew how to get back to my stories. Sometimes I think if only I could see you, I would be transported back to where I used to be, and everything would make sense again. Other times, I think that girl was a fool who believed something even most preschoolers know is crap: that people are basically good.
My birthday, as you know, is September 14. That morning, Dad surprised me with a car: a 2002 Honda Accord, gray, manual transmission. I was already an experienced driver and I think Dad was tired of me borrowing his Ford Explorer. The Honda is important, because if I hadn’t had it, I wouldn’t have been able to go to the party that night. But it’s not the car’s fault. It took me away in the end, for which I will always be grateful to the car, even if it is just an object.
This is where I really wish I could stop. But it’s OK, because you’re not reading this, and even if you were, you could handle it, right? My dad can’t, but you are different. You have your own crime. In my favorite story of you, you like sad books and dark movies. You have amnesia about the past, which is why you haven’t contacted me, but you still feel the past’s influence. You wear black, live in New York, and sit in coffee shops chatting with people you don’t know. You are unafraid to talk about the worst parts of the world: the brutal murders and devastating earthquakes and all the broken children.
So, September 14. It was around 8:30 in the evening when my cell phone rang. Renee hadn’t called me since the day after Thanksgiving, sophomore year, so of course I was very surprised when I heard her voice. She wished me a happy birthday, and asked what I was doing. I told her the truth: that I’d just settled down to watch a movie with my dad and the girls. “The girls,” as my stepmother always calls them, are Natalie and Nicole, her daughters from a previous marriage, who are twenty and twenty-one, respectively, and who live in their own apartment near the strip mall, where they both work as hairstylists. Even though I’ve known Natalie and Nicole all my life, no one has ever thought it was strange that we didn’t play together or act like real sisters. Part of it was that they were older than me, but mainly it was that they always had each other. It didn’t help that they were gone on the weekends and most of the summer, visiting their real dad. My stepmother was always a little irritated that her free weekends were never actually free, because I was always there. I used to wish that she and my dad would have their own kid, so I wouldn’t be the only one home all summer, and so I’d have a brother or sister who might want to hang out with me—but that doesn’t matter now.
