by Tara K Ross
“But you have experienced it.”
Every muscle in my face seizes. How would he know if I’ve been in love? He can’t be talking about us. We just met.
His body vibrates with laughter. Apparently, my facial expression is not neutral enough. “You love in your actions and interactions every day. Like when you order an extra tea with the intention of giving it away. Your choices can bring you closer to love or take you farther away. If you embrace this one idea, your world will change.”
Surrounding us is a handful of customers, strangers gathered within this space for any number of reasons. Most sit alone, attached to a device of some kind, lost and possibly feeling as isolated as I do most days. Do they have someone to love? Someone who cares deeply about them?
“So, this love is rooted in relationships with different people, not just the Hollywood idea of love,” I say.
His eyes fill with—what? Pride? Who is he proud of? Me? He continues for me. “And it becomes even less abstract if it can be grounded in a person who models it perfectly without all the mess that we make of it.”
“As if that person will ever come along.”
“What if I told you he already did?”
Does he mean him? I raise an eyebrow.
He sits perfectly still as if capable of limitless patience. I point a questioning finger in his direction.
“Oh. Not me. I have so many issues that you don’t even know about yet.” He slides his hand over the book sitting next to him on the table. “But I do know him, and that’s where I can help.”
“What do you mean?”
“Are you willing to believe in the existence of more than this world?” He flips open the book to a page marked with a thin gold ribbon. The small black and red print brings me back to Grams. My Grams who loved reading from the Bible. The same book Khi has marked with more highlighting and notes than my script.
I tug my fingers from his and rub my palms on my leggings before pressing them against the chair beneath me. The texture of the wood against my fingers triggers a memory. A melody wafts above the conversations in the café. It’s familiar, but I don’t know why. The sun hits through the clouds. Blue and green light.
To my surprise, the only answer that comes to my mind to Khi’s last question is, “Yes.”
If Grams could be our anchor, and she read this book, then maybe there could be some truth to what Khi is saying.
My back tenses as I realize what road this conversation will take. “You’re talking about religion aren’t you?” The least popular topic in any social conversation. The reason for division and war. The problem with pain and sin.
He calmly shakes his head. “Not religion, but faith. Faith in something. Faith in a God who unconditionally loves you when you can’t find a reason to love yourself.”
“So, I should believe in God, an invisible entity? Something I can never confirm. A faith that requires me to trust in thin air. Or the wind?” Or the wind …
He raises his eyebrows and waits a moment, as though willing me to work through my confusion. “For most, faith is stepping out into an unmoving darkness and taking a risk on something beyond our senses. But for you, it’s different. It should be easier. But maybe you’re being asked to go beyond your senses to the root of your disbelief. Maybe faith for you is moving past what you can already see.”
I stare back at the boy before me. A boy who is visibly radiant. Who shares in my pain. Who forgives and moves on. And I want to believe. I want to believe that I was made for something. I just can’t seem to keep that faith from blinding me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
My world is left open and wounded after my conversation with Khi. But in a good way. The rest of the week, I isolate myself from everyone I know. Ashley and Jade will want details, and I’m not ready to diffuse these memories. And there is the whole “loving people” in the way Khi described. If my actions from this past week are any indication, I’ve already botched that task. Sequestering myself from everyone isn’t helping either. I should have texted Ashley and Jade on Wednesday, but just the thought of their requests froze my thumbs when the reply box appeared. And then there is this new choice. A choice to change who I am and how I act. To change how I love and what I believe. And if I’m honest, this choice is why I can’t face anyone yet.
Khi promised to meet me again next Wednesday. Which gives me five more days to suffer through indecision. I left before he could explain everything. Or really anything, at least in enough detail to break through my dense fog. If he knew the state of my messed-up mind when I dashed, he’d have forced me to sit back down for another round of cake.
I scratch at my hair. Self-absorbed much? He probably went off to clean Mrs. Shen’s house, and I went home to wallow in pity-pie leftovers from Mom’s latest dessert fest. What is it with moms and baking away the melancholy?
Before I left the cafe, Khi made this Jesus-like decree to search my life for flag moments. I assume he meant memories of stability and security and direction. But that exercise proved flat-out depressing. The last time I felt any of those things was when Grams was still here.
When the last round of chemotherapy proved unsuccessful, Grams moved into our home and lived out her final six months surrounded by her only son and his family. Our family clung together next to her bed for two weeks at the end. Despite having lost the battle with her body, her mind was still so strong. When she could no longer read, she asked for Tom or me to share from her favorite authors. She insisted Mom transfer her raspberry canes to our own unruly backyard and then imparted the secret Fenton raspberry jam recipe with great care. And for Dad, she spent hours recounting his childhood: the cottage where he first learned to walk, his first hockey goal, the poem he wrote for his last Father’s Day card when he was ten. Even in her death, she was love. She was our anchoring rope, and no one has taken her place. Without her wisdom, how am I supposed to figure out this faith thing? Mom and Dad can’t act as my anchor or my foundation when their marriage is crumbling away, and my own tether to reality seems to be slipping from my grasp more each day.
So instead of searching for flag moments, I ruminate on my so-called gift of compassion. Each of my surreal experiences has to mean something. But nothing consistent emerges. My visions always happen in new places, different circumstances, and with unfamiliar people. Given that no blinding lights have hit me since the coffeehouse, I can rely only on memories that are largely clouded by the fear I was dying. And details don’t really stand out when you are pleading to stay alive.
My only distraction from this maddening spiral is in memorizing lines. The new lines I want—no, need—for the drama festival. At least with acting, the motivations, actions, and emotions are written for me. Not only can I control the scene, I know the outcome. And I need a new hope-filled outcome that doesn’t involve a tragic, loin-driven love story with Gavin.
I prepare for rehearsal after school in much the same way I memorize my script. Cold, calculated, and in character. I expect not only to face Gavin, but Ashley and the rest of the drama club, all of whom I have been avoiding for two excruciating days. But unlike a scripted play, real life has many possible paths to one planned outcome. Case in point: the path through drama practice today.
When I slink into the auditorium at exactly three fifteen, Ashley flags me over to a saved seat as though we were boarding a plane for Hawaii. I deserve to be greeted with a nasty flash freeze, given my phone silence, but so goes the path. Ms. Vosper charges ahead with an opening pep talk about the script revisions as I squeeze past a few nosy Nishes. Again, with unwarranted compassion, Ashley clasps my hand much the same way she did during the first snowfall. No apology even seems needed this time. She must think I’ve cracked.
As Ms. Vosper continues, Ashley whispers three magical words, “Gavin’s not coming.” And this weight slides off my shoulders like a blessed Sherpa has taken my pack at the beginning of an impossible trek.
“Gavin’s not coming,” I repeat. My f
ace must look like a stock photo for befuddlement.
“Don’t worry,” she says. “Jade worked out an arrangement with Lennox. Do not ask for details, but they created a more pressing engagement for him.”
Oh no. What did Jade do this time? She’s just resolved things with Evan and pledged to never place herself in that kind of situation again. She took on extra tutoring with Mr. Miller in her few spare hours. What other situation does she have time for or would be luring enough to entice Gavin away from my continued public ridicule? “But why? I don’t deserve any favors, given—”
“It’s okay. We took the text hiatus as a sign that things went south with Khi. Two failed attempts in one week are enough to send any girl to Kids Help Phone.”
“Any girl, eh?” This should miff me, but Khi eliminated any immediate need for calling a crisis line. If she only knew the real reason for the silence. I whisper, “Thank you.”
Before I can muster a full explanation, Ms. Vosper calls on me. At least for her, I don’t need to fumble through complex emotions and choices. For her, I have a script prepared.
Or I did. My memorization efforts vanish once on stage. Ms. Vosper and twenty some-odd pairs of eyes bore into me. All filled with the knowledge of my social failure. Believing I’d struck out now twice in one week if Ashley blabbed her assumptions. The crumpled paper in my quivering fist now seems amateur. My justifications for why Juliet could experience her epic love from afar sound desperate. All my revisions mere excuses to cover an ever-growing list of insecurities. I am losing them. Throats clear and whispers begin. To the echoes of laughter, I reach within my piled curls and start to choose a strand.
Ashley’s hand shoots up from among the jumble of critical expressions, and with a confident, clear justification for script number three, draws the attention from my place on stage. I am given a reprieve to release. My fingers troll over the smoothed skin below the crown of my head. I select a coarse, outlying strand, pinch it between my fingers, and then freeze. A moment of white and rushed noise blurs the details of Ashley’s plea. My vision refocuses. I search the room. Everyone seems the same. No traces of light or new revelations. It happened so fast this time.
The last line of Ashley’s summation brings me fully back to the auditorium. “Let’s share a love story that goes past lust and momentary decisions. A story whose emotional depth reaches far beyond what a one-act play should be able to achieve.”
From behind her, an ember of light appears. I search the back row of the auditorium, where the grade twelves reside. Declan and two of the Capulets nod in agreement with Ashley. I wait. Seeking. The ember is gone. With no answer. No gift used.
A small battle is won. The cast switches to the third option in the script. I leave school with my intended outcome, following a path forged by my friends. A path I couldn’t travel alone. A path I failed to complete without someone flying in to rescue me. It’s pathetic.
I don’t stay to celebrate the victory or provide Ashley with some truth as to what happened on Wednesday. Instead, I leave alone, weighted by the ever-darkening cloud in my mind. Away from any shared path. Closer and closer to what feels like a deep dead end. Wednesday cannot come fast enough.
Frigid air slaps my cheeks as I leave Ridgefield High behind. I pull the hood of my jacket over my head, but it’s no match for the unrestricted wind on Hillside Road. I peer ahead to the Shens’ bungalow within the trees. On that first morning, Mrs. Shen was alight. Just like Khi. And the table of students at school. And Declan. Set apart. Despite the cold, I stop at the bungalow and wait. The curtains are drawn today, and the old Corolla is gone. There is an accumulation of flyers and newspapers on the front steps. No warmth travels to my fingers or clarity to my fog.
This is ridiculous. Worry about your own problems, Thea.
A more tangible warmth fills my chest when I round the bend to our house and spot Tom’s Civic back from school. His presence won’t stop the fighting between Mom and Dad, but it might reduce the frequency for the next forty-eight hours. It’s amazing how much easier it is to live through their breakdown when Tom’s punk-rock playlist hums through the walls. Even last weekend, when he barely showed his face, I felt safer. Buffered. Protected. The weighted silence that comes with each meal during the week is more palatable with his interjected small talk. Even if it is coffee conversations.
I swing open the front door, and a stifling absence of activity shoots my heart into overdrive. An unnatural silence fills the air. My house feels condemned. The final whine of the door closing only punctuates the absence of TV or playlists or the sizzle of dinner. Even Woolie doesn’t materialize from his front window perch. I clunk my backpack on the hall bench and wait in its echo. Nothing. Did I forget about a dinner with Aunt Fara? The family calendar in the kitchen would say. And then I notice the light. Incandescent light in our rarely used living room. The room Tom and I were never allowed to play in or even tip-toe through as children. The double French doors stayed shut, saving its cleanliness for adult gatherings, special occasions, and wakes.
But today the doors hang ajar. Mom’s strained voice reaches me first. I creep forward and peer through the etched glass. Inside, Mom and Dad sit on the structured cream couch. Tom’s arm is visible from one of the wingback chairs. He grips the woven fabric as though he is witnessing the climax of a horror flick. My silhouette must cast a shadow through the glass. Mom rises and approaches the door. Rather than enter on my own, I wait. Perhaps this is simply some disciplinary exercise they are undertaking with Tom.
Who am I kidding? This is not about Tom, the still shiny Golden Child.
“Thea, we’ve been waiting for you.” Mom’s pitch and cadence make her sound as though she is welcoming a patient rather than her daughter. “Please come sit down.”
Still in her work scrubs, only her limp hair around her shoulders indicates she has physically left work. She resumes her position on the couch, a seat separated by a wall of throw pillows from Dad. Dad stares at his interlaced fingers, a paperweight on his lap. He’s also not changed from his own uniform of navy housecoat and pajama pants.
On my path to the matching wingback chair, I search Tom for answers. His body matches the stiff angles of the seat. His thumb and forefinger slide heavily along the ridge of his brows, masking his eyes.
My stomach tightens. Worst-case scenarios: They found out about Saturday night, or Tom dropped out of school or Dad lost his job, or worse, someone is dead.
Mom’s therapeutic voice interrupts my endless stream of potential calamities. “Thea, things have been difficult for us as a family. Our disagreements, as a couple, are likely affecting both you and Tom, but we want you to know—”
“Just tell her, Mom,” Tom says flatly. “She’s a big girl.” He stares back at her, the swollen red now visible around his eyes.
She tilts her head and furrows her brow in return. A silent battle wages between them. Mom’s anger retreats as she reengages with me, her fragile patient. With arms resting on her knees, she all too closely resembles Dr. Kowalski.
“We want you to know that we love you. And this has nothing to do with either of you.” A quiver, starting with her lips, overwhelms her entire body. She lowers her face and wipes under her eyes with her ring fingers. But there are no rings.
Dad does not move, still transfixed on his entangled fingers. A single drop plummets onto his hands. Never has his pain been so visible. Not even at Grams’ funeral. Before she says anything more, I have surmised that my family will no longer be the same. And that is more than I can handle. A cold shiver travels through my body. How can I find a center if the only thing close to one no longer exists?
Mom continues to speak in short, stilted phrases. Phrases that have been rehearsed. Like a script with a known outcome. “We both need time apart … It’s essential your father heal before ... I need to better support him … You’ll still see both of us whenever you want …”
I strain through a glaze of tears to make sense of their reactio
ns. This is not real. It’s a cruel joke, an overreaction to a bad fight. But all I see is raw, unmasked pain. Each of their furrows weighted with an isolated realization that this is real. Each of us alone in our unique anguish. I wait for the world to blur. For their heaving breaths to be covered by a deafening wind. And most of all for the light that comes at the end. It doesn’t happen. If anything, the dim light of the room seems to absorb each person’s last glimmer of hope.
The conversation ends with pragmatics. Mom will stay. Dad will go. The details of where Dad will go are not shared, but he manages to give us a weak promise to see both of us very soon. His bag is small when he leaves. Like he won’t be gone long. He doesn’t change from his nocturnal uniform. The door shuts behind him, betraying the finality of the moment. His headlights disappear around the corner of our street. Arms encircle my shoulders, and Mom whispers gently into my hair, “We will get through this, my sweet Thea bee.”
I want to reply, will we? But any words will cause me to break apart all over again. And those words will only crush her further. How does she comfort me when her world is crashing down faster than my own? Instead, I nod, and allow her trembling body to embrace mine in a unified lament that no words can follow.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Is he alone?
Despite the silence that encompasses our house, there are still soft sounds of support. Woolie purrs at the end of my bed. Grams’ presence ticks on the wall. I could step across the hall and listen at any of the closed doors. A heavy breath. Perhaps a choked cry. But somebody is there. Does Dad have that? Is anyone outside his room?
With each hair I twist and pull from my head, I am haunted by the image of him abandoned. With nobody else. He never said where he was staying tonight. What if he couldn’t find a hotel room? It’s too cold to sleep in the van. But he’s frugal enough to consider the idea.