by Dona Sarkar
“What the hell!” I crab-walked away from the two pairs of feet that stood threateningly in front of me.
“Get up.” Chad stood next to Erica; they both looked solemn and fairly no-nonsense.
I grabbed the duvet and wrapped it around myself. “Why are you guys here?”
“Lana sent us up. She said you won’t listen to her, and you won’t listen to Mrs. Nguyen. You won’t get out of bed. You won’t do anything. You’re being horrible.”
“I’m not being horrible. I just want to be left alone.”
“Wow, she really has regressed,” Chad said to Erica.
“Told you. We thought homecoming was a turning point. You were so amazing that night, arriving alone, wowing everyone and leaving alone. People have been talking about you for weeks!” Erica tried to grab for my duvet. “Come on, Mars.”
“Will you two please go away?” I was in no mood to be around the lovebirds or their school gossip or anything else.
“Our therapy group needs you,” Erica said, flopping down next to me, shaking the mattress violently.
“I quit, remember?” I mumbled, wishing they would leave. Chad leaped onto the bed on the other side of me and both proceeded to continue to pelt me with information.
“So did Stephanie,” Erica continued.
“What?” That was enough to get me to peek over the duvet. “When?”
“She got into grad school. She quit.”
“What the hell,” I muttered. Just as I’d thought. That woman hadn’t been even the slightest bit invested in us or our progress. She’d just been using our sessions as fodder for her grad school applications.
“We need a new leader.” Erica continued to bounce on the bed.
“So go find one.” I retreated under the covers again, eyeing the foot of the bed. I suspected I could make a run for the bathroom and lock myself in there till they left.
“Everyone voted. And they chose you. They want you to come back.” Chad said. “Hell, even I’ve been going to therapy lately since there’s so few people left.”
“You guys are insane,” I muttered, edging toward the foot of the bed.
“They’re on their way over.”
“Who?” I paused.
“Our therapy group! We’re meeting here today. They’re going to be downstairs in ten minutes. Lana said it’s fine.”
Traitor. She knew how I was feeling and she was subjecting me to this. I would never forgive her.
“So? I won’t come down. They’ll get hungry and leave eventually. We just have a bunch of ice cubes in our refrigerator.”
“They’ll wait five minutes, and then they’ll be in here. They’ll see you in these cute little leopard-print pajamas.” Chad realized my plot and grabbed at the leg of my pajama pants.
“Yeah, we can meet in here. I’ll let Lana know.” Erica got off the bed.
“Okay, that’s it. Out. Both of you.” I rolled off the edge of the bed, pulling the duvet with me.
Chad jumped off the edge of the bed, straight on top of my legs, pinning me to the ground. “Either all three of us leave this room, or none of us leave.”
“I hate you guys,” I muttered.
* * *
Their argument worked, and within ten minutes I was showered, dressed in the first thing Erica handed me: skinny jeans, riding boots, a tunic sweater. After Chad’s ribbing that I looked like a labradoodle, I pulled my hair back into a mini-chignon.
I could hear the congregation of the therapy group downstairs, and I brushed on some lip gloss to counteract some of the pallor of my face. They were all here, expecting something impossible of me.
“Hey, Mars!” Ken practically threw himself into my arms as I descended the stairs.
“You look pale.”
“We missed you.”
“Stephanie quit. We want you to be the new Stephanie. Except not such a bi—”
“Hey, hey. Let’s watch our language in front of Mrs. Alexander.” Everyone stood in the parlor and talked at once as I glanced hopelessly at Mom, who didn’t even bother to hide a smile. She retreated into the kitchen with the promise of cocoa for everyone.
“You guys.” I sat down and motioned for everyone to do the same. “I can’t be this group’s leader. I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do, much less what you’re supposed to do.”
“Why don’t we talk about it?” Erica perched on the arm of the love seat next to me. “What are you confused about?”
I glanced around the room. Everyone looked eager to listen, and no one seemed like they were ready to pounce on my emotions or judge.
“Someone told me my father wasn’t coming back. That he was dead. And now I don’t know what to do because—”
I noticed Ken flicking his lighter and started to yell at him, but then realizing he was using it to light the remaining paper and wood in the fireplace. Soon a bright flame was burning, the first that had been lit in the room since the night Dad left.
“Because I realize that Zayed is right. Dad is not coming back. And now, I don’t know what I’m waiting for. I’ve been waiting for so long for him to come home and fix things for me. Now, I don’t know what to wait for anymore. Now I feel like I’m just making things up as I go along.”
“What if you are waiting for nothing?” Ken asked.
“Which is probably weird to think about after doing it for so long,” Krish suggested.
“Is it terrible that I want to ask you if you feel relieved?” Erica asked.
I almost jerked away from her. How had she known? Ever since that fateful conversation with Zayed, I had felt almost relieved that I knew. I’d been hovering between denying it and moving toward acceptance for so long that having an answer was almost a reprieve.
“It’s okay to feel that,” Ken said. “You told me so yourself. It’s okay to feel whatever you feel. It’s okay for me to love my stepmother. It doesn’t mean I loved my mom any less. You said that, remember?”
Yeah, I had said that. And I had meant it. But for some reason I wasn’t allowing myself to feel the same thing.
“Did you not mean it?”
“I meant it.”
“Then please mean it for yourself, too. It’s okay. You can move on with your life now. Isn’t that what Mars the First would have wanted?” Chad, who’d been sitting quietly this whole time, piped up.
I thought about the conversation Mom and I’d had at the courthouse. How Dad was proud of the independent woman I was becoming. He would have wanted me to be happy, make my own decisions, and he certainly would have wanted me to help these people in any way I could.
“Thanks, you guys. I need to think about this some more,” I finally said.
“And you should think about it for as long as you want. There is no deadline,” Krish said. “You said that to me, Mars.”
I blushed.
“Let’s talk about you, Erica. How are you doing?” I pulled my friend close to me. “What are you doing to take care of yourself?”
“I’m letting myself be myself. I’m not letting myself hide what I want anymore.” She smiled at Chad. “No matter how stupid it may sound. I talked to my mom about my art and how it’s a part of me and how I can’t give it up for something practical.”
“And?”
“She agreed. She was horrified I’d even contemplated it.”
I laughed. “Told you.”
“See, this isn’t bad. We can have these sessions and then hang out in the ‘all-ages club.’” Erica did air quotes.
We all laughed. Who would have thought the all-ages club would get some use after all.
The six of us and Chad. We were strangers, really, yet we were bonded in such a way that we knew exactly what we were all going through.
I could trust and help these people. We would help each other, together. It was my duty to facilitate that, and I was not going to run from it anymore.
* * *
Lana and I pulled up in Dad’s Corvette to the flawless green meadow. It
was one of the last sunny days of fall, and other than the sounds of a few insistent seagulls, there was silence.
“Will you come in?” I asked hopefully, staring into the seemingly endless rolling hills in front of me, dotted by blooms of flowers and stones. For the hundredth time, I wondered if I would really be able to do this.
“I’ll give you some time with him,” Lana said. “You’ll be fine.” I waited for another few minutes in the driver’s seat, fiddling with the silver box I’d brought with me.
“Okay. I’ll be back.” I summoned my bravado. It wasn’t going to get easier. “Don’t drive off and leave me.” I pocketed the car keys to make sure she didn’t.
This time it was me who was visiting my father’s grave while Mom waited behind the wrought-iron fence. I could feel her watch me, and that gave me a sense of accountability. Now I had to do this. If I ran away, she would fret and worry and call Bree, and we would have another talk about acceptance and such.
I found the grave almost as if by instinct.
I approached slowly and read the simple printing on the headstone. “Mars Alexander.”
Now I was the only living Mars Alexander. For so long I’d begged and pleaded with the universe to send Dad home so that this truth wouldn’t be real. I was scared, absolutely terrified of having to be strong for my mother. I wanted him home so I didn’t have to be strong anymore.
Now I realized there was no going back. I’d been strong for Lana for long enough. She didn’t need it anymore. She never really had. Now, I just had to be strong for myself.
“Hey. How’s it going?” I said after standing there for a few minutes. “I brought you some of your stuff.”
I’d been talking to him for so long and not getting a response via voicemails that this wasn’t even strange for me. It was almost a relief to have something to talk at versus thin air.
“If you’ve been listening to my voicemails, you know what’s going on, so no need to recap.”
I opened the silver box.
“So, here’s Les Misérables, your favorite. And here is that book of poems you really like.” I showed the headstone both books. “Theodore Robert Watkins. That’s some heavy stuff. I really got into it because of... well, you know. Him.”
I swallowed. It was weird. Despite everything, I really believed Dad would have liked Zayed. Liked his honor and, yes, his desire to protect his people. I understood that now.
“And here is a picture of you, me, and Mom. I thought you’d want it. I don’t know if you took a good one of us when you left last time. One where I don’t look like a dork, I mean.”
I was rambling. I couldn’t believe it, but I was rambling at a gravesite. I now stared at the picture I’d framed this past week. It was not a candid one; it was very posed, but still funny. The three of us had been out at brunch the previous year, celebrating Easter or Mother’s Day or some holiday where all the restaurants were overcrowded, and we all went out anyway because we were too lazy to do anything else.
Only Lana and I were looking at the camera, posing with pouty lips and arms bent at flattering angles. Dad was looking at us, with the smile I remembered the most, of amusement mixed with pride. That seemed fitting. He looked so peaceful that day, relaxed and happy.
Now this was getting hard. Fighting back the fresh tears that threatened to drain what bravado I had left, I placed the lid on the silver box and closed it tightly. I knelt next to the grave and started to dig.
Not caring that my fingernails snapped or that the knees of my leggings were shredding, I continue to dig until I had created a hole that would safely cradle the box. I brushed my lips over the seal of the box, saying a good-bye and a thank-you at the same time. I gently lowered the box into the hole and tossed the single white rose onto it.
Tears were threating to make an appearance again. I’d promised myself I wouldn’t fall apart here.
“Hey, I’m taking care of your car. I took it for an oil change and got the tires rotated. I even told the guy not to overcharge me because I was a girl. I negotiated. You would have liked that. I’ll take care of it for you.”
I glanced behind me. I couldn’t see Lana behind the tinted windows, but I knew she was still there. True to her word, she was letting me do this on my own.
“I didn’t get to finish that fight with you. I’m still waiting to hear if I get into that study-abroad program. We can argue about it later.”
Okay, that seemed to be good for the day.
“You never said good-bye to me, and now I get why. There never really will be a reason for us to say good-bye to each other.”
I then refilled the hole I’d made with the mound of dirt. “I’m sorry for what I said. I’m sorry for the mistakes I made,” I said as I let the last crumbles of dirt cascade back into the earth, where it belonged.
I waited for some sort of sign, but there was nothing other than the powerful breeze, which enveloped me tightly and carried away the last of fall’s leaves.
CHAPTER 22
The Acceptance
“Mars, you need to look at this.” Lana stood in my doorway for the tenth time the following Saturday. She’d been up to bring me soup, then tea, then just to chat about going to a movie that night.
This time she was holding a thick white envelope.
“What is that?” I barely took my focus off my computer screen. I was working on a yearlong plan for the therapy group as a part of my new role. I had an outline of what we would cover in each session and each person’s individual goals. I had started with what I wanted to accomplish this year, to talk openly about Dad’s life and what he had wanted for me. I was planning to present my plan to the board of the Grief Therapy organization as a template for other groups like ours to use.
“It’s from the University of Michigan.” Mom rattled the envelope.
“What?” I stopped typing. I hadn’t thought of Zayed—much—that day, but now that memories of his insistence that the University of Michigan was the school for me came rushing back, I sighed. Would his ghosts haunt me forever? “Why did this come for me? I didn’t apply there.”
“Just open it.”
I tore the thick envelope open.
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted into the University of Michigan’s undergraduate program . . .
“How did this application get sent?” I asked suspiciously. I had been practically sleepwalking the past month, but I was pretty sure I had not sent this application in.
“I have no idea.” The snooty little smile on Lana’s lips was familiar. This was how I looked when I lied, Zayed had said. Wow, it really was obvious. No wonder he’d always known when I was keeping something from him.
“Did you send this in? Why?” I read the rest of the letter. Fall admission. I needed to choose my dorm and a roommate, if necessary.
“Zayed sent a package to me a few weeks ago. It had some sample essays you’d written in class and this application. He said in his letter that he would be doing you a disservice as a friend if you didn’t apply. That you were incredibly talented and had potential to help many people with the same kinds of sorrow you’ve experienced. He was right. I filled out the application and sent in all the info that day.”
“That’s illegal. And corroborating with him?”
“Well, he was right. You did get in. And I did some research. The child psychology program at Michigan is really wonderful.”
“I can’t go.” I muttered. “It’s too far.”
“Oh, you’re going. I’ll send in the acceptance and drive you there myself if I have to.”
“Why? I can just go to the U and live at home.”
“Oh, you’ll be a real winner then. Living with your mother forever.”
I didn’t answer. Yes, that had been my plan, actually.
“Zayed asked me to give you this also.” Lana set a small envelope down on the bed next to me. “You should open it.”
I eyed it as if it was a poisonous spider. Another letter.
He was still in my life, despite me having ordered him to get out of it. I was tired of thinking of him all the time. I knew if I went to Michigan, I would think about him every day, about his belief in me and his unending persistence in pushing me to be better.
“Should I read it aloud to you?” Lana reached for the letter.
I grabbed it, giving her a dirty look.
Mars,
You’ll be angry at me for many things, my lies, my past, my interference. These things you have a right to feel. One thing I wish you would not hate me for is my belief in you. You are the strongest person I’ve known. You deserve happiness. Please don’t deny yourself that. I will never forget you or the magic you have brought into my life. You are my hero, the one who has made me realize I have the opportunity to live again, even if it’s not by your side.
You have a desire to change the status quo, to not be like everyone else. You said it then, and I believe it now. Please accept the change in your life and do the extraordinary things you were meant to.
This is good-bye. I am leaving Seattle to start over somewhere else. I will respect your wishes and not contact you again.
Yours in love and friendship,
Zayed Anwar
He was leaving. He was leaving me. He was such a liar. He’d said he’d wait for me, but he was leaving me forever.
I felt Lana watching me, waiting for some kind of reaction. I felt the heaviness again of ending our relationship. That feeling in my chest. The realization that I would never see him again.
I wasn’t clueless. I knew I had the choice to forgive him and make things okay between us. I had the option of staying with him and dealing with all the lies and mistrust and not knowing what he was thinking. I wondered again if I would feel less alone and helpless than this. Would it be better to be miserable with him than without him?
“He represents everything I hate in the world,” I said at last. “I can’t forgive him.”
She said nothing. Just sat and watched me.
“Say something, please.”
“Listen to me for once.” Lana slid down on the bed next to me. “I saw the way you lied to him at the courthouse. You wanted to hurt him, and believe me, you did. Is this the way you want it to end?”