Amy Inspired

by Bethany Pierce

I debated telling her I’d seen her, but decided against it.

  “It was kind of weird to be in a church,” she said. “I used to go all the time as a little girl, but it’s been a while.”

  I smiled. “It can be a strange experience if you’re not used to it.”

  “No, it wasn’t that weird. Well, sort of weird. But not too bad. I’m Episcopalian,” she stated, as if this explained everything. “I’ve been thinking about the things Pastor Maddock said. About eternity and life as meaningless without an afterlife. A depressing outlook.”

  “He was posing a rhetorical question, though. Obviously he believes in eternal life and hopes we will consider it a possibility by asking us to imagine existence without it.”

  “Well, yeah.” She pursed her lips. “I’m in this art history class. We’ve had to study all these paintings about hell.They’re totally gross: people being disemboweled and roasted on pits by demons.” She wrinkled her nose, as if hell were merely distasteful, a poor concept she could not approve of. “It’s all, like, really demented.”

  I had seen pictures of the paintings Ashley was talking about, church ceilings depicting the damned in a wild assortment of creative agonies. Paintings commissioned to terrorize the poor into buying their relatives out of purgatory.

  “A lot of those paintings were intended to educate an illiterate public,” I said. “They relied heavily on symbolism. As does Scripture.”

  There was a script, a tract, things I should say: That hell was a nonnegotiable, that she needed Jesus to save her from her sins, but in this moment it wouldn’t translate. For the first time in my adult life, I forgot what I was supposed to say and said what I meant.

  “The imaginative failure of fearing hell as fire and, conversely, of expecting heaven to consist of clouds and harps is that both depend on the assumption that we will have the same bodies in the afterlife that we have now. Christianity asserts we will have bodies, but they will be as different as a walnut tree is from the nut it grows from. If you’d only ever seen the seed, you would have no idea about the intricacy or strength or longevity of the creature that it evolves into.”

  Ashley picked at the lid of her coffee cup. “I want to believe there’s more than this. The day we buried Chelsea I wondered, you know? I couldn’t help it. It doesn’t seem real that a person could be with you one moment and gone the next, like they never even existed. But it’s too abstract. How can you know it’s not just another ignorant superstition? You’re a Christian, but you’d discount all these other religions that have their own versions of the afterlife.”

  “Maybe belief in an afterlife is something many religions share because they’re all man-made. Or maybe it’s the opposite. Maybe there’s a truth buried subconsciously in each man, woman, and child and that truth is projected out into the many religions people practice.”

  She swirled her coffee in its mug. “So you believe in heaven?”

  Of course I said yes. But in moments when I really considered my faith I was sometimes alarmed by all of it—by what odd and miraculous things Christians believe. I pushed my plate aside, crossed my elbows on the table. “This will seem off-topic, but I’ve always been fascinated by science—anatomy, quantum physics, space and time theory. I don’t understand these things, but the mystery is a part of what attracts me to them.

  “That the world I live in now is complex beyond my understanding only encourages me to believe that there are wild possibilities in creation beyond even the things of this dimension of time and space. If this universe has alternate dimensions outside of our understanding, isn’t it possible that we might exist in a life beyond this one, in another kind of dimension that is fuller and more alive than the one we know?”

  She smiled at me. “My dad would like you. He’s a total science geek.”

  It was her way of steering the conversation back to safer ground.

  When I pulled up to her dorm half an hour later, she lingered in the car, hesitant to say good-bye.Three girls were walking on the sidewalk in our direction, sundresses brushing high on their thighs, hand-bag straps bright against their tanned shoulders.

  “They’re from my floor. Leslie and her band of loyal admirers,” Ashley said. “I’m sorry, but I hate them. Leslie goes to the tanning bed three times a week. She gets in completely naked except for a towel she puts over her chest.” She rolled her eyes, a sardonic smile tugging at the corner of her lips. “So she won’t get breast cancer.”

  We laughed together.

  The girls’ chatter grew louder as they walked by the car.

  “They talk about me,” she said. “I told my roommate about Chelsea and asked her not to tell anyone else. I didn’t want people treating me different. But sometimes when I walk in the room, they all stop talking and look at me like they’re guilty. They accused me of being antisocial.”

  “No one can know what you’ve been through unless they’ve gone through it themselves,” I said. “It doesn’t matter what they think.”

  “Yeah, I know, but it’s not easy.” She traced the rubber weather strip of the window with her thumb. “So I’ve been meaning to thank you.”

  “It was nothing. The story deserves the attention it received; you shouldn’t be ashamed of it.”

  “No, not for the story. You know that night you called, a while back? It was my sister’s birthday.” Her hand fell to her lap. “It meant a lot to me that you called that day. I wasn’t doing so well.”

  The night air had cooled. That wasn’t why she shuddered, but I flicked the floor heater on anyway.

  She stared out the window. “I think about Chelsea every single second of every single day. Sometimes I just want to go and be with her. I think I would do anything to be with her.”

  I considered this young woman who knew a grief I couldn’t imagine. I thought of Fay and of Zoë.

  “Ashley—you’ve never thought of hurting yourself.”

  She turned to face me, sincere or very well-rehearsed shock on her face. “I wouldn’t, I swear,” she said. “Ms. Gallagher, I couldn’t do that to my dad.” She ran her hand through her hair. “Look, forget I said it. It was a stupid thing to say.”

  “It’s all right. I believe you.”

  She was the one to break eye contact. “I should get going.” She reached for her bag and stepped daintily onto the sidewalk, but before leaving she peered back down inside the car. “Ms. Gallagher?

  I’m really okay. Honest.”

  “I said I believed you.”

  “Okay. See you around?”

  See you around. Verbal clutter for good-bye.

  She walked up the sidewalk, heels forcing her to walk with a decided strut. She could pass for a Leslie, for any of her self-conscious, vapid girlfriends, and I wondered how many people would take the time to see past the pretty face and recognize what lay beneath.

  I knew she wouldn’t come back to the Baptist church, that she and I would probably never talk again like we talked now. We might see each other once, maybe twice, only from a distance, and only if I stayed in Copenhagen long enough.

  I couldn’t save Ashley. But I hoped I was the first of many people who would lead her step-by-step until her fledgling wonder turned to faith and took flight, one of the many believers burning in rows like lights illuminating the length of an airplane runway.

  21

  I made Brian promise to come and stay with me in Copenhagen for a night. Class was over and I had grading and more grading to finish by the end of finals week. The prospect of spending hours alone in the apartment, slogging through the mountain of paper was unbearable.

  On the phone, we negotiated the terms of his visitation.

  “I have to study,” he said.

  “I know. I have to grade.”

  “You can’t distract me.”

  “I’ll be quiet as the grave. Circumspect as a monk.”

  “And I need to sleep.”

  “You can have Zoë’s bed. I promise, you’ll sleep like a baby.”


  “And I have to get up early.”

  “Done.”

  He arrived Saturday afternoon, laden with equipment: a computer bag slung over his shoulder, a thirty-pound book bag on his back, and a duffel bag stuffed with dirty laundry he hoped he could wash at my place—he was flat out of quarters. He unloaded his books on the kitchen table and set to work. I separated his darks and lights and made popcorn for brain food.

  “What are these?” I pulled two bridal magazines from his duffel bag where I’d been searching for the dryer sheets he insisted he’d brought.

  “Oh, I was going to take those back to Marie. She keeps leaving them at my place. You watch out,” he warned. “Those magazines are poison. They bite.”

  “I’ll be careful,” I said solemnly.

  The first magazine was two inches thick. The woman on the cover smiled with Julia Roberts wattage. She was sitting in a field of sunflowers, crowded by shouting headlines:

  450 New Gowns

  LOOKS YOU’LL LOVE FOREVER

  REAL ADVICE FOR HOW TO DEAL WITH

  IN-LAWS

  Best Dressed Moms

  GLUTES, THIGHS, AND ABS

  the ultimate pre-wedding workout!

  I read about Jessica and Brad’s “modern and elegant” nuptials in the luxurious Ritz-Carlton resort in Naples, Florida. I read about Melanie and Mike’s carved melon toothpick holders and how the air smelled of lavender and eucalyptus at Chloe and Jerome’s outdoor sunset ceremony.

  I drew a beard on Jerome with a black pen, which improved him significantly.

  The men in bridal magazines were practically invisible in their uniformity, the same JCPenney underwear models in the same tux, the features of their smiling faces symmetric and attractive in a completely underwhelming way.

  “These men all look alike to me,” I said to Brian. “Is it the same when guys see women in magazines?”

  He didn’t move.

  “Brian,” I said.

  “Mmm?”

  “Do you think the women in these magazines all look the same?”

  “What?” he said, annoyed.

  I held the magazine up for his inspection. I repeated the question a third time.

  “I guess.” He went back to his studying.

  Identical. Not the miraculous resemblance of twins, but the frightening uniformity of genetically enhanced clones.

  “Like clones,” I said.

  “I’m studying, Amy,” he warned.

  I traded Modern Bride for Robbins Pathology, studying the pictures of anatomy and of cells, mystified by the charts and hieroglyphic equations. I’d always envied Brian’s talent for science. In high school I loved chemistry but barely managed a C- and that by half copying my lab partner’s homework. I studied hours for anatomy, but skinned by with a D, given not earned. Dr. Brown said I got an A for effort as if it would soften the blow.

  All these years later, I still looked longingly at Brian’s books, an illiterate toddler, limited to illustrations.

  The call came that night. It wasValerie. She said she’d been trying to get ahold of Zoë to ask about the last surgery, but Jerry picked up her phone instead. Fay had passed away that morning, earlier than anyone had expected.

  “I guess she was just ready to go,” Valerie said. “Jerry sounded shocked.”

  Brian found me sitting on my bed in the dark, the phone silent in my lap.

  “I thought you were talking to someone,” he said.

  “Zoë’s mom is gone. She died this morning.”

  He ran his hand over his head. He sighed. Sitting beside me, he grabbed my hand, and we were back in elementary school, sitting on the bus together, my hand safely tucked in his.

  “Have you talked to her?”

  “She won’t want to talk.”

  We sat in silence, staring at the rug.

  “She’ll need you,” he said finally.

  He made me a cup of tea. I didn’t know my brother could brew tea. Marie taught him, he explained. She drank it compulsively while she studied. We sat on the roof, sometimes quiet and sometimes talking. The night was pleasantly cool. In the distance we could hear the hum of students partying. A group of freshmen walked by on the sidewalk. The boys wore pastel-colored shirts paired with plaid shorts. In their eagerness to dress well, they looked as fragile and colorful as Easter eggs.

  “Has Marie ever seen a patient die?” I asked.

  “She saw a kid die her second week in the clinic. He was only sixteen. She said it was real surreal. Like you knew it was happening but couldn’t quite wrap your mind around it. She’s had to see other patients go since—she doesn’t have time to get to know them, but it’s still hard. You can’t just leave the hospital and step back into ‘normal’ life.”

  “Do you think it gets easier?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “A part of me hopes not.”

  Brian spent one summer interning in the ER. His resilience mystified me. How could a person stand it—watching people stream in night after night, torn, bleeding, and broken?

  When I asked how Marie was doing with her clinics he couldn’t say enough. He was unabashedly admiring of her skills and intelligence. Maybe my difficulty with Marie was not sibling rivalry. Maybe it was jealousy over a career as opposed to jealousy over my brother: She was becoming the scientist I could never be. I would have to come to terms with this.

  We talked about their plans and dreams and even about the wedding. Brian said he’d invited Dad to the rehearsal dinner. He was apologetic about it.

  “I didn’t want to invite him, but Marie said we should,” he explained.

  “Is he coming?”

  “I don’t know. We’ve been leaving each other voicemails all week. He’s always vague: ‘Be there if the weather permits, kiddo’ or ‘Juggling a few things, will get back to you.’ ”

  “I hope he doesn’t come,” I said. “For Mom’s sake.”

  “For all our sakes,” he agreed.

  I leaned back in my chair and tried to spot the stars. Tonight they were hidden beneath a purple scrim of light pollution. Or the fog of caffeine blurring my vision from the inside out. Pulling the quilt I’d brought with me tighter around my body, I closed my eyes. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen my father.

  The next thing I knew, Brian was gently nudging me awake. “You’d better get to bed.”

  It took me a moment to remember why he was here, why we were on the porch.

  “What time is it?” I asked.

  “Nearly three.”

  “I don’t want you to leave.”

  “I’ll stay the weekend,” he assured me. “C’mon. You’re exhausted.”

  I slipped into bed still dressed. The tears came easily. Not so much for Fay as for Zoë—and for shame that deep down, were I to admit it, my relief overwhelmed any sorrow. You played the odds in life. Statistically there were only so many bodies that succumbed to cancer a year. I wept in gratitude to God that my loved ones weren’t the victims of chance this time around.

  In the morning, while Brian was in the shower, I took Robbins Pathology out of his bag and searched the index. I flipped to the given page and stared at the photograph of a single breast cancer cell. The cell comprised an irregular, spherical mass, its surface riddled with interlacing strings of light like those writhing on the surface of the sun. It was aware of its power, fecund, cunning arms reaching to embrace its host.

  We sent our condolences by mail. Everett and I signed our names to a card Valerie had made. I called a Chicago flower shop and asked to have an arrangement of flowers delivered to the Walker house. The florist asked what I wanted on the card.

  “There’s a card?” I asked.

  “Of course,” she said. “We pin it to the center of the arrangement.”

  “Can I skip the card?”

  “We have balloons instead.”

  “This is for a funeral, not a birthday party.”

  “They’re very tasteful,” the clerk said.

 
“I don’t want balloons.”

  “You can only order one balloon.”

  “I don’t want any balloon.”

  Zoë specifically asked that none of us make the trip for the funeral. I considered calling but didn’t want to be a burden. I tried to send an e-mail.The blank computer screen proved as insurmountable as the sympathy card. In the end I gave up trying to piece together my condolences. I wrote Zoë a brief message, asking if she would want company. She wrote back saying yes. I packed a book bag and a suitcase, the book bag for overnight clothes and a toothbrush, the suitcase to hold the essays I hadn’t yet graded.

  The drive to Chicago was more tedious than I remembered. For hours, the Indiana fields stretched gray to the right and left. By the time the automated tolls appeared to signal the nearness of the city, my back and eyes had begun to ache. I called Zoë to say I was ten minutes away. Three wrong turns and two hours later I called to say I was ten minutes away again. When I finally arrived she stood waiting for me on the porch.

  She was pale and too thin.

  “Tired?” she asked.

  “I’m exhausted.”

  “Well,” she said, bending down to lift my overnight bag from the trunk. Her hair stood on end, spiked and coarse and smelling of sleep. “You’re in good company.”

  The house was exactly as I remembered it from the one time I had visited: old, simply furnished. Books everywhere. The photographs on the mantel sat in purposefully slanted rows, Fay smiling happily in three of the five portraits. The sameness of the house surprised me. I wanted the drinking glasses on the tables and the plants on the windowsill to acknowledge what had happened, but they just sat there oblivious, safely mired in their thingness.

  Zoë led me to the kitchen. The sun had begun to set, tipping the clouds in gold, casting neon slants of orange light from the row of tall windows to the floor.

  “Are you hungry? There’s macaroni and cheese, spaghetti, lasagna, spaghetti, spaghetti.” She leaned over the open refrigerator door. “Anything that could possibly be casseroled, we have.”

  I chose the dish that would cause the least amount of trouble.