All About Evie

by Cathy Lamb

  They were there for love.

  They were there for me.

  They wanted peace.

  My mother and aunts had filled three scrapbooks with photos of me as a baby, toddler, kindergartener, teenager, and beyond. There were even about twenty photos they’d taken of me in the last year. They wrapped them up and presented them to my new family.

  Betsy hugged those photograph books close to herself, as if she would not let them go, ever, tears streaming down her face, Johnny’s arms wrapped around her.

  * * *

  Johnny, Betsy, Kayla, Tilly, and I hiked around the bucolic blue lake at the campground on Saturday. I later introduced them to all my animals. The goats escaped again, and they agreed my goats were naughty. They loved Sundance and marveled at how well he could run on three legs. Butch and Cassidy were happy to have new friends, the lambs lined up, and Shakespeare and Jane Austen said a gracious hello. The cats were shy. We went out for Mexican food that night in town. We rode the ferry to Lopozzo Island for ice cream together. We laughed, we talked, we hugged. I felt comfortable with all of them immediately. I felt as if I could be myself. I felt that mysterious hole closing in my heart.

  Betsy and I had time to talk alone, sitting on our beach, and we talked about her time in jail, the trials, the grocery stores, her eternal hope that she would meet me one day. We talked about our premonitions, what it was like to live with them. Everything I had felt, she felt.

  To me, seeing into the future, seeing people get mangled and hurt and run over and crushed and killed and sick is a living nightmare. Trying to intervene, or choosing not to intervene, is relentlessly exhausting.

  “You’ve saved people, Evie,” Betsy said, her hand in mine, as natural as if we’d been holding hands our whole lives. “Never forget that.”

  That was true.

  “When I’m working at the market and all of the sudden I get a vision of what may happen to a customer on her way home, a car crash, perhaps, and I have to drop everything, leave a meeting, and go and help, it’s tough. But that one person, she’s okay. She’s saved. To them it’s worth it, isn’t it? So to us, it has to be, too.”

  It is definitely worth it to them.

  “The images are sometimes so bad, I feel kicked in the face,” Betsy said. “But that kick in the face makes me do something. It makes me reach out to others. I accept that for some reason the women in our line can choose to save. My mother said no to it and wasted her life. I said yes, you say yes, Kayla says yes. Is there an option to say no? Yes, there is. But then you would be someone you are not, honey. You would be someone you wouldn’t like or respect.”

  Betsy hugged me, and I hugged her back.

  She felt like home. She felt like Mom.

  I had two moms, two dads, two sisters, and three aunts. I was a lucky gal.

  * * *

  I talked alone with Johnny, too. We talked about how he had lost his mother to a violent man and how my best friend, Emily, had lost her mother to a violent man.

  “A man should be strong but gentle, protective and caring to his wife and kids,” he said. “I don’t understand these men who act otherwise. It’s not how a true man acts.”

  I told him about the guilt I had felt about Patsy, and he told me about the searing guilt he had felt about his mother, about not being able to protect her. “I know, though, that Patsy and my mother would not want us to feel that way. I think we honor them by being loving in our lives to others.”

  I sat and thought about that and had to agree with him. I ended up telling him how I felt about Marco, and the sailboat drowning premonition, how messed up I was, and how my premonitions and not wanting to leave the island would be difficult for anyone to live with.

  “Evie,” he said. “I love your mother with all my heart, with all that I am. Not seeing her for ten years nearly killed me. She is much like you, not only in terms of her premonitions but in the other things that she deals with, the depression and anxiety, although both have lifted completely since you found each other. My point is that I want Betsy in my life no matter what. I can’t live right without her. I am not Johnny without Betsy. We have gone through the hardest ravages of life, but still, we’re together. We laugh. We talk. We are of one heart. Do you believe yourself to be of one heart with Marco?”

  “Yes.”

  “You love him beyond yourself?

  “Yes.”

  “And he loves you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why are you preventing your two hearts from being together as one? Marco knows you. He embraces you as you are, as I have always embraced your mother. That’s the important thing: He loves you as Evie.”

  Who knew my father, a prisoner for ten years, who still boxed and had an intimidating face when he wasn’t smiling, could be so romantically poetic? So right?

  “Takes a lot of courage to take that leap, Evie.”

  “I don’t know if I have it.”

  “I think you do. You have shown courage throughout your life. Let me ask you another question, if I may?”

  “Please.”

  “If you had died in that car accident with Betsy . . .” He stopped, took a deep breath and rubbed his face with both hands, clearly shaken at the thought, before he started again. “Would you regret not being with Marco?”

  Whoa. Put that way! “Yes.”

  “Do you have your answer, then?”

  I blinked, I thought, I nodded. “I think I do.”

  “We’ve sure missed you.”

  “I missed you all, too. I always felt you. Right here.” I tapped my heart.

  Intimidating boxer-man became all teary-eyed. “I want nothing but the best for you, Rose. We have loved you forever.”

  * * *

  When Johnny, Betsy, Tilly, and Kayla left on Sunday, and I stood waving at the ferry, we were all in tears, and yet I knew I would see them again. And again, forever.

  They were family, after all.

  * * *

  I later learned why Chief Ass Burn did not come up the mountain to check out the explosion.

  He had “accidentally” locked himself in his shed.

  At least, that’s what people told him when he finally busted down the back wall of his shed with an ax.

  That was the story . . . no one would have locked him in his shed on purpose. Oh no. That wasn’t the island way . . . probably. . .

  * * *

  Because Johnny and Betsy had included the media in their search for me, they did one more interview. “We have found our daughter through a DNA test. . . . She is beautiful and generous. . . . We are grateful to her and her family for including us in their family.”

  They did not reveal my name or where I lived. They protected my privacy. They told me they would be doing no future interviews, though the interest was high.

  “We will always protect you, Evie,” my father said. “Always.”

  * * *

  I bought another pickup truck, since mine had exploded.

  A woman who rescued horses was selling hers. It was five years old and black, double cab, a real monster of a vehicle.

  “Trust me,” she said in her red cowboy hat and boots, “you will feel like a ball-busting woman driving Esmerelda here. She doesn’t let anyone get in her way.”

  I laughed and bought Esmerelda.

  She growled at me when I turned the key in the engine.

  * * *

  On Thursday at dusk, Sundance became ill.

  I called Marco’s clinic, then called his cell phone, as it was listed as the emergency number. He called me back.

  “Bring him in, Evie.”

  I was almost hyperventilating while driving with Sundance’s limp head on my lap, his tail wagging slowly, up and down. He was failing, I could tell. He needed medicine or an operation or something. He wasn’t going to die. He couldn’t die. He couldn’t leave me.

  “Hang on, Sundance,” I said, crying, petting his head. “We’ll get you fixed up. Hang on, honey.”

/>   I felt Sundance’s breathing change as I pulled into Marco’s driveway, then into the clinic’s parking lot. He lifted his golden head, and I put my head down on his and he licked my face, but it was weak, his breathing labored, his body floppy. He could hardly move.

  Marco opened the door on the passenger side. “How is he?”

  “Not well.” My voice broke, cracked.

  “Let me have him, Evie,” he said, so gentle.

  Marco picked Sundance up and carried him into the clinic, his body limp.

  He laid him on a table, listened to his heart, examined his eyes, put his hands on his body. He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Evie.”

  “Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.” I put my head to Sundance’s and cried. Sundance licked me again. “Sundance, baby. I love you. Oh, Sundance!”

  “Evie,” Marco said. “I’m going to give him a painkiller, then let me carry him out to the beach. You can say goodbye there. Under the sunset. He would like that. Let’s not let him die here.”

  I sobbed and nodded, and Marco, strong Marco, gave him the painkiller, then carried Sundance out to the beach. I sat down, leaned against a log, and he put that huge dog in my lap.

  “I’ll be at the house. I know you need time alone with him.”

  I nodded and cried into Sundance’s golden fur as I held him like a baby. I stared into his eyes and he stared into mine, and his lips moved, like he was smiling at me. I had had him for seventeen years. He wagged his tail at me, and I kissed him. We watched the sun go down together as I cradled him, rocked him, the sky filled with scarlet and lavender tonight, the waves quieter, but maybe they seemed quieter because I was sobbing.

  “Sundance,” I whispered. “I love you, baby. I love you, I love you, I will miss you so much.” I would miss him every day. He was my constant friend, my true friend. I thought of all the times we’d walked the island together, how he’d followed me through the rows of roses, peonies, sunflowers, and daffodils on our property, how he’d chase birds with such abandon, and how he’d been so excited when I came home from work every day, as if we’d been parted for years. I thought of the camping we’d done for months after my brain misfired and I flamed out, the places we’d seen, the waterfalls and rivers, the mountain ranges and sunny beaches.

  I remembered the time he’d barked when a rattlesnake had gotten too close, and one time he’d lunged at a strange man who approached our tent, turning into a protective, fierce dog I hadn’t seen before. I thought of the way he loved his pink blankie and his stuffed friend, Lizard, and how he had overcome losing one leg to run with the best of them.

  I put my face next to his again and he weakly licked my cheek, a kiss of love, a kiss of goodbye, then he sighed, one last breath, his eyes on mine, and died in my arms.

  * * *

  I was inconsolable that night.

  Marco gave me a hug, and I hugged him back. We wrapped Sundance in a soft blue blanket, and he put him next to me in the truck. I would bury him tomorrow in a special place that he loved under the willow tree overlooking the bay with his stuffed friend, Lizard, and his pink blankie.

  The next morning I told my aunts and mother, and they cried, too.

  Marco showed up as he’d told me he would, and he dug the grave. I placed Sundance in the grave with the pink blankie and Lizard, and Marco put the dirt on top of him.

  My mother and aunts sang “Amazing Grace” as I cried and Marco held my hand.

  We each told a Sundance story.

  Butch and Cassidy were unusually quiet next to me. The goats escaped and stood right beside us. When Mr. Bob started kicking his feet up, Trixie head butted him. The lambs were lined up behind the mom, and Shakespeare and Jane Austen peered over the white fencing. Ghost curled around my legs, Mars, Venus, and Jupiter nearby. Virginia Alpaca and Alpaca Joe also watched us. Joe didn’t even spit.

  We each took turns putting dirt on Sundance’s grave.

  Sundance had literally saved my life when he started pulling on my pant leg when I wanted to jump off that cliff. He had given my life light and love from the start.

  I went to bed without Sundance that night and cried because he wasn’t on the pillow next to me with Lizard. He was not there in the morning for our check on the other animals, so I cried. I cried when I came home at lunch for a break and Sundance wasn’t there jumping up and down with excitement at my return. I cried when Sundance wasn’t there to walk over the bridge in my grandma’s garden or to sit next to the lily pond with me. I went to the secret garden and stared up at the fairy, no Sundance.

  I decided to drown myself in work and went in early the next day. I helped customers and I welcomed the Book Babe ladies, who told me, “We want to read a sexy book this time. What do you recommend?”

  I pulled out a famous sexy book, and at first they said, “We can’t read that.” And then they changed their minds after I showed them a scene from the middle of the book. “Well,” one huffed. “Maybe we could give it a shot.”

  * * *

  I couldn’t sleep the next night so I read a mystery until two in the morning. Then I stopped and told myself to face things. I thought about Sundance and became all upset again, I thought about Marco, too, and decided that I was a pathetic wretch of a self-pitying woman.

  I loved Marco. I knew that. I missed him. How do you explain that deep, passionate love? To me, it’s a heart-to-heart thing. Your hearts are reaching for each other. They match. They have found their heart partner, exactly as Johnny said.

  I wiped away tears and then stopped. I felt my breath catch. I could hardly breathe.

  I thought about the premonition in which Marco dies. When he falls off the boat in a storm after he cracks his head. I thought about the devastation, the loss, the hysteria. It was the worst premonition ever.

  But Sundance was on the boat with us.

  Sundance was dead.

  The premonition would not occur. The drowning would not occur. We had passed it. We had passed the time of the storm and the sinking.

  Oh. My. Goodness. Marco would not die on the boat.

  I closed my eyes. I put my hands on my chest. I rocked back and forth with relief. With joy.

  Could I be with Marco now?

  He knew about the premonitions, the depression, the anxiety, saving people, my need to be alone. I could be my blender-twisted self with him.

  “We can be a mess together, Evie,” he had said.

  I could do messy, couldn’t I? I envisioned us together. Once I went out with him, I think we’d take the street down to marriage. The avenue that doesn’t end. The cul-de-sac that keeps coming home.

  I had almost died in an accident. Johnny had made me see how much I would regret not being courageous enough to be with Marco. He asked me if I loved Marco more than myself. Waaaay more. I loved Marco beyond love.

  I would call Marco tomorrow and ask him to have dinner, pie, cake, and tea with me. I would be brave and put my favorite roses on the table. Then I would ask him if he wanted to spend the night.

  That would be fun!

  * * *

  “Hi, Gayle, it’s Evie, is Marco available?” It was early, and I’d hardly slept.

  “He’s gone, sugar,” Gayle said.

  “What do you mean he’s gone?” My hand gripped the phone.

  “He left for a vacation this morning.”

  “Oh. Where is he going?”

  “Alaska.”

  “Alaska?”

  “Yes. He’s going to meet his brothers there. It’s a fishing trip.”

  “Do you know what ferry he’s taking?”

  “The nine o’clock.”

  “Thank you.”

  * * *

  I flew into Esmerelda like a mad woman and headed for the ferry landing.

  This was reckless. I would look like a damn fool.

  What did I care about being reckless, though? I had been a damn fool many times and I was still standing, wasn’t I?

  The town of North Sound was in my rearview mirror as I
drove down country lanes, past farms and old homes and the bay and the blue-gray ocean and turned into the ferry parking lot. I could not believe my luck: A space opened up and I pulled in. I ran to the ferry, though I do so hate running—what a ridiculous sport that is—bought a ticket, and ran onboard three minutes before it was leaving for Anacortes.

  Now all I had to do was find Marco.

  I went through both decks, no Marco. The ferry wasn’t crowded, so I should have been able to spot him right away. I turned around the outside deck . . . and I saw him.

  Black hair. Sunglasses. Jeans and a sweatshirt. He was standing at the rail, staring out at the islands. He looked tired. His shoulders were slumped. He had lost weight.

  I took a deep breath, then went to stand beside him.

  “It’s a beautiful day,” I said.

  “Evie.” He put his glasses on his head, his eyes hurt, wary.

  “Hi, Marco. I heard you’re going to Alaska.”

  “Yes. With my brothers.”

  “Gayle told me. Marco.” I closed my eyes, took a breath. I would get right to the point. “Sundance was on the boat with us when you . . . you drowned.”

  “I know.”

  He remembered. “And Sundance is . . .”

  “I know.”

  “You were waiting for me to make that connection, weren’t you?”

  “Yes. And when you did, which I knew you would, I didn’t want you to feel pushed into making a decision about me. About us.”

  “I think I made that decision.”

  “You have?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what is it?”

  “Marco, if you will still have me, I would love to be with you. I love you. Every single time I’ve seen you, talked to you, I love you even more.”

  He blinked rapidly, that black hair brushed by the wind, those shoulders broad, that face, tired but now hopeful, tough-guy but sweet, manly but filled with love.

  “I am sorry for what I put you, and us, through. I am a messy human tornado.”

  “It’s okay, Evie, it really is.”

  “It’s not, but . . .”