The Healer

by Donna Freitas

  Finn shrugs. “A photographic memory can work like that. I’ve read about synesthesia before, and I can recall exactly what I read as though I’m reading it now.” Before I can respond, he goes on. “Doesn’t synesthesia sound a little like what you experience with your visions?”

  A big wave crashes loud against the rocks, spray darting high in the air. “Maybe? There’s certainly a lot of color, and there’s often sound, and my senses are definitely all involved and seem connected to the colors. But even though that’s an interesting theory, you said that synesthetes experience color and the senses the same, always. And my visions aren’t predictable like that.”

  Finn is nodding. But he looks a bit disappointed.

  I raise my eyebrows. “Sad you couldn’t scientifically diagnose my situation?”

  “Maybe a little? I liked my theory.”

  I laugh. “So what does your mother think of your, um, abilities? And the rest of your family, for that matter, since you haven’t told me anything about them.”

  His expression darkens. “Things with my family are complicated. They don’t exactly appreciate my ‘abilities,’ as you put it, or my path to becoming a neuroscientist.”

  “What? That’s crazy! How could they not! What you do is—”

  “—Marlena,” Finn interrupts.

  I stop speaking.

  He closes his eyes. “Let’s talk about something else. I’ll tell you about my family some other day.”

  I study Finn’s profile, lit by the sun. “Okay,” I say quietly. “But there is something else I’m really curious about.”

  Finn’s eyes flicker open and he turns back to me. “And what is that?”

  I point to his sleeve. “I want to know about the heart you have under there.”

  “My tattoo?”

  “Yes. You wouldn’t tell me about it yesterday, but today you have to.”

  “It’s just a heart.”

  I know when someone is not telling the truth, and Finn is not telling me the truth right now. Like my healings, there is something intimate about inking an image onto one’s skin. Something permanent and alive with meaning. “Is it about another girl?” I ask, then wish the gulls overhead had chosen this moment to cry out, drowning my words.

  A smile dusts Finn’s lips. “No, nothing like that. It’s just a reminder, I guess. Not to be all up in my head.”

  I pull my knees tight to my chest. “What do you mean?”

  He shrugs. “I’m already a doctoral student, and I graduated college when I was nineteen. The intellectual side of me has always been what dominates. I got the tattoo so that I’d have a visual reminder of this other part of me and of life, a reminder that there’s more to me than just my brain. Every time I look at my arm or see myself in the mirror, I also remember that it’s okay to feel.” Finn runs a hand through his hair. “I told you yesterday, I’m also a bit of a freak. People have treated me differently all my life. They have ‘great hopes for me’”—he flicks two fingers around this phrase—“so the heart tattoo is there also to remind other people that I’m more than my brain. Even Angie.”

  Finn’s words fade. “I’ve never needed that reminder,” I tell him. “From the moment I first saw you, all I could sense was the heart in you.” I exchange this confession in turn for his. The way the sun shines on Finn’s face makes me wonder if he is human or something else, an ethereal creature that doesn’t belong to this earth, that might disappear into the fabric of this universe at any minute.

  “Really, Marlena?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  His hand reaches for mine. “What else did you see, visionary girl?”

  The tips of his fingers find the center of my palm. I watch as they slide across my skin. I wait for those half visions I always have with Finn to appear, the sense of something with Finn. But this time is different. A feeling in my belly awakens, an unfamiliar warmth, and I find myself leaning into him, reaching my hand to his shoulder, then his neck, snaking my arm around him and pulling him close until our faces are inches apart, his half-lidded eyes watching mine.

  “I don’t know what I’m doing, Finn,” I tell him.

  I say this, but then, I also absolutely do know, in the same way I’ve always known how to heal. Wanting another person is like a tiny stirring of the soul, a spark that spins outward until it is lighting up your insides with fireworks. They spill through the thin layer of skin that contains the body and outward, straight into the body of another. Just like a healing, but also not.

  “I think you do, Marlena,” he breathes.

  When our lips touch, I discover a new way to encounter the soul of another person, to walk within its gorgeous depths, to play hide-and-seek with the most secret parts of who they are. If there were colors, they’d be bright reds and pinks and they would light up my brain like a sunset. Maybe they are doing just that, right now.

  TWENTY-THREE

  When I walk into the house later on, I stop, as usual, to listen.

  There isn’t a sound.

  But as I head to the stairs, still light-headed from saying good-bye to Finn, I see her. My mother is outside in the backyard, sitting on one of the lawn chairs she never uses, staring at the ocean. Her knees are pulled to her chest, arms wrapped around her shins. Her dark hair is long and loose and some of it falls down her back, some of it over her shoulders. Once again I am struck by how young she seems, vulnerable almost. This and that her clothing is different. She’s wearing jeans and a big billowy black top.

  She never wears black. It’s the color of mourning, she always says. It reminds her of those terrible days after I was born.

  Is my mother in mourning?

  I open the screen door and step outside.

  She turns her head. “Marlenita.”

  My mother hasn’t called me that in ages. I walk over to her chair, the grass a luscious sea underneath my feet in the fading light. “Hi.”

  “How was your day?” Her voice is soft, her words are soft, but her eyes are difficult to read.

  I think about my answer, worrying that her simple question is also a trap. I decide to tell her the truth. “It was good. Really good. The best day I’ve had in a long, long time.”

  My mother’s face goes blank. Like someone attached a line to her and drained away all signs of life. “José told me you got the money I left.”

  “I did. Thank you.”

  “It’s yours, Marlena. Just like you said yesterday.” She rests a cheek on her knees as she talks. “Today I set up a bank account for you. The paperwork is on the counter. There’s an ATM card with the code written next to it. There’s more money in it than you could ever need.”

  “Okay—”

  “—also,” my mother interrupts, voice monotone, “I alerted the necessary parties that your audiences are canceled until further notice. And Fatima moved all those things you piled into the gift room up to the attic.”

  I inhale to protest, to inform her that some of those things, like the books, my paintings, I didn’t want to be inaccessible, but my mother is still not done.

  She lifts her head and stares at me. “You wanted freedom, querida—well, now you have it.”

  My insides go to war, debating what my mother is really up to with such lavish offerings, offerings that were just yesterday totally and utterly forbidden. One side of me thinks she has a larger plan, and that just when I think everything is all right she will swoop in and take everything back. The other side of me doesn’t know what to think, but I long to believe she is doing these things only because I asked for them, because she thinks that after all this time I deserve a little reward for how patient and obedient I’ve been during the entirety of my childhood.

  “Are we going to talk at all?” I ask her now.

  “About what?”

  “About this.” I gesture between the two of us, and in doing so I guess I’m also pointing at our clothing, which has changed drastically between yesterday and today.

  “I thought we said
all that needed saying last night.”

  “Oh. You do? Okay.”

  I stare at my mother, study her, and finally see what I’ve been missing since I stepped out the screen door. It’s defeat. My mother is defeated. There are dark circles underneath her eyes, purple and bruised. The way she sits may make her look younger, more vulnerable, but the woman I see up close seems like she’s aged. It nearly makes me want to go to her, to give her a hug.

  I don’t.

  Maybe I could after she’s proven I can trust her. If I can have faith that somewhere inside her, Saint Teresa is waging a battle to release the mother that she is, the mother she used to be. Maybe Saint Teresa is fighting right now, this minute, to release her from the hidden place where she’s dwelled for so long. I hope Teresa is prepared, sword in hand, with a spare tucked away.

  That night after I get into bed, I can’t sleep. I poke around in my body, my heart, my mind, for that familiar feeling of my gift. Sensing it there, waiting for me when I need it, has always been a strange kind of comfort. I do my best not to panic when I can’t find it anywhere. Not even a little trace or tug.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  If I’ve been an angel before, I am no longer. Every day I am shedding feathers, until my shoulders are so light I can finally stand up straight and tall. With each one gone I become more visible, more human, a thing of flesh and bone.

  I smile at myself in the mirror. I like being a real, human girl.

  Fatima takes me shopping for a bathing suit. She wears a simple white top and matching slim skirt that reaches her knees. Her black hair is pulled into a bun, frizzled wisps escaping around her face. She looks like the typical Portuguese lady, with her long face and smooth, dark features. Everything is on sale because it’s the end of the season, and she has me try on what seems like the entire store. She knows how big a deal it is for me to pick something out that will be all my own. That I’ve dreamed of wearing a bikini like other girls on the beach. In the dressing room I struggle with the ties and the hooks around my neck and back, but I refuse the help she offers.

  “It’s okay, Marlena,” she says through the door. “I’m a lady, too.”

  I know this, but I can’t let her help. I’ve been shamed about my body for too many years. After I try on the first bathing suit, I’m almost too embarrassed to look at myself in the mirror.

  “Marlena, you’re going to wear this in public, but you’re afraid to show me now?” Fatima calls from the chair she’s been sitting in while she waits. “If I still had a body like yours I’d be prancing all over this store and around town in only a two-piece!”

  “Fatima, you’re not helping,” I call back, but I’m laughing. Then, “Fine,” I say and slink outside.

  She puts her hands to her cheeks. “¡Ai, querida! Look at you! You’re so skinny! I wish I had a behind like that.”

  My cheeks burn. “Fatima!”

  She stands up and starts barking orders. “Stop slouching and stand up straight. Now walk a few steps. Stop hunching over, Marlena! Now swivel your hips a bit.”

  “I didn’t know there’d be catwalk lessons today,” I tell her.

  Fatima waves her hands as she speaks. “You should be proud of what you look like. You have nothing to hide! Not anymore,” she adds, but under her breath. “Go change into the other ones. I want to see all of them.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  When I come out wearing a bathing suit with tiny flowers that ties around my neck, back, and hips, Fatima’s face lights up.

  “That’s the one!” She smiles. “It has the same green as those flip-flops you’re always stomping around in. And it’s perfect with your coloring.”

  “I love my flip-flops!”

  She chuckles. “I know you do.” She plops back into her chair. “Go change into your clothes. We have a winner.”

  I do as I’m told. With the chosen bikini in hand, Fatima makes me pick out a big fluffy beach towel, also green, and sunglasses. I decide on a pair with giant lenses, just like the ones that Helen let me borrow.

  “Here comes the movie star,” Fatima says as she surveys my choice.

  “Here comes the nobody,” I counter, remembering the bliss of anonymity.

  We go up to the register with my purchases.

  “You should call that nice girl, Helen, who loves you so much,” Fatima says while we wait in line. “You need some friends your age to spend time with and take you places. Not old fogies like José and me. You need to get out more.”

  I nod. “I know I do.”

  She eyes the colorful bathing suit in our basket. “Wait till that boy of yours sees you in that little thing.”

  How could she know about Finn? He’s never been near the house. “What boy?”

  “Oh, Marlena. I’ve been working for your mama for nearly a decade. I see you and I see your mother every day. I know things. More than you realize. And I don’t need to see the boy to know that he’s there.”

  “But—”

  “Querida.” She turns my chin with her hand so I am looking at her, touching me so easily. “Just like there is nothing wrong with that beautiful body of yours, there is also nothing wrong with you having a boyfriend. I know your mother taught you that you can’t like a boy because of your gift. But the only thing that is going to ruin your life is you never living it.”

  I stare up into Fatima’s dark eyes, take in the gray streaks in her hair that reach toward her knot. I don’t know what to say in response to this simple offer of love. My answer is as wordless as I feel, but I hope it says to Fatima exactly what I want it to. I wrap my arms around her soft middle right there in the line at the store.

  “Ai, querida,” she whispers, burying a kiss into the top of my head.

  “Next!” the lady at the register barks, and it’s our turn to pay.

  “Turn a little—no, that way—to the right.” Helen stands behind me, twisting a lock of my hair and pinning it against my head. She’s already done my makeup. It’s Friday and we are at her house and she’s been working on “my look,” as she put it, for twenty minutes. We are going to a party, another thing on my list.

  Helen lives only an hour’s drive from my town, not far by most standards, but it may as well be an entire continent away. It’s the first time I’ve been this far from home without my mother or José as a chaperone. Helen picked me up and brought me here, to her house. It’s small—a bedroom, living room with a kitchen attached, a porch out front—but it seems perfect. It is Helen’s and only Helen’s. She rents it for college, and it’s a five-minute walk from the beach where the party is.

  “Now a little to the left,” she says.

  I’ve been doing Helen’s bidding as I watch my transformation in the bathroom mirror, in between glancing down at my new phone, trying to figure out how to send a text. I took it from the gift room before I left. Helen helped me to set it up. I bring it close to my face. Then I tap the screen. “Oh! I did it!”

  “Marlena, stop moving. You did what?”

  I am concentrating too hard on tapping the screen in the right place for each letter to answer her at first. Then I finish what I want to say and hit Send. “I figured out how to send a text!”

  Helen laughs right as her phone dings. She picks it up from the counter and reads it and laughs harder. “Marlena, I’m right here. You don’t need to text me.”

  My text said: Hi, Helen, it’s me, Marlena! I’m so excited we’re going to a party! “I know, but I wanted to test it out.”

  “You also don’t need to spell everything out exactly,” she advises. “Or use punctuation.”

  “Yes, I do. How else is the person I’m texting supposed to understand me?”

  Helen shakes her head and goes back to fixing my hair. My eyes return to the screen, tapping slowly. This time a text to Finn, which appears inside a little yellow bubble.

  My first text to Finn!

  Hi Finn. This is Marlena. I got a phone today.

  I hit Send and stare at the screen l
ike it’s a magical object, waiting for it to do tricks.

  “Turn a little again,” Helen directs.

  I obey, never taking my eyes from the phone.

  Then, suddenly, a waving smiley face, a tiny image of a truck, followed by a picture of a phone with an exclamation point appears, but nothing else. The name next to the blue quotation bubble tells me it’s Finn. My first text from Finn! “What does this mean?” I hold the screen so Helen can look at it.

  “That Finn is happy to hear from you, that he’s excited you got a phone, and that he’s driving, which is probably why it doesn’t say anything else.”

  “Oh. Okay. I’m glad you understand it. Thanks for the translation.” I type out a really long message this time. It takes me forever.

  I’ve seen so many people staring down at these things and I always think they’re going to bump into a pole or a tree but now I know why! I CAN’T BELIEVE I CAN JUST WRITE YOU THINGS! Also, please don’t get in an accident!

  This time Finn’s answer is nearly immediate.

  LOL.

  I tap my response. I am so slow. Finn, what does LOL mean?

  Finn: LOL, LOL!!!! Laugh out loud, Marlena. That’s what it means.

  Me: Stop laughing at me! I’m new at this! Where are you? Will you be at the party, when you said?

  Finn: Yes. (Still LOL.) But only if we stop texting so I can get back on the road. I pulled over to answer you.

  Me: OH! Good idea. Sorry. That’s all from me.

  I look up from the screen. I feel breathless. “I can totally see how these are addicting.”

  Helen plucks the phone from my hand and sets it on the counter next to hers. “You are not allowed to become one of those people who never look up from their phones, Marlena.” She slides another pin into my hair. “There.” She grabs her beer bottle for another sip. She gestures at the mirror. “What do you think?”

  I stare at the girl I see. My hair is up but it’s also falling around my face. Wine-colored lipstick stains my mouth and my eyes are dark and smoky. “I look older.”

  Helen studies her work. “I’d say you look your age. And hot.” She laughs and takes another sip. “Perfect for a party.”