The Healer

by Donna Freitas

  We stand there, looking at each other. I know I can’t accept a world without Finn, and I know that I have to try to heal him again, to keep trying. How can I not? What do I have to lose? What does Finn? I go to him and take his hand, grab it, because he resists.

  “Marlena, no.”

  I refuse to let it go, pull it to my cheek and press it there. Close my eyes and wait. I pray and I hope and I pray some more. But just like before, I am dry inside. Colorless. When I open my eyes, tears are streaming down my face and down Finn’s as well. “Did anything happen?” I ask him. “Did you feel anything change?” I hear how pathetic I sound. “Because maybe, the people at my audiences . . . they seem to think that . . . that I can still heal. . . .” I think of what Alma said. “Maybe it’s not working because of you. You need to try, too. Maybe I can only heal if you want to be healed. Finn, Finn?”

  He is shaking his head.

  I can feel him pulling back his hand.

  This only makes me hold on harder.

  “Please?” My eyes are raised toward the windows of the center, toward the cold gray sky above. “Just one more time. I will do anything. Give anything. Everything.”

  “Marlena.” Finn’s tone is decisive. “You have to stop.”

  “I can’t,” I sob. “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.”

  He peers into my tear-filled eyes. “Yes, you can. I need you to.”

  I shake my head. My nose is running. I don’t even care. What does it matter? What does anything matter if I can’t save Finn?

  “I’m okay with this,” he says.

  I stare up at him, sniffling. Wiping at my cheeks. “You’re okay with what?”

  “With . . . my situation.”

  “With dying?”

  There. The word is out. Between us. Gleaming.

  “Yes, with dying,” Finn says quietly.

  “But, but how? Why? You can’t be! You’re too young!” I choke out words between sobs. “You’re so smart! You’re supposed to change the world! You’re a genius!”

  You’re mine, I think, and sob harder.

  He takes my hands and holds them lightly in his. “But this is my life. It’s the only life I have. The doctors can’t do anything else. I have to accept this. So do you.”

  “No.” I am shaking my head back and forth. He sounds just like Alma.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s not enough.”

  “Marlena,” he says. His hands tighten around mine. “It has to be.”

  “But what if—”

  “No more what-ifs, no more begging God to help you save me. No more trading with God, your life for mine. No more promising God you’ll never sleep with me again so that you may be able to heal me. No more regretting our time together because maybe God is punishing you for it. No more.” Emotion thunders across his face. “I do not give a shit what you told God you’d do in order to save me or whatever it is you promised that good-for-nothing deity people are always promising things to. What I care about is what you promise me. Right now, during my last days on this planet.”

  I’ve nearly stopped breathing. “What do you want me to promise you?”

  “I want you to promise to love me until the very end. Like you did before all this—” He sweeps a hand across my white dress.

  “You want me to love you,” I whisper. “That’s all you want?”

  Finn nods. “That, to me, is plenty. More than enough.”

  “And in loving you, you also want me to give up on you? While you give up on you, too?”

  “It’s not giving up,” he says. “It’s a choice to live.”

  “No,” I say forcefully. “It’s a choice to die.”

  “If you want to look at it that way, that’s your decision. But in my mind, it’s choosing to live every one of the last days I have with the person I love the most in the world. Which is you. What more could I ask for in life?”

  More days. More years.

  Finn takes my hands again. “Promise me, Marlena,” he says. “Please? I need you to stop trying to heal me. I want you to accept me the way that I am. I want you to accept that the best thing for me to do right now is to enjoy the time I have left.”

  “I don’t know if I can.” I close my eyes. The press of Finn’s fingers on my skin causes my heart to skip and stutter.

  A vision starts right then. I haven’t had one in so long that I nearly don’t recognize it. It reaches out to me like the hand of an old friend and I take it, eagerly, letting it spread through my body and my heart and my mind like a salve, wondering if maybe this is it, the moment when I am going to heal Finn. But then it’s not like the visions from before all of this started, from my audiences during a healing. This vision is more of a memory.

  In it, I see the beach and the wet sand, smell the warm air and the bright-blue sky. I see the gentle, crystal waves of the sea swelling toward me. There I am in my bathing suit, alone, the remnants of a toppled dribble castle on my legs, asking so many questions—what-ifs about God and the world and God versus the world. And then, as I get up and wade into the water, one foot in front of the other, I am making a decision that the world is enough for me, that this one glorious day is enough for me, that the promise of seeing Finn is enough for me. I am deciding I don’t need anything more than that, this. Me. Finn. What is right in front of me, here and now.

  I open my eyes and find myself deciding this once again. I want what is right in front of me now, for however long it is mine to have. And that is enough. It has to be. Finn is not just enough, he is more than enough.

  Finn blinks back at me, waiting for my answer.

  “Finn,” I begin, slowly, carefully, knowing that each word, each syllable matters. “You are right. Every day I have with you is more than I’ve ever hoped for.” He steps forward and curls into my chest, pulls my arms around his body, and we stay there, holding each other. I whisper one more thing, as though it’s a prayer, a holy vow, the most loving of promises, because Finn deserves to hear this truth from my lips. “I promise to never let you go. Not for another second that you have on this earth. For all of those I will be with you, until the very last one.”

  And I am.

  Four months later

  PART FOUR

  Now & Then

  FORTY

  The day of the funeral is sunny and warm. One of the first nice days of spring. The snow is gone; the air smells like grass and flowers. The ocean sparkles with light.

  We gather at the beach to remember him. Angie, of course. Helen. Fatima and José. Friends of Finn’s from graduate school. Finn’s mother, who I had the fortune of meeting during his last months alive—estrangement makes no sense at the end, I guess. Finn was loved, this much is clear. But there are other people here, people I didn’t expect. People who came for me. Mrs. Lewis. Gertie. The Almeidas and some of the other shop owners from Main Street. A lot can change in a few months.

  Everything, really.

  We stand there on the rocks as the sun rises in the sky. We laugh and we cry, and after everyone has said what they need to say, Angie, Finn’s mother, and I spread Finn’s ashes into the sea.

  When it is my turn to let Finn go, I stare out onto the water for a while. And I talk to him. I don’t care if I seem crazy or strange. Finn is with me still, and I don’t need to see him to know this, to take that leap of faith. I feel it in my heart and soul and mind and all throughout my body. I still don’t know what I believe, exactly, with regard to miracles and gods, but I know that I believe in this world and the people in it. I believe that love and loving others is the most important part, the one command we must obey if we are going to think in those terms. I know that the people here on this beautiful morning have taught me this. Flesh-and-blood people who are ready with a hand, a hug, a soothing touch, to reassure me that this much is real. Finn, most of all, taught me this. How to love and how to give myself over to a life of love. I will be forever grateful for this lesson.

  “I love you, Finn,” I say out lo
ud. “Thank you for every minute.” I let the last of Finn’s ashes be taken by the breeze, and I watch as they float out toward the sea.

  Angie glances at me as we walk toward the cars parked on the side of the road. “I’ve never known anyone like Finn,” she says, with a sad smile. “He was exceptional. So smart.”

  I smile a little. “I know.”

  We grow silent. Our arms brush as we walk. My days of no touching are over. I welcome the reassurance of so much humanity.

  Something catches my eye.

  At first I think I am seeing things.

  Then I realize that no, it’s definitely her. My mother came to the funeral. Her back is to me and she is about to vanish around the curve of the road. But before she turns I catch her gaze.

  Tears sting my eyes. I’ve spent a lot of angry tears because of my mother, but these are strangely hopeful. In her expression I see something I’ve longed to see but never have. Or maybe I’ve never let myself. There is an understanding there on her face that can only come from having known the pain of grief herself. If there is anything my mother knows, it is loss.

  Maybe there is hope for my mother and me.

  “Bye, Marlena,” Angie says when she reaches the car. “Don’t be a stranger.”

  I nod. Then watch as she drives away.

  The end came fast for Finn, but it was also slow.

  It’s difficult to explain what it’s like, to be with someone so constantly during the last days of their life, until they take their last breath, especially when that person is someone you love. I used to think that describing my visions was hard, talking about what it was like to heal, but even that doesn’t compare. How could mere words capture the extraordinary beauty that is, was, the life of Finn? His last days? The two of us together?

  We moved into my grandparents’ house.

  The two of us worked fixing it up. We dusted and polished my grandmother’s things, cleaned the kitchen, the shelves, the workshop where my grandfather had his carpentry business in the basement, still full of his old tools. We found his sign for it there, the letters hand stenciled with a pencil, his name Manuel Oliveira painted tall and proud at the top, the word CARPENTRY in all caps underneath it. Finn set the sign on one of the shelves in the living room.

  All during that winter, we lit fires in the fireplace, and we cooked dinner as the snow fell during a blizzard. He told me about his life growing up in Oregon, how he discovered his love of the brain and decided to become a scientist. I told Finn about my mother’s stories of my grandparents, about growing up on São Miguel in the middle of the Atlantic, and then immigrating to America, and trying to make a life here.

  “I wish I could get to know your mother,” Finn said once.

  “I wish I could get to know yours,” I said to him back.

  Finn looked away. He and I were so similar in so many ways. Even the painful ones.

  We had visitors. Fatima and José. Helen and Sonia. Angie, of course. One afternoon, José came over with something I asked him to retrieve from my mother’s house. It took some effort to get it through the door.

  “Okay, Marlenita.” José offered me a quick kiss on the cheek and gave a wave to Finn. “I hope I got the right one,” he called out as he shut the door behind him.

  I took the thin rectangular package and brought it to the couch where Finn was sitting. “I made this for you. Because of us,” I told him.

  Finn peeled back the brown paper wrapping.

  “Marlena,” he breathed. “What is this?”

  The two of us held it there, looking at it together. Thick swirls of red and pink and white danced across the canvas, abstract peonies bursting in their bright and dizzy glory.

  I got up and propped the painting against the wall. “You know how I’ve always painted my visions.” I let my eyes settle on his. “I painted this because of us. It’s my vision of loving you, of being with you, of us together.”

  “It’s beautiful,” Finn said.

  That night, he took the tools from my grandfather’s workshop and hung the painting on the wall of the living room so we would always see it.

  It’s still hanging there today.

  I live alone now, in my grandparents’ house. When the weather is warm I sit on the porch swing that Finn fixed for me. Remembering him, and us together.

  “We make an ironic pair,” I told him once.

  It was mid-February, just after Valentine’s Day. I’d filled the cottage walls with paper collage hearts. I’d never had a valentine before.

  “How so?” he asked me.

  “I’m a washed-up healer dating a dying boy.” I tried for a laugh. It came out a sob.

  Finn didn’t laugh either. “Don’t think like that.”

  “But it’s true,” I said, then changed the subject.

  I learned a lot of things about Finn while we lived together. Like the fact that when Finn was still alive, he slept like the dead. Not funny, I know, but also true. Every night we spent in this house, I would wait for Finn to fall asleep. Then, quietly and ever so slowly, I would place my hand on his chest, right over the smooth skin that covered his ribs, slightly to the right, until I felt the pulse of his heart underneath my palm.

  And then, I would call upon my gift.

  I called and I waited. Called and waited.

  Again and again, I tried to heal Finn, even though he made me promise I wouldn’t. I couldn’t help myself. How could I not at least try? What Finn didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him, I decided. But my knowing that I gave up would hurt me.

  Eventually, I would retract my hand.

  I still don’t know why I couldn’t heal Finn. Maybe I never will. Maybe that is just life. Normal life.

  It’s what I always wanted, isn’t it?

  Then one night, late in March, I had a vision. That charm of mine, the charm that is my gift, was suddenly, magically, back in my pocket. One palm closed around it, tight, while the other pressed into Finn, seeking the heart within his chest.

  First came the pain that filled up my body, and the exhaustion that forced my eyes closed. But soon I was awash in colors, so many colors.

  At first they were only shades of gray, but I fought beyond this darkness to the brighter shades, the reds and the pinks and the vibrant roses. I settled into this vision like the comfiest of chairs, like going home after the longest of absences. That’s when the scenes came to me, came for me, and I was content to see all that was there, to watch as hope bloomed under my fingertips. One after the other I saw them, scenes of Finn and me on the beach, of Finn and me with friends, of Finn cooking dinner while I watched over his shoulder, of Finn and me walking through the snow, through the rain, through the neighborhood where my grandparents and mother once lived and where I live now, of Finn and me talking late into the night as we lay in bed. It was a moment of true ecstasy, of union between our souls. I don’t know how many scenes I experienced before I realized what every single one of them had in common.

  I retracted my hand.

  They were all scenes from the past.

  I swallowed around the thick lump in my throat. Watched the labored breathing of the boy I loved, the rise and fall of his chest.

  I should feel consoled, I suppose.

  Even after everything, I am still a visionary.

  Sometimes I wonder what would happen if the girl I used to be knelt down to take the hand of the girl I am today. The one who walks the beach on this evening, looking out at the sea.

  What would that girl see and feel if she pressed her forehead to my skin, against the back of my hand? Would the vision start in the heart like so many others? Or might it begin in the chambers of the soul, darkened by grief? Would there be colors, and if so, which ones? Would the scenes she saw be an endless stretch of emptiness, or would they be laced with a love that carries a person forward, like an endless swell across the ocean?

  There are some people who will never forgive me for letting the healer that I was go. They send bags of letters saying
I shouldn’t have given her up, that I owed the world more miracles and that I turned away from the responsibility that comes with being a living saint. There are people who believe I was rightly punished by God by having to face the loss of someone I love. By not being able to save him. That being unable to save Finn is a fitting payment for the lives I have taken.

  But there is one thing I know, and that is that I do not regret Finn.

  I could never.

  “I thought I was protecting you,” my mother said the other day, nearly at this very same spot on the beach where I stand now.

  She and I are speaking again. Or trying to.

  “I knew that I wouldn’t be around forever, but the church, your gift, the house, the money, your legacy as a healer, they would still be there for you after I was gone.”

  I nodded. I’ve been doing my best to understand my mother’s logic, because she’s been doing her best to explain it to me.

  “But you’re still here,” I said.

  “And your Finn isn’t,” she said back. “I’m sorry for that.”

  “I know, Mama.”

  “Remember what you promised, Marlena,” Finn said to me during one of the last days we shared together. He took my hand into his across the table.

  His was shaking.

  Not long before, I’d told Finn a secret.

  “I’ve been thinking that maybe I’ll become a doctor,” I said.

  We were tangled together on the porch swing, under a blanket. It creaked as it moved.

  “A doctor like Angie? A doctor like . . .” Finn trailed off.

  Like me. That’s what he was going to say but didn’t.

  “Not like Angie,” I told him. “Like, in a hospital.”

  Finn tightened his arms around me. “So the healing kind.”

  “Yes,” I said. “You know, Hildegard was a medicine woman. She studied herbs and plants. She cared about healing the bodies of her fellow nuns.”

  “I did not know that.”