by Amy McNamara
I could throw up.
I went for a midnight jog in the dead of winter in a desolate forest in the upper northeast. If I read that in the news, I’d say whoever did it was either really stupid or had a death wish. Makes me dizzy for a second. Like maybe I can’t even trust myself. Like maybe I’m losing my grip. Lost it.
I start to cool down. Get a chill from sweat. Feels worse than normal.
I get back on my route. The forest is more beautiful this afternoon than I’ve ever seen it. All the boughs slipped into their white sleeves. In some spots the branches make lace against the sky.
Patrick will never see this. I imagine myself not seeing it. Not seeing anything. Cal’s face. My father. The end of possibility. Stops me in my tracks.
It’s huge, how close I came. Flips my hungry stomach. I retch what little I ate of Zara’s lunch onto a bush.
What if it happens again? I panic and do something crazy? I only wanted to stop the feeling I was having. Made stupid decisions. Really stupid decisions.
I push a handful of snow in my mouth and start to run again. Get warm. Hit my stride. It comes to me that maybe I need them not to trust me. So I can stop trying so hard to keep it together. Let someone help me out.
Zara’s words at lunch about saying something true keep bubbling up. I used to sometimes wish I could use pictures to speak instead of words. Carry around a stack of prints and hand them out to people in response to questions. How are you might be answered with a close-up of a girl’s make-up-ringed eyes, watching a group of boys on the subway, trying to figure out if they’re hot or hostile. Or responding to What’s up with a photo of your best friend flirting with your boyfriend, just because she was bored. Today, right now, this moment would be a long shot, the photographer maybe leaning out of the open side of a helicopter, high, so there’s a little fear in it too, and way, way, way down below, a girl, making tiny tracks in the woods, still imagining an escape.
The gagging feeling climbs my throat again. If I can’t count on myself, what do I have? I feel weak. Stupid. Embarrassed. Ashamed.
My mother. My poor, worried mother. She sounded small on the phone. Wrecked. That voice she used with me in the hospital after the accident. Sweet and soft, like when I was little, scared in the night. Dr. Lang was a misstep. She said that. Like maybe a midnight run through the frigid woods was part of his therapy plan. Like somehow it might be someone else’s fault, had to be, other than mine. Shame heats my face. This kind of thing would never happen to her. How am I such a mess? How did I come from her?
I pass the spot where I crashed my bike into the tree. Where I met Cal. Then I keep running on and on through the bright white woods until I’m at his house. It looks deserted. Susanna’s gone. Like he said. And he stayed with me.
a routine
MY DAD AND ZARA don’t mention the terrible lunch. Maybe I’m wearing the shame of it on my face or something, but they both act like everything’s cool, forgotten. We start by having dinner together, the three of us, sometimes four with Cal. Then Zara moves in. A little at a time. When they’re done for the day in the studio, she and Dad take his truck to her place and bring back some of her things. Clothes, a few paintings, a chair. She’s super careful about it with me. Asks me if I mind if she straightens things up a little. Organizes the place here and there. Moves the furniture around in the living room. Knock yourself out, I tell her. We’re polite with each other.
She’s an early riser, and when I get up, she’s at the table with the paper, coffee for me, and breakfast. She likes to cook and she’s good at it. Biggest breakfasts I’ve ever had. I skip eating the first few mornings, but then she starts knocking on my door asking if I want to join her for some beans and eggs or whatever’s on her menu that morning. Quiche, crêpes, homemade fruit compote—it’s something serious every day.
At first I can hardly look at her when we’re one-on-one. I’m so embarrassed she’s here. About why she’s here. How I reacted to the news. But Dad doesn’t do breakfast, so it’s just the two of us. I keep my eyes glued to the Times, but I don’t really want to see what’s there, either. The terrible news of the world. It’s quiet. Strained. For me at least.
About a week in, I say, “I’m sorry I’ve been such a huge pain—”
She’s one of those people who looks at you totally calm, which always makes me nervous or like I’m going to cry.
“Nope,” she says, very matter-of-fact, digging into a grapefruit. Grapefruit and homemade yogurt. Which I didn’t even know you could make at home, if you didn’t have a goat.
She shakes her head. “You’re not a pain. On the contrary. I think you’re good for him. Us. Shook things up. He was set in his ways.”
This is a surprise.
“How long have you known my dad?”
“Do you mean how long have we been seeing each other?” She raises an eyebrow at me. “You can just ask me, you know. Whatever you want to know. He’s your dad.”
“Okay. How long have you been seeing my dad?”
“About five years.”
Five years. Blows my mind.
“He didn’t tell me,” I say. Push the paper away. Look out at the sun on the water. Another bright day up here.
“I know. He’s like that. We both are. Neither of us moves too fast. We should have talked to you, though, when you first got here. I wanted to. I wanted to welcome you up here. Especially since he was determined to keep his commitment to the fellows, but he didn’t think it was a good idea. He thought you were in rough shape, had too much going on. I should have pressed him harder. It was a mistake.”
So matter-of-fact.
I take a few bites of the yogurt. It’s good. Not too sweet. She’s stirred little bits of marmalade into it.
“Anything else you want to know?” she asks, eating.
“Are you from here?”
She shakes her head. “California. I moved east when I was in my early twenties. Following my heart.”
“But not for my dad.”
She smiles and shakes her head. “No, not for your dad. He was with you guys, and I was married then. Someone I met in college. I moved out here for him. He was a singer-songwriter.”
“And you divorced?”
She sighs a little. Pushes her hair behind her ear. Looks faraway.
“Yeah. It got complicated. He traveled around, we were apart a lot.”
“Do you have any kids?” I imagine a van load of stepsiblings.
A sad look flashes across her face. Shakes her head again.
“We lost a baby, our son. He was stillborn. I took it hard. Chris, my husband, went back on the road. We couldn’t face each other. After a year or so, I suggested the split, and he was fast to say yes. I moved on.”
I’m always stomping right into other people’s soft spots. I curl and smooth the edge of my placemat. Look up at her. She doesn’t look shattered or anything. She looks like she’s waiting for another question.
“So, are you going to have a kid . . . with my dad?”
She looks amused and I feel a little stupid.
“No, it’s too late for me, and your dad’s too old to start another family. I—it’s okay. I had other chances to try again, after my son, but I didn’t. I figure that means I didn’t want it enough.”
She sets her spoon down. Looks at me. I squirm a little. It’s like an emotional X-ray.
“Wren, I know something about grief,” she says.
Time for the pep talk. She’d been cool up until now. I brace myself.
“It’s something people don’t understand until they’ve lived through it.”
She sips her coffee.
“You’re still in the first year,” she says finally, quietly. “It’s really hard the first year. I didn’t care about anything after I lost my son. I let go of a lot—my marriage. But it gets better. Eventually. You come around. It doesn’t go away. You learn how to live with it—all of it.”
Not what I expected her to say.
I�
�m trying not to cry. Holding my breath. I let it out.
“Are you an artist too?” I ask in a weird voice. “I mean, on your own, when you’re not working with my dad?”
She takes the topic change right in stride.
“I paint. But I don’t have to do it all hours like he does. I’m more of a maker. And I have Mercy House, of course. I like to be busy. How about you?”
I shrug.
“Your dad’s pretty proud of your photos. Did you know he’s got a little book of them in the studio?”
I had no idea. I shake my head.
“The ones you send him by e-mail. Every few months he selects one or two and sends them to a friend of ours, a printmaker. Hitoshi prints them for your dad. Last year he stitched a bunch of them into a little book. Gave it to himself for his birthday.” She winks at me. “You should tell him you want to see it.”
My dad has never said a word about this to me. I’m speechless.
She gets a twinkle in her eye.
“Your dad’s got a lot more going on than he shows,” she says. “His heart’s huge—you guys are alike that way.”
I stare at my food a minute.
“I don’t know what I am. If I’m an artist or not,” I say. “If I should go to art school. I’ve always made stuff. My dad gave me a camera when I was nine, a little Instamatic—I’ve used one ever since.”
“I hear you have a big collection.”
I nod. “I have a few. Old Polaroids, a Minolta, a couple of really cool ones from Germany and Russia. Some toy cameras. I buy them at flea markets.”
“You know, there are a lot of flea markets up here. Maybe we’ll head out one day and hit a few. Do you use them?”
“If I can. Sometimes I sort of shoot through them with my Nikon. Patrick messed with one so it could take a digital back.”
Then I stop. Patrick’s name slipped out as if he were alive. Then, the cold stab of remembering he’s not. I swallow, hard. Force myself back on track, “Each camera makes you see the world in a different way. Like, what is it we see, really? What is what we’re looking at if it changes with the thing we use to see it? I used to love that.”
I look up at her. She’s listening, like I’m saying something interesting.
“I thought it was so important. That I was—so important.” I shrug, try to straighten up a little bit, sound sure. “It seems pretty stupid to me now. I mean, if I were really an artist, wouldn’t it be killing me not to be working? Because I couldn’t care less. About working. Seems like a waste. Pointless. Making stuff.”
Patrick was so proud of himself after he hacked that little toy camera to work with my Nikon. I still have that first hybrid photograph somewhere. His broad smile.
I open my mouth to say more, then shut it.
“There,” Zara says, “you don’t have to do that—stay caught there like that.”
She stands to clear the table. Then sets the dishes down. Touches my shoulder.
“You can’t make anything if you’re lost to yourself. You’ll want to again, it’s who you are. Wren, grieving is hard. Complex. Takes its own time.”
She sits next to me and puts her hand on mine. It’s awkward. I swallow hard. Sit up a little straighter. Tight throat.
“And you can cry when you need to, you know. I watched you choke it back just now, when you mentioned the lovely thing Patrick did for you. No one up here expects you to hide it. The thing about grief is that you have to let yourself feel it. Even the worst parts. Especially the worst parts. Pass through it. Let it pass through you. It’s your strength—your humanity—your openness to your feelings. Even when you think you might not come through.”
The worst parts. She knows everything. She must.
I put my hands over my face.
“But you will,” she says softly. “When you’re ready. This was big, kiddo. You just need time. I’ve been saying it to your dad since you got here. Telling him to relax, trust you, to call your mom off, to let you just be awhile.”
Zara’s been my secret defender.
“And Wren?”
I look up at her.
“Don’t forget your follow-up appointment with Dr. Williams today. Lucy knows you’re coming late.”
I’m astonished. I don’t know anything about anything. I had a fairy step-artist.
I thank her for breakfast and push away from the table. Time to take care of things.
breathe
DR. WILLIAMS’ OFFICE is warm. The waiting room is already full—an old quavering woman, who keeps making an ohhh sound when she breathes out, like part of her is slipping away with each breath, an even older man next to her, shifting the contents of one plastic bag to the other, a younger woman in the corner, cracking the pages of a celebrity magazine who eyes me when I come in, and makes no attempt to stop staring at me while I wait, and a tired-looking mother with three coughing kids. I perch on the edge of my seat, willing the nurse to push through the door, call me in.
Finally I’m up, she lets me into a small room with an examination bed, a sink, a little wall-mounted desk, and a stool on wheels. I perch on the papered end of the table, hope he won’t want to rehash the other night.
Dr. Williams comes in all smiles and washes his hands.
“Beautiful morning, isn’t it?” he asks, sitting on the stool and rolling to the little desk.
“I guess,” I say, trying to smile back at him.
“You guess,” he repeats, flipping open the front of my file, glancing at it for a second, then flipping it shut again.
“Well, you’re looking a lot better than you were the last time I saw you,” he says, like he’s proud of me. He rolls toward me on the stool and takes my hands in his. Turns them over, squeezes the ends of my fingers. “And how are your fingers and toes? Any sensitivity? Any issues?”
“Nope. Really, everything’s fine.”
He raises his stethoscope to his ears. “Lean forward for me and take three deep breaths. I’m going to have a quick listen to your chest.”
I lean forward and he places the stethoscope on my back.
“Did you know,” he says, after he listens to me breathe a minute, “deep breathing stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system and that’s good because it helps counteract your response to stress?”
I shake my head.
“The trick is to face it, not flinch. You can close your eyes if you like, then breathe in through your nose, a big breath, deep, then count it out slowly.”
“Okay,” I say, my mind in so many places after talking to Zara it’s hard to concentrate on the instructions.
“Your chest is clear and you’re looking much better, Wren,” he says, leaning back, patting my knee. “I’m happy to revisit the idea of an antidepressant, but deep breathing is always good in a pinch.” He winks. “Any questions or concerns?”
I shake my head. What am I going to say? Since I nearly killed myself running like a crazy person at midnight in the woods I’ve been experiencing a slightly disorienting bit of self-doubt? My dad no longer trusts me at the house alone and has adapted his entire life to make sure I don’t do anything stupid?
I look up at Dr. Williams. His eyes are light, soft at the edges, wrinkles from smiling fanning out in the corners.
I shake my head again, force another smile. Then I close my eyes and take a deep breath, like he said, hold it, then let it out slowly. This earns a huge laugh from Dr. Williams, who stands, picks up my chart, and moves to the door.
“We’re already busy this morning,” he says, writing something on a slip of paper and handing it to me, “but it’s great to start the day with someone bright and well like you. I’m here if you need me, okay?”
“Okay.” I nod. A finger of sun stretches through the top of the window blind and lights his forehead in a way that makes him look sainted. I smile.
“Oh, and Wren,” he says, half out the door, “will you ask Cal to give us a call?”
I look at the paper. In huge letters it says BR
EATHE, and below that a cell phone number. Another person looking out for me.
Bright and well. I turn his words over in my head.
meredith
I SMELL HER BEFORE I SEE HER. A little clutch of summer flowers. Drôle de Rose, a Parisian scent from her grandmother. The one thing Meredith hasn’t changed since we were little.
A packet of letters tied with a ribbon slips along the length of the reading table to me. Then another one. I look up. Meredith. Sitting at the far end. Here. In my small library. Nearly swallowed by an enormous, dark-blue, arctic-tundra-caliber parka and a pair of fur-topped boots. I didn’t even see her come in.
I close the book I was reading and look over at Lucy at the front desk. She raises an eyebrow, picks up her coffee, and walks to the armchairs in the back corner.
The bundled letters sit in front of me, relics from the lost land of friendship, or maybe missiles. Not sure which. Feels like I wrote my last one a thousand years ago. I did.
“Hi,” she says, quietly, when I meet her eyes.
My mouth is open. I close it. She’s a visitor from another life. I press my palms on the cool table top. Orient myself.
“Hi,” I say back.
She starts to cry.
I look at the letters.
“I kept writing,” she says. “One each Wednesday. There are a few extras because I wrote more when you were first in the hospital and everything was crazy—when you wouldn’t speak.” She wipes her face with her scarf.
Yeah. Crazy. When she yelled at me. Knocked me down hard when I was already down so low.
I touch the ribbon on one of the stacks. It looks like some of the vintage stuff she kept from when we cleaned out her grandmother’s findings shop. A sapphire filament crisscrossed and bowed around each of the bundles, like she tied them up with a strand of sky.