“That’s why you rushed out of the house.” The past nine months flashed before my eyes. Mom and Dad racing to pack their suitcases. Aunt Megan not answering any of my questions. Mom’s tears. Dad’s silence. Mom’s obsessive cooking. Dad’s transformation into a workaholic hermit. “You lied! You’ve been lying this whole time! Did Aunt Megan know about this, too? And Aunt Maureen?”
They didn’t say anything, which totally meant yes.
“Was Cilla in pain?” I asked. “What did she look like?” I squeezed my eyes closed to stop myself from imagining it. But my brain was blank. Even my head was rejecting what had happened. All I saw was black emptiness.
I wonder if that’s all you see now, too.
I wonder if you’re in Heaven.
I wonder if there is a Heaven.
If there is, I hope you’re there.
Mom started to answer, and that’s when I shoved my earbuds into my ears so hard they hurt.
I heard the music and the beats, the chords and the melody.
I didn’t hear the lyrics, though.
All I heard were the words still floating around the car:
“Infection.”
“Bleeding.”
“Really fast.”
I can still hear them.
Love,
Evie
FRIDAY, JUNE 14TH
Dear Cilla,
Here’s what else I heard. Here’s what they told me when we got home, when Dad took my earbuds away from me and they forced me to sit in the living room.
Jesus looked down at us from over the fireplace, as bloody and as broken as usual.
Like you were. Like I felt.
Do you know how Mom and Dad knew where to find me? It was because they knew I’d been writing to you at Saint Augustine’s. Because the school had been mailing back everything I’d sent to you. EVERYTHING. Every question I had about God, every feeling I’d had about June, everything I’d done with June.
They knew everything. They’d read everything. That’s how they knew where I was. Because I wasn’t careful. I messed up. I left one of my letters on Dad’s desk, the one where I wrote all about my date and Tony’s Pizza and how I WAS GOING TO SAINT AUGUSTINE’S.
They know everything.
I wasn’t embarrassed, though. I was angry. Because if you’re dead, that means it was them writing to me. Mom and Dad were pretending to be you.
Which means those three letters weren’t from you, after all. You never wrote back to me. There was a reason your letters were typed—and it wasn’t just because you felt like using the computer. It was because Mom and Dad couldn’t forge more than your signature. And looking back at the letters, they didn’t even do that good of a job on that.
I wanted it to be true so badly that I probably would have overlooked anything.
Dad said they did it to spare me the pain of you dying. Mom said they did it because they were in denial, that they still felt so guilty about sending you away they needed to ignore what happened to you.
I say that’s a bunch of bull.
At least they didn’t confront me about June.
Small blessings.
Love,
Evie
SATURDAY, JUNE 15TH
Dear Cilla,
June’s called every day for the past two weeks. She e-mailed me that she’d use a secret code so I’d know it was her. Two rings, then a hang up, then two rings again.
I didn’t answer the phone calls. I didn’t answer the e-mail.
I wonder if she thinks I’m breaking up with her. I wonder if I should care.
Love,
Evie
MONDAY, JUNE 17TH
Dear Cilla,
Mom told me this morning that they’d never read my letters from when you were staying at Aunt Maureen’s. Like that news flash was supposed to make what they’d done better.
Like they were all saintly now or something.
Their big revelation doesn’t make things better, though. It actually makes them worse.
Because after you died, it’s not like you were choosing to ignore my letters.
Before you died, you were.
Love,
Evie
P.S. Didn’t you know that I was the one person who wouldn’t judge you? You didn’t have to hide from me, too.
P.P.S. I feel awful being mad at you now, but I am. I can’t help it. If you had written back, maybe you would have told me something that could have saved you. Maybe you had a cold and that caused the infection. Maybe I could have convinced you to get medicine. Maybe I could have saved you.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 19TH
Dear Cilla,
I’ve barely talked to Mom and Dad since they told me the truth. It’s been more than two weeks, too. Two whole weeks and I haven’t said more than “uh-huh” and “pass the peas.” Every time they look at me all “parentlike,” I look away. Every time they try to talk to me, I walk away.
I don’t want them in my life if they took you out of it.
Love,
Evie
P.S. I still miss you.
FRIDAY, JUNE 21ST
Dear Cilla,
Today’s the last day of school. I don’t want to go. It’s not because of the school part. I went back to school last week. I avoid June and Katie and Maggie in the hallways. I get to my classes early and don’t talk to anyone. I don’t even answer the teachers’ questions. They don’t get angry about it, either. I wonder if Mom and Dad told my teachers what had happened. What would they have said? Would they have actually admitted the horrible things they did? Or would they have twisted the truth around to make themselves look good? To make what they did acceptable.
It will never be acceptable. Because you’ll never be here again.
I don’t want to go to school because of the “you” part. You weren’t here last night, for our traditional “last day of school eve” visit to the ice cream stand. You’re not here now, to sign the yearbook we’ll get today.
You won’t be here for the lasts anymore. You won’t be here for the firsts anymore.
Mom and Dad told me I have to go today. Mom says it’s important to say good-bye and thank-you to my teachers. That they deserve that much for all their hard work.
Dad says going will give me a “sense of closure for the year.”
That’s when I lost it. All the words I’d been holding in spilled out in a flood. It was worse than Noah’s flood, and I didn’t care who got caught up in the rush.
“Closure?” I shrieked the word so loud Mom literally put her hands over her ears. “You mean the closure you didn’t give me when Cilla died?”
Dad flinched at your name.
“Why did you do it anyway?” I asked. “What good did lying do? You knew the truth would come out eventually. It had to!”
Mom squeezed her eyes shut. She looked like a little kid playing hide-and-seek, a kid who thinks that just because she shuts out the world, she can’t be seen.
Maybe they wanted to shut out what happened to you, but that doesn’t mean they should have made me shut it out, too.
Even if I want to do that same thing right now.
Love,
Evie
P.S. I miss how even in high school, you still called Cheerios “Cheer-di-ohs,” like you did when you were a kid.
SUNDAY, JUNE 23RD
Dear Cilla,
I know I should call June.
I want to call June.
I know June will make me feel better.
I don’t want to feel better.
Love,
Evie
P.S. I want you.
TUESDAY, JUNE 25TH
Dear Cilla,
Maybe they’re wrong. Mom and Dad never answered my question about what you looked like after you died. Maybe they didn’t see you. Maybe they just believed what the doctor told them.
Maybe the doctor made a mistake.
Doctors are wrong all the time, right? They tell someone they’re going to have a gi
rl baby and they have a boy. They tell someone they have incurable cancer and then everyone prays and TA-DA! There’s a miraculous recovery.
DOCTORS ARE WRONG ALL THE TIME. It’s in the paper and on the news and everything.
I bet they’re wrong about this, too.
You must have tricked the doctors and run away. Switched beds with another patient and stole their clothes.
Got a wig or a hat and snuck down the back stairs into a taxi.
Maybe Alex ran away, too. Maybe you guys reunited and you’re searching for Amélie!
I wish I knew the truth. I wouldn’t tell anyone your secret.
I promise.
Love,
Evie
P.S. I miss you.
FRIDAY, JUNE 28TH
Dear Cilla,
I didn’t say good-bye to June, Katie, and Maggie when Mom and Dad dragged me off. Okay, they didn’t drag me off. They more carried me because I couldn’t walk anymore.
I didn’t even think about them until we were home, seven hours later, and I saw the halfway-open door to Dad’s office. I remember first seeing the picture of Amélie and thinking that was the worst thing that could ever happen to me.
I remember telling my friends about the baby, and how June hugged me to make me feel better.
I remember how I dropped her hand like it was on fire when Mom and Dad saw us together.
June e-mails me about ten times a day. This morning she wrote that she would come over, but she’s afraid that Mom and Dad hate her. She said she’s afraid that I hate her, too.
I know I should care that she thinks that, but I don’t. I hurt too much to care that I’m being an awful friend. An awful girlfriend.
Everyone wants me to talk, but telling my friends what Mom and Dad told me would make it real.
It’s not real.
It can’t be.
Love,
Evie
P.S. I miss how your bottom teeth were a little crooked, just like mine. And how you made me feel like it wasn’t a big deal at all, that it made me special.
P.P.S. I’m writing this in my notebook, but I am going to mail it. Just as soon as I figure out where you are.
SATURDAY, JUNE 29TH
Dear Cilla,
I saw Alex today. I was sitting on our front lawn, staring at the rope swing Dad put up when we were kids. It was so windy that it kept swinging back and forth, back and forth.
It was hypnotic. It made me not think for a little while.
Then Alex drove by. I saw his red truck out of the corner of my eye, the one you always used to make fun of. Those pink dice were still on the rearview mirror, too. I remember when you bought them. You said you wanted to “girlify his truck” and “pretty it up.” I remember you told me how Alex pretend-argued with you, but then put them up anyway. Even though they smelled like cherries.
Alex looked right at me when he drove by, and I looked away.
I guess you guys aren’t together.
Love,
Evie
P.S. I miss you.
SUNDAY, JUNE 30TH
Dear Cilla,
I didn’t go to church with Mom and Dad today. Again. That makes five straight weeks of skipping church—after never doing it before in my entire life! (Well, except when I’ve been really sick and barfing all over the place. Or that time we went to Maine for a weekend and the Catholic Church there was closed from flooding. But even then, Mom and Dad made us pray in our hotel room for a half hour.)
I can’t go to church now, though. I can’t look at everyone there. I can’t be in the same room as them.
Because those people live in a different universe than me now. A different dimension, even. They think you’re still alive, like I did last month. Like I faked myself into believing a few days ago.
I wanted you to still be alive. I almost convinced myself it was true, that you were living in Spain under a fake name. Consuela, maybe. You had a long wig and colored contacts. You wore flouncy, bright-colored dresses and rented a room from some elderly woman.
The details of your new glamorous life were always a little fuzzy, though. When I imagined it, I could never see your face clearly. Your apartment was cloaked in shadow and the fantasy always faded away in seconds.
I know you’re not in Spain.
I think that’s why I don’t want to go to church. Because I’m jealous of everyone there. They don’t know how lucky they are.
Love,
Evie
P.S. I miss seeing your face every day.
TUESDAY, JULY 9TH
Dear Cilla,
Last night I was walking back to my room after brushing my teeth and heard Mom crying. That’s not unusual. I still hear Mom cry a lot lately. I see her crying, too.
When a piece of mail comes with your name on it.
When I refuse to go to church.
When we eat another dinner in silence.
For some reason, I went into her room, though. She had a photo album spread open on the bed, filled with pictures of us when we were babies. My short wispy hair and your twisty curls. My cake-stained face and your chubby knees.
Mom had your baby picture out, too, the one they took in the hospital. It looked a lot like the one I saw of Amélie.
There was a baby blanket on the bed, one of the pink crocheted ones Grandma used to make. There were baby clothes: little pink puffy shorts and a pink flowered onesie. A purple ruffled bonnet and a knitted white sweater.
“These were my baby’s,” Mom said.
I felt like saying “duh,” but for some reason I was trying to be nice. So I nodded.
“My first baby’s,” she said.
“You mean Cilla?” I asked.
Mom shook her head. I was confused, until she explained everything.
That’s when I realized that Mom and Dad had done something wrong, back when they were young. They weren’t always pure, sinless Catholics. They had … you know … before they were married, just like you did. Mom had gotten pregnant.
Then Mom lost the baby.
Mom started crying when she told me. Then she apologized for crying. “It’s been twenty years. I shouldn’t be crying anymore.”
I told her it’s okay to cry. Because I think I’ll be crying about you for the rest of my life. I’m not going to feel bad about it, either.
Mom explained more about what had happened. How she’d gotten pregnant in college and had been super afraid it was going to ruin her life. How it almost had. She thought about dropping out of school, and it broke her and Dad up for a while.
“I loved the baby,” Mom said. “But I hated the baby, too. Because I knew we weren’t ready yet. Because I knew people would look at me like I had two heads. Because I was going to have to give up so much.”
That’s when she started crying again and explained that after two months, the baby’s heart had stopped beating. She’d hated herself even more then. For doing something that would put her and Dad through so much pain.
She said that’s why she and Dad are such “good Catholics.” Because it had healed them. Because they thought the rules and the laws and the Word of God would save them from any more pain. From shame. From loss.
They thought it would save us, too.
But all they did was drive you away.
I almost wanted to tell Mom that it was okay. I almost wanted to hold her hand.
I didn’t, though.
But I did stay in the room with her while she went through the rest of the baby clothes. I gave her that much.
Love,
Evie
P.S. I miss your hand-me-downs. I always felt so cool in your clothes.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 17TH
Dear Cilla,
I was at the kitchen table with Mom when the phone rang with June’s super-secret code. Mom sighed. She grumbled. “These hang-ups are really getting on my nerves.” I was probably blushing, because she stared at me all narrow-eyed. “Do you know anything about this?”
I stammered
a bit, but then told her the truth for some reason.
Stupid honesty lectures and their stupid lasting effects.
“It’s June. But I don’t want to talk to her right now.” I couldn’t look at her when I said June’s name. I thought Mom was going to send me to my room. Or to church, so I could talk to Father O’Malley about “reforming.”
Mom surprised me, though. She told me I should call June back. She told me I should talk to her.
She didn’t say anything about all the stuff I wrote in my letters. She didn’t say anything about our “relationship.” (If June hasn’t dumped me already for ignoring her and being the worst girlfriend ever.)
She just said it’d be a nice thing to call my friend.
Huh.
Love,
Evie
P.S. I miss hearing you talk on the phone to Alex, even when you talked in that sticky-sweet, ooey-gooey voice.
THURSDAY, JULY 25TH
Dear Cilla,
I’ve been thinking about your baby a lot lately. About Amélie. Amélie Evelyn, if that’s even what her new family decided to call her. She’s ten months old now. She’s probably just babbling, but maybe she’s started to say a few words. “Ball” or “kitty.” “Mama” and “Dada.”
Her other Mama and Dada.
She might be taking her first steps. (I looked it up and most babies walk around a year. Some earlier. I bet your baby would walk earlier. I bet she’s super smart already.)
She’s probably picking up toys and stuffed animals and giving them hugs. (Or drooling all over them.) I wonder if she has a stuffed koala bear, too.
All the stuff I read said that babies can’t form memories. Most don’t remember things until they’re older than one. And definitely not from when they were a newborn. I like to think that Amélie remembers you, though, that some part of you imprinted itself on her when she was born.
Like a birthmark, but on her heart instead of her stomach, like the one I have.
I wonder if one day, if I ever meet her, she’ll recognize you in me.
P.S. I Miss You Page 15