Indigo

by Gina Linko

  Was she pregnant? Oh Jesus. What could it be?

  “Sit down, Corrine.”

  “What is it, Mia-Joy?” I sat down in the chair across from the bed. She composed herself, applying some lip gloss and fixing her curls in her compact mirror before she began, all the while my heart thudding in my eardrums.

  “I knew something was up,” I told her. “I knew I should’ve—”

  “Shut up, Corrine,” she said. “This isn’t about you. And you don’t know anything. You’re not the only one who can have a crisis in this world.”

  I sat back, wounded. But I deserved that, didn’t I?

  “Oh, stop it,” Mia-Joy teased. “Just let me get it out, okay? It’s embarrassing. It’s … shitty, ya know?” She bit her lip for a second. “I work at it—seeming like I got my shit together. For you. For the kids at school. For everybody. But mostly for my own sorry self.”

  I waited.

  “I like seeming like I’m in control, working it, ya know?”

  “You do have it all together, Mia-Joy,” I said. “I don’t understand.”

  She took a deep breath. “Okay. Summer of seventh grade. It started then.”

  I made a face at her. “Seventh grade?”

  “Yep. Puberty.”

  What did she mean? The year she got boobs? The year she became beautiful? “You handled that like nobody’s business, Mia-Joy. Ugly duckling to a swan. Although I don’t know if I’d go so far as ugly duck—”

  “I spent half the year throwing up every meal I ate.”

  “You did?” I was flabbergasted. Mia-Joy? Bulimic?

  “You didn’t know about that, Corrine?”

  “No. Jesus.” I was speechless. Dumbfounded. “So since then … now?”

  Mia-Joy blanched. “On and off.” She was embarrassed, wouldn’t meet my eyes. She knotted and unknotted a stray string from a curl of a blanket in her lap. She looked so small there, sitting in her mint-green hospital gown. It hurt her to tell me this, to show me this weakness. “With my diabetes, it makes things worse. Messes with my pump, the insulin, if I’m screwing up like that. Mom caught me. That’s why I’m here. Last time, she told me she’d give me one more chance.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Mia-Joy, you’re too smart to—”

  “Spare me the speech, Corrine, okay? I get it. I know. I know it doesn’t make sense. I know that. But I know I need help. People aren’t perfect.”

  “But you have to know how beautiful you are. Guys are like drooling—”

  “I think …” Mia-Joy licked her lips and closed her eyes. This was hard for her to talk about. “I think I’ve learned that it’s how I keep control. I feel things getting crazy and I—”

  “But you’re the one who always handles things so—”

  “No. You can’t put me up on that pedestal, Corrine. Not me.” Then she eyed me, looked a little bit more like herself. “You can’t put anybody on that pedestal, yourself included.”

  I nodded and stopped myself, realizing I was only going to sermonize. “So you’re staying here?”

  “For a while. Then outpatient therapy.”

  “You don’t think I could help with the touch or anything?” I was surprised when the offer came tumbling out of my mouth.

  But Mia-Joy just gave me a look. “Girl.”

  “I just thought maybe I could get you back to normal, back—”

  “There is no normal!” she snapped.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Corrine, if I’ve learned one thing about trying to be perfect, it’s that it’s not attainable. Nobody’s normal. Nobody’s perfect. Not you, not me. And none of us has it all worked out. We don’t get to perfect and then that’s it, ya know? It’s about waking up each day and trying. Making better decisions.”

  I sat in silence with her then, trying to digest this. How did I never know this about Mia-Joy? How had I been so oblivious? She had needed me, and I had never even known.

  “Mia-Joy, you’re beautiful. Everyone thinks so. You can’t seriously think you are too—”

  “Sometimes … sometimes …” I saw the mask lift from her face again. I got up, sat on the edge of her bed. I hugged her. “Sometimes I know,” she said quietly.

  “Can I help?” I said. “Let me help somehow.”

  But Mia-Joy had her own agenda. “Yes, you can. Let’s talk about you.”

  “Mia-Joy, no, I didn’t come here to—”

  “Corrine, you’re lost right now.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “No, listen. I know you. You miss how you used to be in Chicago. Confident. Things were all black-and-white, cut-and-dry.”

  She was right. How could she know this? And why were we talking about me? “How do you—”

  “You weren’t perfect there either, Corrine. You just like to think you were.”

  “Mia-Joy, I—”

  “That asshole, what was his name? The rich kid you brought down for Mardi Gras last year?”

  “Cody?”

  “Cody. Arrogant rich kid. What had he said about your violin playing? Cute.” She made a gagging sound at the thought.

  “I can’t believe you are going to—”

  “Believe it. I’m just trying to snap you back into reality, Corrine.”

  “Consider myself snapped,” I retorted.

  “He might hurt you,” she said.

  “Cody?”

  “No. Rennick.” She gave me her know-it-all look again, and I liked it, even though what she was saying was hitting a little too close to home. “He might hurt you. You might hurt him. But you have to let somebody in finally, don’t ya, Corrine? I mean, you need to live. Sophie would want that.”

  “I am living.”

  “No. Not really.” Mia-Joy rolled her eyes. “You hold everything and everyone at arm’s length if you can’t completely control it. People. The touch. Definitely that boy.”

  Was I doing that? “Mia-Joy, I’m not—”

  But she was still going. Really going now. “Truthfully, you are worse off than me. You should be sitting in this bed, having all these old bald men asking you, ‘And how does that make you feeeeeel?’ ”

  “Mia-Joy!”

  “Just listen, Corrine. Life is messy. If it’s good, it’s really messy. I think you sometimes forget that. Life before Sophie. After Sophie. You idealize it all. And this touch, this blessing you have, it’s just making it worse. Nothing’s easy. Clean. Black-and-white. It doesn’t work that way.”

  I pursed my lips, tried to blurt out some zingy comeback. But nothing came. Because she was right.

  “Just give in to the flucking chaos that is life, Corrine,” Mia-Joy told me. She was really on her high horse. But I could see it there in her face that she was sincere too. “Have some fun.” She smirked now.

  “Jesus, you’ve been spending too much time with the shrinks already.” I gave her a smirk right back.

  And I hugged her, hugged her close to me, and she shuddered and let out a few tears, and it seemed so out of place, so un-Mia-Joy-like. I promised myself that I would be more present for her. I had been so stupid for never once thinking she might need me.

  I called my mom and checked in, and Rennick said that he wanted to take me home for lunch. Lila and Dodge were antiquing up north, and Rennick turned a little flushed when he said we could be alone.

  We talked about Mia-Joy on the way over to his house. He explained how Mr. and Mrs. Rawlings blamed themselves, how he blamed himself for not speaking up about the rip in the aura. I took my part of the blame too.

  “I think she’s going to be fine now, though,” I told him.

  “Yeah? And what if she hadn’t been?” He eyed me from the driver’s side.

  “I don’t know,” I told him. “I don’t know yet.”

  “I don’t think you need to be afraid of it.” He said this quietly, and he reached his hand over toward me, laid it on the seat between us. An invitation. “Either way, Corrine, I am here.”
/>   I thought about all the advice and expounding Mia-Joy had just given me in her hospital room, and I realized that it had affected me.

  I didn’t know exactly why or how, but it had me thinking. And, yes, I was scared. But I could move on, push forward. Rennick and me. The touch. They were both scary. They were both out of my control, but they were not tied to each other. They didn’t have to be.

  I had no warning signs now.

  I reached across the seat of the Jeep and grabbed Rennick’s hand. He clasped onto mine tightly and let out a sigh, as if he had been waiting for this. Just this. Only this. Could he really want me, just me? With or without the indigo touch? And if so, did I deserve it? After everything? After Sophie?

  “Thank you,” I said, and leaned my head on his shoulder.

  “For what?”

  “Kindness.”

  We pulled into the driveway, and he steered us back toward his garage. His hand never left mine, and I trailed behind him. He opened the old sliding barnlike doors, and there they were. His paintings. Auras, dozens of them. Beautiful combinations of colors, a kaleidoscope of stripes melting into hazy fogs, pastel clouds meeting a storm of jewel tones. There were many auras here, all beautiful in their own way, but I saw the one everywhere—mine—repeated in many different perspectives.

  As I spun around, Rennick let my hand go finally, and there was one painting my eyes were repeatedly drawn to, the only one of its kind. It was a dark and haunting mixture of blues and reds. And even as I was asking the question, I knew the answer. “Whose?”

  “Mine. Before I met you.”

  I processed this. “So auras are in flux.” I realized that this only made sense, but I had never really thought about it.

  “Don’t sound so surprised. Life is flux. Life is change.”

  “And whose aura is the one?” I asked. “Painted and repainted?”

  “You know it’s yours,” he said, and wrapped his arms around my waist.

  “Exactly what changed in your aura when you met me?” I asked, except his lips were on my shoulder now, running up and down my neck, his hands pressing on the small of my back. “Mmmm,” I moaned.

  “Hope is in there now. Pink,” he murmured. “Purple,” he added, and he picked me up then, just swept me up with one arm under my legs and walked us toward the sofa in the back corner. He gently laid me down.

  “Purple,” I repeated, my whole body nearly about to explode. Purple. Love. Did Rennick really love me? Hadn’t he just about said as much? Why did my mind act so surprised? My heart already knew this. My heart had known it for a long time.

  Rennick braced himself above me, and he hovered there, kissing my collarbone, his lips brushing that spot under my ear. “Corrine,” he murmured, his eyelashes tickling my earlobe.

  “Purple?” I asked again, teasing.

  “Listen.” He smiled. “I wouldn’t be too cocky here. Your aura has purple in it as well.” The flush rose in my cheeks. Rennick sat up and pulled his T-shirt over his head. I sat up, breathless, my heart pounding.

  I kissed him, and he kissed me back deeply. I tasted his lips, his stubbly chin, his jaw, his ear. “I want to put my hands on you,” I whispered.

  And he shivered against me. “Corrine, I—” He pulled away a little bit. But I wouldn’t let him. I pushed him back onto the sofa and lay on top of him, pressing my body into him, kissing him, letting him know I wanted this.

  I sat up and picked up his left hand. I kissed his roughened palm. I placed his hand over my heart, and then I used my fingers to trace every muscle on his torso, his ribs, his abs, his delicious abs. Our eyes locked. I pressed my palms flat on his chest and kissed his neck, his Adam’s apple, ran my hands through that hair. Kissed those ridiculous eyelashes. He pulled me to him and sat up. He repositioned me in his lap, and I crossed my legs around him.

  His hands were on my back, under my tank top, palms flat to my body, and we were so close, so close, and he pulled me to him, closer, closer, and it felt so good, I could hardly contain myself. I threw my head back, sighed, and his lips were on my neck again.

  I reached down to pull off my tank, and Rennick froze. “Corrine,” he said, “we don’t have—”

  “I want to,” I said, and I meant it. “I trust you. Us. This moment.”

  His face twisted up, like he was going to protest. He raked a hand through his hair. He pulled me close, kissed me hard. But then he pushed me away. “Corrine, wait.”

  “Rennick, I want to—”

  He traced his fingers over my lips then, onto my cheek, my chin. “I love your chin. That little point.” He kissed me again softly. Sighed. Pulled away.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “It’s just everything. Us. It doesn’t have to be such a grand gesture. Huge decision. It’s not like either we can’t touch at all or we completely do it. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I want … I would love to …” He raked his hand through his hair again.

  And I resisted the urge to be hurt by this, to slink inward. I tried to really hear him.

  “I mean, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. I want you, Corrine. But I want you always … a million yeses, every day. Forever.” He swallowed hard, and I could see that he was scared of how honest he was being. “It doesn’t have to be one huge yes. It can be us. Together. Over and over. Every day. I want that. Not just one big decision to prove something.”

  I thought I understood what he was saying.

  I nodded, tried to internalize this. I kind of got it. And I thought of Mia-Joy. It’s not like we get to perfect and then we’re done. Isn’t that what she had said?

  I could do this. I believed in the power of decision. And I could decide yes to Rennick, over and over. Again and again. A million yeses. I liked that. My heart swelled and floated when I stepped out of my own insecurities enough to really hear what he was professing to me.

  Him and me. Every day. Forever.

  Inside my head I was listening to Beethoven’s Romance in F Major. The flurry of crescendoing excitement. I looked at the guy in front of me. The well of emotion in his eyes. The sweet, heartbreaking wrinkle of concern between them. “Thank you,” I said, wanting to kiss that sweet, beautiful spot on Rennick’s front teeth, right where they overlapped. My Rennick. We held each other’s gaze then for a long moment and he changed then. Became gentler, slower, more in charge, made us savor it. Poco a poco.

  And later when he held me close to him, his arms wrapped around me, I pressed my palms to his face, brought his lips to mine. It was still Beethoven in my head, but now Ode to Joy.

  “I love you, Rennick.”

  His eyes softened then. He buried his face in my neck, and he whispered it. Dolce. “I love you too, Corrine.”

  That night, as I lay in my own bed, I was back in that place, where I felt so open to possibility. To everything. To meanings.

  Nobody tells you that this is what growing up is.

  I mean, Rennick was right in everything he had to say to me, and Mia-Joy was right too. But they both were still only circling the target.

  Nobody tells you that this is what growing up is, learning that you actually control very little in your life. Learning that you can’t force your hand. Learning that you are not in charge. Learning that you have to risk, take chances, walk that thin, thin line. Moderation. Faith.

  These are difficult things for a person like me. It goes hand in hand with humility.

  When I came home from Rennick’s, Mom and I had talked about Mia-Joy, and she asked me if I had tried to heal her at all. If I thought that was possible.

  “I think,” I told her, “that sometimes there are things, certain important things, that you can only fix by digging down deep into yourself, finding that faith. Nobody can give you that. You have to find that on your own.”

  Mom had nodded, and the way she sucked in breath and absolutely forced herself not to relate everything back to my situation, well, it was written all over her minister’s face. And there was something else
written there. Pride. Love.

  Now, watching the shadows of the pear tree dance on my bedroom wall, listening to the cicadas sing their nightly song, I let myself consider that there was nobody to blame for Sophie’s death. I considered that I might never know the whys of it. The hows. And I had to make my peace with that, inside. This is what growing up was. Understanding that nothing real has a glossy, shiny sheen to it. Nothing perfect lasts. And we are all left with this reality eventually.

  I had to give it up and move forward. This seemed scary and exhilarating. And I felt naked going out into the world without that insulation. Because although Rennick was close to understanding how I was using Sophie’s death to push others away, he didn’t understand one part of it. Giving up that insulation, that cushion of guilt, meant facing there was no more Sophie. Letting her go.

  No Sophie graduating from high school. No Sophie learning to put on makeup. No Sophie at my wedding. No letters from Sophie when I went away to college. No more ridiculous pantomime shows performed by Sophie and her buddy Mitchy. No more checking under her bed for spiders while she played with seventeen earthworms housed in a jam jar by her bed.

  No more Sophie. Whether I saved others with the touch or not.

  No more Sophie. And that insulation had been a barrier, something to focus on rather than staring that fact in the face.

  I tiptoed out of my bedroom into Sophie’s old room. I wanted to look at her pictures. I wanted to think of her, just how she was. But when I got there, I saw that Mom was already sitting on the floor, the album in her lap, a glass of wine in her hand. I settled down next to her, folded my feet under me.

  “I miss her,” I said.

  Mom nodded, sniffled, took a sip of her wine. I slipped my hand into hers and tried to ignore her tears. I let her have this moment. I heard Dad clear his throat from the doorway. I got up and hugged my father. My mother joined in the fold, and the three of us held on to each other. Broken, imperfect. But ours. Dear. Irreplaceable. Real.

  I eyed Sophie’s second-grade photograph, the open album on the floor. Her gap-toothed smile. I felt her there, right then, with us.