Impossible

by Nancy Werlin

  He held her hand gently, as if it were spun glass.

  Lucy went on. "Zach, I just have to tell somebody this. It's a secret, sort of. I mean, I haven't told anybody. I know I imagined it, actually. It's not real, this thing. But it feels real, even though I know better. I want to tell you. Just you, nobody else. I know you'll hear it and be calm and not think I'm crazy or make a big deal like my parents would. And then I'll have told and it'll be over and I can let it go."

  She was clenching his hand now.

  "What is it, Luce?"

  "I can trust you? You won't think I'm crazy? Promise?"

  "Promise."

  Lucy took a deep breath. Her words came out in a big rush. "Okay. Here it is. I looked right into Gray's face after he—you know—and it was like one of those horror movies. It looked to me like his body was possessed by somebody else. Somebody else looked back at me from his eyes. And he said a few things that I couldn't even understand. It sounded like another language. Oh, and he called me by another name. Fenella, he called me."

  She hunched a shoulder. "I figure that something snapped in me. Maybe I had a crazy moment, out of shock or disbelief. Or maybe—" Now Lucy flushed, slightly. "I also had this wild theory that maybe men turned into somebody else, briefly, after sex. Sometimes."

  "Ah." Zach, who had been listening without knowing what to think, let alone what to say, suddenly had an insight. "So that's why you asked if I was a virgin? You figured maybe I'd turned into somebody else myself, when possessed by, uh, pleasure? And I'd tell you all about it?"

  Lucy actually giggled. It was a nervous giggle, but real. Zach was glad to hear it.

  "I know, I know," she said. "It's stupid. It was just an idea. I guess I had to say it out loud to understand how dumb it was."

  "Well," Zach said. "Tell you what. First time I do have sex, I'll call you right away. I'll let you know if I catch myself declaiming in Latin."

  "Yeah, right. You do that."

  "It's a deal." Zach paused. Then he said carefully, "But seriously, Lucy. I don't think so. I think men, uh, stay who they are. Jerks stay jerks. Nice guys stay nice guys." He kept a tight hold of Lucy's hand. She wouldn't look at him now, but she was still holding his hand at least.

  "I was looking for an explanation that would be rational," she said primly. "Well, somewhat rational."

  Zach nodded. He felt his way a little bit further, his mind clicking. "Okay. Luce, you know what? It makes sense to me that you wouldn't have wanted to believe this could happen with a boy you knew and liked. But the truth is, you didn't know him, not really. He was somebody else all along. Somebody capable of—well, of what he did."

  "Yes," said Lucy. "That makes sense to me too."

  He was reassured by how strong, how calm, she sounded.

  "I'm satisfied with that explanation," Lucy said, and if there was still the faintest note of doubt in her voice, Zach didn't want to pick up on it. "So, that's settled. And now I've told you. Which is a relief. I've told, but it's still a secret, and nobody will think I'm crazy."

  "No," said Zach. "Nobody will think that."

  They were silent.

  Then: "Thank you," Zach said formally. "For choosing me. Trusting me. And, Luce?"

  "Yes?"

  "You could be having wild hallucinations, and still I'd be looking around for whatever caused it, because I'd know it was grounded in something real."

  "Yeah?"

  "Yeah." Zach could hear the conviction in his voice.

  Lucy turned again toward Zach. Was he imagining that her face, her expression, looked somehow lighter, easier?

  "It's not like it makes a difference," she said slowly. "If I cracked for a moment there, under stress, and imagined this. Or not. But in a way, I want to believe he was possessed, or something. Because he's dead, and so—and so—I want to forgive him."

  "Oh," said Zach. "I see."

  Zach and Lucy sat for a while longer in silence, still holding hands. Zach found himself remembering something he'd heard Soledad and Leo saying the previous night, about healing. That it was mysterious. That it took time. And that Lucy was just at the beginning. That a terrible thing had happened—two terrible things, really—but they were now over.

  And that Lucy would be okay, in the end.

  CHAPTER 17

  Soledad and Leo had been so preoccupied with worry about Lucy that, for several days, they didn't think to follow up with the police about Miranda. So, when Miranda was released from police custody on the day after the prom, and slipped away back into her life—whatever and wherever it was—neither of them found out she was gone until days later.

  Zach, on the other hand, had wondered what was happening with Miranda, because he was the one who cleaned up the front yard. But he let the thought go. Miranda was unimportant compared to Lucy. He did not think of her again until a week later, when he got rid of Miranda's shopping cart.

  The cart, which was still partially filled with bottles, was occupying valuable garage space. It was also an unpleasant reminder of prom night. It had to go. So, early on Saturday morning, Zach wheeled it eleven blocks to the supermarket, intending to recycle the bottles and abandon the cart there.

  It was satisfying to hear the recycling machines pulverize one bottle after another. But as Zach neared the bottom of the cart, he found a garbage bag wrapped tightly around a small object that was not a bottle. It was a heavy-duty garbage bag, the thick, expensive kind. The bag was wrinkled and aged, but still holding up strongly. It was also huge. It took Zach long seconds to unwrap it from around the flat, rectangular object inside it.

  The object was a journal. It had a cloth cover with a pattern of purple pansies on it, and was bound like a printed book. The first third of the book's pages were covered with handwriting. Tiny handwriting, smeared in places, and the pages were yellowing with age. The journal would take concentration and time to read.

  Had Miranda written it? It was an incredible thought, and both a scary and exciting one. Zach squinted at the the first page, and read:

  I'm pregnant. I suspected it last week, so I went to the drugstore and got one of those tests, and now I'm sure. I don't know what to do. I'll have to think. I don't dare tell THEM, but maybe Kia will have some ideas for me. Thank God I have at least one friend in the world. I can get her alone after school tomorrow.

  I have to find a doctor too. Maybe the test is wrong. I don't think it is, though.

  THEY will want to know who it is and stuff And of course I can't tell. I never even knew his name.

  How could this have happened?

  Oh, God I am so alone.

  I am so STUPID.

  The word stupid was written with such violence that the pen had cut through the page.

  Zach discovered that he was holding his breath. He let it out. If this was what he thought it was, nobody had the right to read it except Lucy. And now was not the best time. Maybe he should wait a little while before handing it over.

  He forced himself to shut the journal.

  He finished recycling the bottles. Then he put Miranda's journal back inside the trash bag and wrapped it up the way it had been.

  He carried it home as if he were carrying a bomb.

  CHAPTER 18

  Lucy moved through the next couple of weeks in a state of mind unlike any she'd ever experienced before. It was as if she stood in the center of a clearing surrounded by dark forest. The clearing itself was safe. And yet, especially when she was alone at night, it felt like an army composed of black trees and thorny bushes was encroaching inch by inch. She had bad dreams, in which Miranda said to her, over and over, "You're allowed to fight! You're allowed to fight!"

  No matter how often Lucy repeated rational reassurances to herself, she kept right on feeling scared.

  She endured it. Her therapist said uneasy feelings were only to be expected. She prescribed sleeping pills for the tough nights, and said to keep busy, which Lucy did.

  She had a mission: to reassure Soledad an
d Leo—and herself—that she was fine. Why shouldn't she be fine? She repeated all the reassurances to herself again. First, she wasn't alone. People loved her and could help her. Also, she was following the rules. She had seen her doctor, been examined and tested, and obediently taken the medication that would avert any risk of pregnancy. She went, twice a week, to see the therapist. There was talk of a recovery group that she could join later on, if she wanted to. Third, she was taking care of herself physically. She ate normally, even though she wasn't always hungry. She exercised, adding weekly yoga and self-defense classes to her routine. Finally, she was getting on with her life. She studied for her final exams and did okay in all of them. She went to the track team's end-of-year banquet. She signed up with Sarah Hebert for a summer job at the city parks and recreation program, organizing little kids in track-and-field sports and games and crafts.

  It felt vitally important to be the queen of the fast recovery. No one must worry. Everyone must see that she was fine, fine, fine.

  She even went to Gray's wake. With Soledad and Leo close at hand, she looked into the partially open casket at his waxy dead face. Then she stepped away fast.

  The body wasn't Gray. But her awareness of this was different from when he'd raped her, different from that crazy certainty at the time that Gray wasn't Gray. This Gray—this body—was empty, while that live body had not been.

  That was the first time she felt the physical nausea. After that, the nausea came and went, like the feeling of the trees pressing closer. The occasional queasiness wasn't overwhelming, though, and so Lucy was able mostly to ignore it and to hide it from her parents so they wouldn't worry any more than they already did.

  She believed that complete healing—which would make those surreal and sick feelings go away—would surely not take as long as the therapist said. The therapist spoke in terms of months or even years. Soledad had added that occasional relapses into anxiety might occur throughout Lucy's life, and even that she should expect, on some emotional level, to be forever changed.

  But Lucy silently, vehemently, disagreed. It's different for me than for other girls or women, she thought, applying the logic she always found so comforting. The situation is different. Gray's dead. I don't have to go around being afraid of him, and I don't have to be eaten up inside by wanting some revenge that I can't have, or that would come at a high price, like having to go to court. Justice has already been done.

  So, if I just go ahead with my life, soon I'll feel completely normal. And then nobody except me and my parents and my doctors—and Zach—will ever know this happened. A day will come when I won't even think of it. Maybe in another month or two, at most. She convinced herself of this. It got her through the days.

  But not the nights.

  The western horizon turned glorious purples and blues and oranges when the summer sun set, and Lucy's heart would sink right along with it. She could not stop it. Her thoughts would circle then, restlessly, like a big old dog who couldn't find a place to settle. She tried to control her mind. She discovered that her favorite books from childhood were best at keeping the bad feelings under control, so she read them deep into the still hours. She reread Protector of the Small. She cried for twenty minutes over A Little Princess one night, and then leafed to the front of the book to begin reading it all over again.

  But every night, at some point, she also had to turn out the light and at least pretend to sleep. Then she had to lie awake in the dark, feeling … that irrational feeling of dread. Sometimes the nausea came then too, but usually it held off until morning, a vicious parting gift from the night.

  Occasionally Lucy did sleep, from sheer exhaustion, or because she took the sleeping pills she'd been prescribed. The problem was, when she slept, she dreamed.

  The dreams were not about Gray and they were not about rape. They were about Miranda: Miranda yelling about fighting. Miranda singing. Miranda throwing objects slowly and deliberately, straight at Lucy. When Lucy woke up, she could never remember exactly what these objects were. They felt as heavy as hockey pucks. They hurt when they found their marks, which they always did: Lucy's chest, Lucy's shoulder, Lucy's knee, and once, Lucy's head. In the dream, Lucy was helpless even to raise her arms to protect herself. She waited in terror for one blow after another.

  She hesitated to call the dreams nightmares. She did not want them, they were scary, and she would wake from them sweaty and with her heart thudding.

  And yet…

  In all of the dreams, at the end, Miranda would step close and gaze directly into Lucy's eyes. And then Lucy would be small, like a baby, and held close in Miranda's arms. And Miranda would cradle her and kiss her and whisper soft, pleading words, words that Lucy also could never recall, try as she might, when she awoke.

  In her dreams, at the end, Miranda loved her.

  Life went on in this way for almost three weeks. And then, on the day after the last day of school, Zach gave Lucy the journal.

  He came to the partially open door of Lucy's room and knocked. It was barely six a.m., and he was on the way to his construction job. He was dressed in heavy jeans and boots, and a really old faded Red Sox T-shirt with white paint splatters and with the name Garciaparra on the back. One hank of his thick, sandy blond hair fell over his forehead.

  "Morning." He stood there.

  Lucy, who had been checking email, gathered herself to smile and to say and do what the normal Lucy would have said and done. "Uh, Zach? Didn't we see that shirt yesterday?"

  He shrugged. "We're still painting today. No sense messing up a different shirt."

  It was then that Lucy noticed he was holding a book. He held it awkwardly, with his arm positioned in front of his body. It had purple pansies on the cover.

  "What's that?"

  Zach came in. He held out the book to Lucy. "Here. This needs to be yours."

  Something about the way Zach had extended his arm to its full length. Something about the expression on his face. And maybe something about the book itself. The ominous feeling—and its sidekick, the queasy sick feeling—returned abruptly to Lucy.

  She made no move to take the purple book. "What is it?"

  Zach looked Lucy in the eye. "I'm not totally sure. I only read a little bit. But Luce? I think that it's Miranda's diary, from when she was a teenager. At least, the first few entries in it are from that time."

  Lucy couldn't, at first, even understand.

  "I found it in her shopping cart," Zach said. Once more he offered the book to Lucy.

  The dark feeling had her by the throat now. But Lucy reached out like an automaton. She took the purple book.

  CHAPTER 19

  Lucy spent the morning reading Miranda's diary. She left a note for her parents, turned her cell phone off, took Pierre, and went to the only place she could think of where she could be reliably alone for a few hours. It was the lawn just outside the field house at the high school, near the outdoor track. There was a shady spot where she could sit with her back against an old oak tree and be nearly invisible. Pierre wandered nearby while she read, or came back and snuggled happily, panting, next to her.

  Zach had been correct. This was Miranda's diary. It began with Miranda's discovery of her pregnancy, and ended a few days before Lucy was born, covering a period of a little more than seven months.

  Miranda was a good writer, vivid and clear. Her story of being a pregnant, runaway teenager was in some ways exactly what Lucy would have expected, filled with details of betrayal and fear. But it also spoke of joy and hope and love—emotions that Miranda said would fountain up inside her when she least expected it.

  Lucy knew, from having heard Soledad talking about her work, that Miranda's experiences during her accidental pregnancy were not unique. But that did not make them any less moving. And it did not make Lucy's own experience, reading Miranda's diary all these years later, with the knowledge she possessed of what had happened afterward to Miranda, any less difficult.

  Her hand shook as she tur
ned the pages. Sometimes she had to stop for a few minutes and run a fast lap around the track, with Pierre prancing beside her. Lucy did not want to put the diary down, so she kept it clutched in one hand while she ran. Then, panting, heart thudding, she would go back to her tree and open the diary again.

  Discovery after discovery about Miranda's mysterious past. Some big, some small. Some written down plainly, some that had to be pieced together from what was both said and not said.

  Within the diary, there were occasional jumps in the narrative, and Lucy could see that pages had been torn out. These were relatively few, though, and they didn't seem important compared to the treasure trove of pages that were there.

  Lucy learned what the Markowitzes had long surmised: that Miranda had had no parents to care for her, but lived in foster care. Her foster parents were a couple she referred to only as THEM. She didn't like THEM, and THEY didn't like her. All of this made Lucy stare thoughtfully into space. How strangely coincidental that she too was in foster care. It was entirely different in her case, though, for she was loved. Lucy would never, ever have called Soledad and Leo THEM.

  There was no mention of what had happened to Miranda's real mother and father, and there were only a couple of veiled comments, without a name, regarding Lucy's father.

  As she read, Lucy became aware that the diary was not only a chronicle of Miranda's pregnancy. It was also a chronicle of Miranda going crazy. Inch by inch. And in reading it, Lucy was witnessing the whole thing.

  It was unspeakably painful.

  At one point, Miranda wrote about an ancestral curse and three impossible tasks that she had to undertake. There were two or three mentions of an elf or "faery," as if such creatures were real. Lucy skimmed over this ridiculous stuff, hurting inside, though she did pause on one diary entry that revolved obsessively around a single sentence that was repeated over and over down the page, like a fourth grader's school homework punishment: