Be Not Afraid (11 page)

I smiled, but only a little.

“You know, some of the saints had visions …,” Nan began.

I rolled back over, disgusted. “I’m not a saint, Nan. And they’re not
visions.
” I sat up, clutching at my blankets. “The pain I see doesn’t appear out of the woodwork or something. It’s already there. In everyone. I see it all the time, every day. It’s crazy.”

“I can’t even imagine.” Her voice was a murmur. She rubbed my hand. “Oh, Marin. It’s there for a reason. Maybe not one that you understand yet, but one that you will. Soon. I know it.”

She sounded like Father William in his sermons, arguing that some things had no answers, that they were just for God to know. As if we were too stupid to be let in on the explanation, too dense to possibly understand how or why things happened the way they did. I dropped my eyes, defeated. It was too easy to pin something like this on God.
Too convenient. Plus, it didn’t add up—especially for someone like me who didn’t even believe in God anymore.

“Yeah.” I was tired. I wanted her to go.

She stood up and gazed at me for a moment. She looked smaller somehow in the dimness of the room, as if the shadows behind her had shortened her physical size. The pink dot inside her chest gleamed a rich rose color. “You know, great things are expected of people who are given great gifts,” she said, pressing the back of her hand against my cheek.

I closed my eyes. Another platitude that didn’t add up. Another religious-tinted quote that was supposed to fix everything. Still, I let my hand linger on hers, and I watched the space where she had been for a long time after she left.

Once, when I was eight, Mom had drawn me into her lap, the sweet, clean scent of her hair swishing against the side of my face, and picked up an iris lying on the table.

“Look close,” she whispered in my ear. Her breath was as soft as starlight, the flower inches between us. “Can you see the threes?” She touched each of the outer petals with the tip of her finger. “One, two, three.”

I did the same, marveling at how velvety soft the flower was against my skin, how the color was the same saffron shade as the walls of my bedroom. “Ooh,” I said. “Nice.”

“And now look,” my mother said, pointing once more. “Deeper, inside.”

I leaned in closer, gasping with delight as I glimpsed the smaller trio of petals inside, and then, unbelievably, another
set inside that. “Three threes!” I exclaimed, turning to look at her. “Like magic!”

“Like magic.” My mother smiled, holding me close. “But better.”

God, I missed her. My head hurt, thinking about it, a physical thing that throbbed inside my temple, and I winced under the beating pain of it. In the space above my curtain, I could make out a sky draped with stars and the edge of a swollen moon. Was she up there somewhere? Could she see me down here, flailing in her wake, struggling to put the pieces back together? Did she care? Had she ever cared?

I knew there were no answers to my questions and that there might not ever be. But I asked them anyway, a part of me demanding to know, deserving to know.

I closed my eyes finally and waited for sleep.

It was still dark when I woke up the next morning. I lay in bed, listening to Dad get ready for work. There was the telltale burbling of the coffeepot, followed by the pouring of Honey Nut Cheerios into a bowl, which he would eat standing up, the small of his back resting against the counter. There was the rush of water as he rinsed his dishes, the opening and shutting of the back door, and the crunch of his boots against the gravel as he made his way out to the truck. When I was little, I used to beg him to take me to work with him during the summer months, but he never
did. He always said that a construction site wasn’t a place for kids and that I needed to stay home with Mom. What he never understood was that I didn’t want to stay home with Mom, especially when she started to get sad all the time and sit in her big bay window and stare out at the ocean. I just wanted to be with him.

I got up when I heard the roll of the car engine and stood in my window, watching his truck move down the road. I could see the back of his head inside the cab window. Tufts of hair stuck out beneath his baseball cap like sections of unmown grass. The red taillights got smaller and smaller until they were just two pinpoints in the distance. And then, nothing.

I lay back down and stared up at Johnny Depp. All right, so maybe I would just spend the day here like this, doing nothing, thinking nothing. Was it possible not to feel anything, either? Could I do that? Just for today? Above me, Johnny smiled, his smug, almost sardonic expression strung across his face like an uneven necklace.

I leapt up suddenly and tore the poster down. It came off in pieces, tearing at the bottom where it was still hinged with tape, and I swung furiously, yanking and shredding it to bits. Panting, I threw it in the trash, each piece crumpled into tight balls, and kicked the trash can over, just for good measure. Then I got back into bed and pulled the covers over my head.

I must have slept, because the sun was bright in my room when I heard Nan knocking.

“Marin?” She opened the door, knotting a clean kerchief around her neck. “Didn’t you hear me calling you? There’s someone here to see you.”

“I don’t want to talk to anyone.”

“It’s a
boy.
” Her eyebrows were up high on her forehead. “I think he’s from your school. He says his name is Dominic.”

My heart rose and fell again. My stupid bike. The perfect excuse for him to come back over, just so he could find some reason to keep talking. Oh, he’d talk. Prod, was more like it. He’d find some way to get into it now as far as he could, probably. But why was I surprised? Had I really thought he wouldn’t come back? There were too many unanswered questions. Too much at stake here. For both of us.

“Get up, angel!” Nan’s voice drifted down the hall. “He didn’t want to come inside, so don’t make him wait out there on the porch all by his lonesome. It’s bad manners.”

I threw on some jeans and a white T-shirt, grabbed an old black cardigan and my blue scarf with the little bits of gold threaded throughout, and brushed my teeth. A few fingers through my hair, a settling of my sunglasses on my face, and I was set. I tested my breath, exhaling once into my cupped hands, and headed for the front door.

“Hey.” He looked different. Cleaned up. Khaki pants, a white T-shirt, the same leather jacket. Brown shoes with leather laces instead of his running sneakers. His hair had been combed and was parted on one side. A map of lines
spread itself across his forehead, and the blue disk inside his wrist quivered. “How are you?”

“I’m all right.”

“I was a little worried.” His eyes roved over me, as if looking for battle scars. “You know, watching you walk off like that. It was pretty dark.”

“It was fine.” I stared at his shoes—tan nubucks with scuffed toes. “I went to my friend Lucy’s house.”

“Oh. Well, good.” He nodded, as if he understood. Which he didn’t, not really. He turned, gesturing outside with his hand. “Do you think we could go for a walk?”

“Do you have my bike?” I asked instead of answering.

“I do!” He seemed startled. “Yeah, I do. It’s still in the back of my Jeep. Come on. I’ll get it for you.”

I followed him out the door, inhaling the pine-salty scent of him, and leaned back inside again. “I’m going for a walk, Nan! I’ll be back!”

“Take your time!” Her voice was a singsong.

I waited as Dominic lifted my bike out of the car. He set it down on the ground, moving the handlebars in my direction. “You obviously got home without this last night.”

“I used my second speed.” I wheeled the bike to the side of the porch and dropped the kickstand down. I could feel him smiling a little behind me.

“This way okay?” he asked, pointing to the dirt road.

“For what?”

“A walk.” He pulled on one of his earlobes. “I asked you if we could go for a walk, remember?”

I inhaled and then let it out again, a balloon releasing air. “I really—”

“I promise I won’t grab your arm,” he said, cutting me off. “Or any other part of you.” He bit his lip, realizing maybe how that sounded, and I forced myself not to smile. “We don’t even have to talk about Cassie. We can just walk. And talk about whatever.”

I looked at him suspiciously. He’d already returned my bike. And if he wasn’t here to talk about his sister, then there was no reason for him to be here. Like, at all.

“Come
on.
” He leaned toward the road, took a long step sideways. “It’s just a walk, Marin. I’m not asking you to give blood or anything.”

I fell into step beside him, keeping my gaze on the ground in front of me. Every few seconds, his hand would brush the side of mine, and he would apologize and then scoot over a little as if he had done something wrong. We were practically the same height; he had me only by an inch or so, and for a split second, I wondered what might happen if I turned my head and looked up a little, and he turned his head and looked down a little. The thought made me dizzy.

“You know, I’ve never really been out this way,” Dominic said after another moment or two of silence. “It’s sort of … off the beaten path a little.”

I stared straight ahead, not sure what to say to such a thing. I guessed he was referring to the fields that stretched out on either side of us, or the road itself, which after another mile gave way to the scattered outskirts of town
and eventually, downtown Fairfield with its multitude of stores and coffee shops. How had he known I lived here? I’d forgotten to ask him yesterday. Who gave him my address?

“I like it,” he offered. “It’s … quiet.”

“Yeah,” I said. “We like it too.”

“You’re not from around here, right? I mean originally?”

“No. We moved last year from Maine.”

“Maine,” he said, nodding. “I’ve never been that far north. I’ve heard it’s nice. Lots of lobster, right?”

“Yep.”

“You like it here?”

“It’s all right.”

He bit the inside of his cheek, scratched his forearm. The blue shape inside his wrist moved with him, a tiny spaceship getting ready for liftoff. “How about your parents? Do they like it here?”

“We live with my grandmother. She’s been here all her life. My dad likes it, I think.”

“What about your mom?”

“She’s dead.”

“Oh.” He winced. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“It’s fine.”

Except that it wasn’t fine. Aside from Lucy and a few of the wacky psychiatrists I’d been forced to talk to, I’d never told anyone here about Mom. It wasn’t like I was in any kind of denial about her death or that I couldn’t talk about it. I knew she was gone. And I knew she was never coming back. Still, saying the words out loud—
she’s dead
—did
something to me inside, shifting the pain to a place that hurt again. There was no telling what might happen or what I might say if he pressed the issue.

“How about siblings?” he asked. “You got any brothers or sisters?”

“No.” I let the air stream out of my chest again. “Just me.”

The sky was a pale blue, mottled with cottony clouds, and the tops of the trees swayed lightly under a breeze. A flock of geese trailed overhead for a few minutes, almost as if studying us from afar, and then, with a series of honks and shouts, moved on again. Maybe it was the sibling question, or maybe a part of me knew that he was restraining himself, forcing down the questions he really wanted to ask.

“How’s Cassie doing?” I heard myself say.

He paused. “She’s been better.”

“Yeah.”

“She’s home.” He looked at me, waiting for me to turn my head. “We brought her home this morning. She’s on some medicine called Risperdal, and my mom and dad hired two nurses to stay with her around the clock.”

“That’s good.”

“Marin.” He glanced back at the house, as if he had needed to get a certain distance from it before he said what he really wanted to say. “I know I said we didn’t have to talk about Cassie, but since you brought her up, I really need to tell you something.”

My heart flip-flopped. “Okay.”

“Last night, Cassie told my mother that when she saw you in the hospital, the pain in her head went away.” He said the words in a rush, as if I might cut him off if he didn’t get them out fast enough. “That might not mean a whole lot to you, but my sister has been in constant pain for almost six months now.
Six
months. She said it feels like someone is stabbing her with knives in the back of her skull and that it never lets up, not even when she goes to sleep. Can you imagine what that must be like?”

I raised my eyes the slightest bit until I could see just the edge of the silver zipper that lined his jacket.

“
I
can’t imagine it,” he went on, “and it’s happening to my little sister less than ten feet away from me. Inside my house. At our school. Every single day. I don’t know how she concentrates. I don’t know how she’s been doing anything. So do you know how big a deal it is, do you have any idea what it
means
that the pain went away—even just for a few minutes—when you came?”

“I’m glad she’s feeling better,” I said. “But I’m sure it doesn’t have anything to do with me being there. She must’ve imagined it.”

“She didn’t
imagine
it.” Dominic’s voice was tight. “I’m telling you, she didn’t. By the time I got back to the hospital, she was all tearful again, begging us to bring you back. But she wasn’t crazed about it the way she had been. I don’t know how to describe it. That weirdness in her eyes was
gone, those constant jittery movements that she does with her hands and feet had stopped. We all noticed it. My mom, my dad, and me. It was like she had a little bit of hope inside again because you had come. And because the pain had left. Even just temporarily.”

“Her pain didn’t leave because of me,” I said again. “I mean, I didn’t
do
anything. Seriously. It must’ve just been a coincidence.”

Dominic stopped walking and pulled something out of his pocket. My heart lurched at the sight of the dark green book in his hands, no larger than a deck of cards. The edges were embossed in a gold-tipped leaf pattern and an ornate drawing of a triangle inside a circle stared out from the front cover. A blue silk string dangled from the bottom, bookmarking a page. “What about this?” Dominic held the book out to me. “Is this a coincidence?”