“What did he say?”
“He said there wasn’t really any form or sense to it. That it was like feeling without knowing. Like a fever dream. Like the dream of second chances. He said the only part of it that had definition was a porch swing in front of a red brick house, but he didn’t know what it meant at the time so he didn’t say anything about it to anyone. Then he showed me this old picture of him sitting with my grandmother on a porch swing in front of the red brick house she lived in when they met.”
“That’s sweet,” she says, but there’s almost something like disappointment there and I wish I was allowed to reach over and touch her face or her hand or anything.
“Yeah, it’s sweet,” I say, not meaning it. “Except he didn’t actually meet her until three years after he had that accident; that’s why he didn’t get it at the time. But once he saw that swing and that house, then he knew. He knew he wasn’t supposed to die. He was supposed to come back so he could meet her because his heaven was where she was, even if he didn’t know it at the time. And that’s why he wasn’t scared.” I turn to see her watching the moon, the ghost of a smile playing on her lips where the disappointment was a minute ago. I look up at the sky to see what she sees and she moves closer and rests her head on my chest. I don’t care if it’s only because she’s cold or the metal truck bed is hard as hell. I don’t question it; I just close my arm around her and pull her into me like I’ve been doing it for years. “Like I said. Lots of pain killers.”
***
“Was it good advice?” she asks on the drive home. Her head is resting against the window and she’s watching the road go by.
“What?”
“You said your grandfather gave you one last piece of advice. Was it good advice?” She’s sitting up now and facing me.
“No,” I laugh, when I think about it. “I’m fairly certain it was the worst piece of advice ever. But I’m going to blame that on the drugs, too.”
“Now you have to tell me. I have to know what qualifies as the worst advice ever.” She twists her body towards me and tucks one of her legs under the other.
“He said,” and I’m almost embarrassed telling her this, “that every woman has one unforgiveable thing, one thing that she’ll never be able to get past and for every woman it’s different. Maybe it’s being lied to, maybe it’s being cheated on, whatever. He said the trick in relationships was to figure out what that unforgiveable thing was, and to not do it.”
“That was advice?”
“I warned you. He also told me there was a raccoon in the kitchen that night. So…”
“Do you believe it?”
“About the raccoon or the advice?”
She looks at me and tilts her head impatiently and I glance at her before turning back to the road.
“You tell me. You’re a girl. You’re not one of those girls who wants to be called a woman, right? Even though you’re almost eighteen? That just seems weird.”
“Please don’t,” she says dryly.
“So what’s yours?” I ask.
“My advice?”
“No, your unforgiveable thing. Apparently you must have one.”
“Never thought about it.” She turns back to the window. “I’m guessing murder is out.”
“Murder is out. You’d be dead, so the forgiveness would be a moot point.”
“Not necessarily, but we’ll say so for the sake of argument. I guess I’d go with loving me too much.”
“Loving you too much would be unforgiveable? I’m going to pull a McAllister on you and require supporting details.”
“Too many obligations. People like to say love is unconditional, but it’s not, and even if it was unconditional, it’s still never free. There’s always an expectation attached. They always want something in return. Like they want you to be happy or whatever and that makes you automatically responsible for their happiness because they won’t be happy unless you are. You’re supposed to be who they think you’re supposed to be and feel how they think you’re supposed to feel because they love you and when you can’t give them what they want, they feel shitty, so you feel shitty, and everybody feels shitty. I just don’t want that responsibility.”
“So you’d rather no one loved you?” I ask. I wish I wasn’t driving so I could look at her for more than a second.
“I don’t know. I’m just talking. It’s an unanswerable question.” She pulls her foot out from under her and puts her head back down against the glass.
“Worst advice ever,” I say.
***
I’m used to being alone, but tonight I feel more alone. Like I’m not just alone in my house, I’m alone in the world. And maybe that’s its own blessing, because now, I never have to do this again.
Tonight when I climb into bed, I don’t even bother to count.
CHAPTER 32
Nastya
I didn’t stop talking immediately. I talked right up until the day I remembered everything that happened, over a year later. That was the day I went silent. It wasn’t a ploy or a tactic. It wasn’t psychosomatic. It was a choice. And I made it.
I just knew that suddenly I had answers. I had all the answers to all the questions, but I didn’t want to say them. I didn’t want to release them out into the world and make them real; I didn’t want to admit that such things happened and that they happened to me. So I chose the silence and everything that came along with it because I wasn’t a good enough liar to speak.
I always planned to tell the truth. I just wanted to give myself a little time. A chance to find the right thing to say and the courage to say it. I didn’t take a vow of silence. I wasn’t suddenly struck mute. I just didn’t have the words. I still don’t. I never found them.
***
I don’t feel any different when I wake up on my eighteenth birthday. I don’t feel older or mature or free. I feel inadequate, if anything, because I know what I was supposed to be at eighteen and it’s not what I am. My dad’s brother, my Uncle Jim, got really down with himself when I was fourteen and he came to stay with us for a while to “re-evaluate.” My mom said that it just happens sometimes when you get older. You get halfway through with your life and you realize you haven’t done the things you wanted to do or become what you’d thought you’d become and it’s disheartening. I wonder if it’s a special kind of disheartening when you get to that place at eighteen.