“Hi, Demetria,” I said finally. “It’s me, Cassie.”
No response. Why should my final visit be any different?
I sighed. “I just wanted to say good-bye and thanks. You know, for letting me come and talk these past weeks.” As if she had a choice. “It’s been helpful, I guess.”
Across the room, a patient shuffled to the doorway, mumbled something to the nurse, then shuffled out. His gown hung limp and crooked and I was glad that at least I’d gotten to see Demetria out of that pathetic thing. Even though something about the way she looked now tugged at my heart even more. She looked too close to normal for the stuff below the surface, whatever it was. Her doctors called it depression, Petra said. My mother’s doctors had thought that too. They weren’t wrong, but it was far from the whole story.
“I’m sorry about bringing up all the stuff I did,” I told Demetria. “About the mark and my problems.” I laughed a little. “That’s probably the last thing you needed: having me come here and dump my baggage on you.”
Demetria raised her chin, letting her eyes drift past me, toward the doorway, then the window. I kept up my monologue.
“There are some strange and … well, sometimes scary things out there,” I told her. “You’re not crazy.” I wondered if anyone had ever said those words to my mother—even if they weren’t wholly true—or if they’d have made any difference.
I’d told Petra I was visiting Demetria to find closure with her. My mother. But not once had I actually looked at Demetria in that light. I tried it now, visualizing my mom sitting where Demetria sat, in this asylum. What might I have said to her if I’d ever gotten the chance? I tried to imagine how her voice had sounded, whether her hands had been soft like Demetria’s looked or chapped like Nan’s in winter, whether she’d liked to read or dance or sing or cook—but it was no good. Petra was right. This wasn’t the way to find connection or closure. It only made me think of my mom mute like Demetria, too sad to talk. Too scared of her burden—the mark—to reenter the world. The way she’d spent the last years of her life.
Closure, if I found it, would be somewhere else. Maybe in finding a way to do what my mom hadn’t been able to: live with the mark.
I stood, smoothing the folds of my coat, feeling like I should leave Demetria with some final words. Advice to help her with her visions or the coming baby or just the world in general. But what did I really have to offer? So I just told her, “Be careful. And good luck.”
I hitched my bag, ready to walk away, when she stood, so naturally that it startled me, like we were two friends at a normal place, having a normal conversation. She was taller than I was, had to look down to meet my startled eyes, hers totally clear and focused. “Good luck,” she said back.
It was a shock to hear her voice, higher and softer than I’d imagined, wispy like a cloud. Or an angel. I was so caught by her having actually spoken that it took a minute to process the words. Good luck. With the strange and scary things? With figuring out the mark? Or was she just parroting my last words to her with no meaning behind them?
“Thanks,” I whispered, watching as her eyes drifted away, intent seeming already gone from her consciousness, if it was ever there.
Chapter 29
On Friday Zander was still absent and I began to unclench. Just a little. I didn’t think he would hurt me, but I wasn’t positive. Half of me hoped I’d never see him again, but the other half knew I had to. Otherwise, I’d worry forever about when he’d show up next.
But that didn’t mean I was eager to face him.
“Still avoiding Zander?” Liv asked when I insisted we take the back stairs to chem.
“Yeah.”
She nodded. “I haven’t seen him for days. Looks like he’s avoiding you, too.”
I found myself looking over my shoulder everywhere. On my walks home, waiting for the bus to work, even at the apartment, sure he’d appear when I was least ready for it. Which, in truth, was always. I didn’t think I’d ever be ready.
I was walking down the stairs toward the cafeteria, mindful of the blind corner to my left and the bathroom door ahead, when I noticed Nick Altos ahead of me.
“Nick!” I called.
He turned, smiled. “Hey, Cassie.”
I caught up and we walked side by side toward the lunchroom.
“I’ve been thinking about you,” I told him. “How are you?”
“Dealing,” he said. “A little better every day.”
I nodded.
“It never goes away, though, does it?” Nick already knew the answer so I didn’t hesitate to confirm it.
“No, not totally.”
“But you learn to live with it,” he said. “Live through it, right?”
“Yeah,” I said, feeling the pang of Nan’s absence in the center of my body, not where my heart is exactly, more where I imagined the core of my being existed. Where it was always raw and, I suspected, always would be.
People can learn to live with a lot. Nan had been old, Nick’s father had made mistakes, but that boy—the image of his mother holding his face in the food court as if everything around them evaporated when she looked at her only son. The more I pictured it, the more certain I was that I’d done the right thing, that her sadness might have been too huge to get past.
“Hey, Nick?”
“Yeah?”
“What do you think your dad would have done if he’d had more time?” It was a brazen question, but I could see Nick had enough emotional scar tissue and trusted me enough that I could ask it.
“Truthfully? It’s probably fifty-fifty. I’d like to believe he’d have stayed clean, kept his job, been a productive member of society, you know? That’s how I’m going to try to think of him: go-karting at Lakeland Park instead of the times I found him passed out on the sofa or screaming at my mom when he came to pick me up wasted and she wouldn’t let me go.” Nick shook his head, his smile forced. “Doesn’t sound like I’m doing a very good job of it so far, does it?”
“It’s pretty hard to get your feelings sorted out, much less your memories,” I said. “They just come as they come.”
“Right.” Nick passed a hand across his brow. “But honestly, with my dad? It’s probably just as likely he’d have been back to drinking by the end of the year. Out of work, on welfare, or worse. History would tell me that’s the truth.” We’d reached the cafeteria and Nick stopped, clearly not wanting to continue this conversation in the crowd. “But I’m going to try to believe what I want to believe. There’s no harm in that, right?”