I tried to do the breathing exercises from Nan’s yoga video, inhaling deeply, holding, then releasing to a slow count. After a few minutes, I felt calmer and realized that mixed with all the bad feelings was a weird impulse to talk to the woman out there. It was the first time I’d seen the mark on a stranger and known, for certain, what it meant.
The wall clock clunked, the heavy ticking sound it makes when the minute hand passes twelve. I was startled to see I’d already been in the back nearly twenty minutes, well over my allotted ten-minute break. I stood, taking another deep breath before walking through the swinging door and back to the front room, still not sure what I would do, expecting that she’d already be gone.
But she wasn’t. She was reaching for her purse, the glow soft and constant around her as she stood slowly, leaning a bit too long on the chair for support. I felt physically shaky, light-headed. Should I talk to her? What could I say?
I watched as she walked toward her friend, waiting patiently near the exit. They smiled at each other and her friend opened the door. I thought about calling to her or maybe following her out.
Instead, I only watched her leave, the sun framing her in the doorway, almost obscuring the other light as she went.
Chapter 11
I found her obituary in the morning paper two days later. Heart attack. She’d been a social worker, divorced, mother of three, sixty-eight years old. I leaned back, the iron bench outside the bookstore hard against my spine, and thought about the ones I knew for sure—this woman, Mr. McKenzie, Nan, Mrs. Gettis, the West Lakes kids. I’d seen the mark on all of them and they’d died the same day, but there was no other connection. Nothing matched. The way they died didn’t seem to matter, nor did anything about them—age, gender, their work, whether they had family or not. The only commonality was that they’d crossed my path. But nothing explained why I saw it. Of all people, why me?
That day, I made my first visit to the Bering Library. It was a sleek, modern building and, loyal as I was to the Ashville Library, where I’d spent countless hours, I had to admit this library won any comparison, hands-down. It was awesome.
I started with medical reference and moved on from there. Over the course of six hours, I must have browsed fifty books on health, spirituality, psychic and paranormal phenomena, even the Bible. Nothing. Not a single mention of a physical or mental condition that would explain the mark or any references to people with an ability to see death, much less a guide about what to do with it or—what I really wanted—how to make it stop. Deep down I knew I wouldn’t find that, of course. It didn’t seem like the kind of thing I could get treated for, take some antibiotics or start a vegan diet and magically be cured.
I felt so guilty, a black and heavy feeling, like it was my fault or that I should do something, but what could I have said to the woman at the coffee shop? How would knowing she was about to die, but not how, have helped?
I wished then, and so many times after, that Nan were around for me to talk to. I needed a confidant, but the people I knew here—Drea, Doug, my coworkers—were totally out of the question.
I’d talked to Tasha every day my first week in Bering, but our conversations were squeezed between school, work, parties, and her road-tripping to see the baseball team at States. I understood. End of year was hectic. By week two we’d moved on to texting, short bursts about mostly nothing: the swimsuit she’d bought, a hot guy she’d be working with over the summer. I thought about confiding in her, but I couldn’t figure out how to explain why I hadn’t before, and it never seemed the right time to bring up death anyway.
So I kept to myself and did my best to pretend the mark didn’t exist, focusing instead on my job and Bering, which, every day, felt more like my new home rather than my parents’ old one. I still thought of them a lot. Being here, I couldn’t help it. If I’d wanted to, I could have found out exactly where their house had been. There were probably records—old phone books or deeds in City Hall. Or I could have asked Drea. Even though she hadn’t been here, she probably knew. Certainly I could have found out where the fatal accident happened. But I liked Bering—my Bering—too much. I didn’t want to know if my favorite street corner was where my parents died. Or that they’d lived in ramshackle Clinton rather than smart, urbane U Park, where I always pictured them.
Instead, I went to student art shows and shopping at thrift stores advertised in City Paper. When I felt like it, I stayed out late, reading at the park on Bering’s south side or sitting through poetry readings at the U, though I quickly realized they weren’t my thing. I felt grown-up here, on my own, and that part was cool. A little lonely, but cool.
It was after my second—and last—poetry event that I noticed the signs outside the registrar’s office advertising the final day to enroll in summer session. I stopped, struck by the idea, knowing I needed more to do, more to think about. I could almost hear Nan as I stood there, watching the posters flap in the light summer breeze. “What are you waiting for, Cassie?” she’d have said. “Just do it.”
And so I did. It wasn’t how I’d planned to start, but that day I signed up for my first college class.
Chapter 12
They shuffled into the classroom, mostly in flip-flops and sweats, barely awake, though it was well past ten in the morning. I’d known from Cuppa to expect this. I had studied their habits and clothes. I wore Converse and the cutoff jean shorts I’d found at a store near the apartment.
I’d picked a seat near the back of the room, a theater-style auditorium, but small. Fifty-six seats. I’d counted while I was waiting. The classroom was empty when I arrived and I worried that I might be in the wrong place or, as a noncredit student, have missed some important communication about schedule change. Turns out I’m just a geek, sitting with notebook, pencil, and my Introduction to Philosophy text way too early. The truth is, I was excited about being a part of Lennox—a quasi–college student, rather than just hanging around campus.
I didn’t know a thing about philosophy except the familiar names—Aristotle, Socrates, Plato. The ancient Greeks—our people, Nan would have said. If I wanted to keep my brain busy, philosophy seemed a good choice.
The room started to fill about five minutes before class, the other students barely looking at me, dragging themselves to the closest chair or talking with friends. They didn’t look like they shared my enthusiasm and I wondered why they were even in this class. Probably not by choice.