Chapter 1
11/02/1999
Letter #7
I never even wanted kids.
Did you know that? Now that you’re gone, I guess I can admit it. But I think you did know. You knew me better than I knew myself. I bet you also knew that I always needed you. From the moment I first existed, a hole in your precise shape was in my heart. Not a hole in the shape of a child in some abstract sense, but of you. Only you.
I know you hate it when I get like this. Maybe I’m just as awful as that woman next door, in my own way. Carol. I’m pretty sure that’s her name. It’s easy to remember because it’s so forgettable. In case you wondered, she’s still the worst part about this city.
A few minutes ago, she snagged me on the front steps and told me that I need to have another baby, right away. That it will renew my faith in God. She didn’t even mention you. You were just this great big void for her to talk around. Honestly, I don’t know how I kept it together.
But I did have a horrible thought. Just for a second, I almost wished her kids would get cancer too. So she could know how it feels to fall into an abyss three-years deep. To finally hit bottom, breaking wide open like a rotten egg in July, but without dying. Instead, the whole world dies.
Only when that happens, only when she’s humpty dumptied that shit for herself, can she share her expert tips on faith and babies.
Okay, that’s not fair. I know she meant well. It’s not her fault that I can’t handle talking to people anymore. Honestly, I really just wished you were there. You’d have made a twisted joke out of the whole thing.
God, you were funny. And so fierce. Ever since you were little, people would tell me and your dad that the world had better watch out for you. Heaven help me if you’d lived to see seventeen
Heaven help me. I don’t know how long I’ve been frozen, fingers hovering over the keyboard, as I watch the green cursor blink expectantly inside the black screen. Go on, it says, go on. But it doesn’t give a single reason why I should. It just keeps prodding. Blink, blink, blink.
Behind me, the warped floorboard in the hallway creaks. Painful silence stretches out.
“Yes?” I sigh, turning toward the doorway.
The floorboard lets out a groan as Joshua lifts his foot and pokes his head around the door. The hollows beneath his eyes and cheekbones are deep, dark pits. “I don’t mean to interrupt, I know the doctor stressed how important your journal time--”
“They’re letters,” I snap.
“Right. Of course.” He lowers his head slightly. “I just wanted to check in before heading to campus. My lecture starts in an hour. I don’t really even have to go though. My TA could teach Phil 101 in her sleep at this point.” He’s almost whispering now, like he’s worried sound waves, all by themselves, might break me. “Do you need me to stay, Theia?”
“No.” The word comes out harsh. I’d meant to soften it with a ‘thank you,’ but couldn’t trust my voice to get through more words without breaking. I don’t want to see pity in his face or force him to comfort me. I’m so sick of pity and comfort.
He nods, looking down, away from my gaze. For the first time, I notice his skin doesn’t look like burnt, smooth caramel anymore--more like somebody stirred ashes into it. Maybe he really is taking Evy’s death as hard as I am. Until now, I only noticed how often he smiled, how easily he carried on conversation with everyone but me.
Joshua nods to himself again and heads back down the hallway, shoulders slumped.
Oh god. He’s not broken because of her; this is because of me.
I open my mouth to call him back but hesitate. What could I say? The only way I can fix it is to find a way to put myself back together. Feeling lost, I look around the room.
My eyes skitter past Evy’s bed, like I’m afraid death might win all over again if I look at the place where it took her. I look at the walls instead, all of them lined floor to ceiling with shelves, each of those packed tight with old books. Our whole house is like this; once upon a time, it was my parents’ failing bookstore.
I glance at the inconspicuous blue journal sitting on the top shelf in the corner of the room. When I first noticed it almost a year ago, I’d only been curious. Dumb luck, alone, made me reach for it. It’s not as if I had any clue about its hollowed out pages or the bag of cyanide tucked inside.
The day I confronted Evy about it feels so distant, like recalling something I read years ago. But it also feels like it’s happening now. She swore she never actually planned to use it. She just needed the possibility of a way out, in case things went downhill fast. Until that moment, I’d have sworn she was fearless. A warrior. Looking into her big eyes just then, though, I only saw a scared kid.
But then she’d lifted her face into the lamplight and the yellow mark inside her right iris lit like a candle against a mossy floor. All trace of fear fled from her eyes so quickly I doubted whether it had been there at all. My mother had been born with that same yellow mark too. Apparently, it had been there even before her baby-grey eyes turned green. Just like it had been with Evy.
I took the poison away, of course. Even knowing that if she’d gotten it once, she could get it again. I told her cyanide’s anything but an easy way out. She never had to worry about pain. I could take care of that.
“We nurses get all the good drugs,” I’d said, winking. Pretending I didn’t feel like I was about to throw up.
That couldn’t have been a year ago. Could it?
My gaze finally lands on the book resting open beside Evy’s computer. Knowing her, it’s something by one of those infuriatingly french philosophers. It’s been there on her desk so long that the words on the pages are gray with dust. So long I’ve buried it deep in the background, rendered it invisible. But now, a line on the page leaps out at me:
She was ready to deny the existence of space and time rather than admit that love might not be eternal.
I know how the line was meant. I don’t care.
To deny the existence of something doesn’t necessarily mean to hide behind disbelief or ignorance. It can also mean destroy:
She was ready to kill both space and time to find that place where love is eternal.
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