“What is this?” Reeve asks.
“A hospice.”
“What’s a hospice?”
I take her hand. “It’s a place where people come to die.”
Reeve stops in her tracks.
“I come here when I need hope,” I say.
She pulls her hand away.
“It’s not like that. It isn’t—”
“Why would you bring me here?”
“Reeve, no. It’s a beautiful place. It’s peaceful. I guess I wanted you to see that life doesn’t always end the way you experienced.”
“You don’t know what I’ve experienced,” she snaps.
“I know I don't. I just wanted you to see … the other side.”
She stares ahead at the front door. “You come here to watch people die?”
“Yeah. Well, no. To share in their final days.”
“You’re so weird.”
I let out a short laugh. “You like that in a girl, remember?”
She shakes her head, but a smile leaks out.
I take her hand again and she hangs on.
Jeannette stands at the welcome desk, talking to the receptionist. When she sees me, she says, “Johanna. I was about to call you.”
“This is my girlfriend, Reeve.” I get it out quickly, before I lose my nerve. There’s an awkward moment as Jeannette’s eyes dart from Reeve to me. To my bruised face. It’s okay, I want to tell Jeannette. Everything’s under control.
At last Jeannette smiles and extends a hand. “Hi.”
Reeve shakes it.
Reeve is trembling. God, is it too soon?
“Johanna, let’s …,” Jeannette says as she cups my elbow, “over here.” She leads me to a sunny nook with chairs and a coffee table, and I tug Reeve along. A purple orchid snakes out of a crystal vase and I think of Novak. “Sit.” Jeannette motions us down.
Reeve and I take chairs next to each other.
Jeannette says, “Mrs. Mockrie died early this morning.”
“Oh no.” I cover my mouth.
“An hour later, Mr. Mockrie passed.”
Tears well in my eyes.
“She and her husband came in together,” Jeannette explains to Reeve. “They absolutely adored Johanna.” Jeannette smiles at me, then cringes like it hurts to look at me.
I shield my face with a hand.
“I’m sorry,” Jeannette says, touching my knee. “I know you loved them too. We all did. They went peacefully in their sleep.”
I try to mental Reeve: See? Death can be a beautiful thing. We could die together.
Jeannette gets up and presses a hand on my shoulder. She says, “Nice to meet you, Reeve.”
Reeve just looks at the orchid.
A gurney rolls out from the corridor. “… not happy with her physical therapy regimen. Jeannette! I want to talk to you!”
Does Carrie’s mother always have to shout?
“You want me to give you a tour?” I ask Reeve.
She turns to face me. “If that’s what you want.” Her voice is flat.
“Or we could go.” I shouldn’t have brought her here.
“What’s down there?” She eyes the hall.
“The private suites. People with money. Or insurance.”
Reeve stands. “Show me those people.”
The first room is crammed for a birthday party, or something. The lady, I know, has terminal cancer. She’s propped up in bed, surrounded by people and balloons. I turn to tell Reeve, but she’s gone ahead. She’s stalled outside the second door. “Who lives here?” she asks. “Or should I say, who dies here?”
I see Carrie’s room through Reeve’s eyes. The posters and paintings on the walls, the pictures of Carrie. Her pink flowered comforter and frilly curtains. “Her name’s Carrie. She was in a car accident that left her …” I don’t finish because Reeve has entered Carrie’s room.
I check the corridor and slip inside. “We shouldn’t be in here,” I say quietly.
“But this is where you come.” Reeve wanders around, looking at everything. The ribbons, awards, certificates. She picks up a framed photo. “Is this her?”
“Yeah. She’s pretty, huh?”
“She’s hot,” Reeve says.
“What?”
Reeve sets the picture down. “I’m kidding. Is she a rich bitch?”
I try to take Reeve’s hand, but she slithers out. She yanks open the bedside drawer and selects a tube of lip gloss.
“Don’t touch her personal things,” I say. “Her mother’s the rich bitch.”
Reeve uncaps the tube and sniffs it. In Carrie’s little vanity mirror, she glosses her lips.
She straightens slowly and crooks a finger at me, like, Come here.
I widen my eyes at her.
Reeve comes over, stands on tiptoe and kisses me. She touches my face and arm sensuously, sending tingles to my feet.
“Reeve, not here.” I feel a tug on my bag and shift my gaze to see Reeve has opened it. She drops in the lip gloss.
“You can’t—”
“She won’t be needing it.”
True. But …
Reeve shovels out a fistful of makeup and transfers it to my bag.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” She pulls me down to the bed and kisses me. Her lips are slick and hard. She parts my mouth with her tongue and sucks in my lower lip. The heat begins in my brain and smolders all the way down. Reeve’s on top of me, her hand up my shirt, fingers crawling under my bra, over the flesh, touching my nipple.
“What the hell are you doing?”
I push up and Reeve goes flying.
Evelyn’s face is so red I think she’ll explode. “You.” She points. “How dare you?”
I can’t speak.
“Were you in there?” I follow her shaking finger to the bedside table. The drawer is open.
Evelyn rushes past me, stops at the drawer, and spins around. “Give me your purse.”
Reeve hands over her purse. Thank you, thank you. I love you.
Carrie’s mom empties the contents onto the bed. Cash, mascara, my gold watch.
It’s okay. I was going to give it to her anyway.
“Now yours.”
Reeve grabs her stuff and pushes me toward the door. “We’re out of here.”
“You have no right,” Evelyn goes. “No right.” Her voice breaks.
I claw all of Carrie’s makeup out of my bag and wedge around Evelyn to replace it in the drawer. “I’m sorry.” I fumble around, lining up the tubes. “I’m so, so sorry.”
Evelyn hiccups a sob. “Jeannette’s going to hear about this.”
“I know. I’ll tell her.”
She makes this raw, retching sound in her throat, then rasps at my back, “Pervert.”
The silhouette behind the scrim is angular and nude. The scrim rolls up and I see she’s painted plaster. Blue stage lights illuminate the mannequin.
She wears a mask of wax; then, on cue, she comes to life. She strips off her mask to reveal round red cheeks and anime eyes. Dressers dance en pointe to clothe her, but she doesn’t like the frilly collars and corseted gown, so she pulls a knife and cuts them.
I pass her on the right, according to script, to get her attention. I’m not the kind of person she’d notice, in my drab overcoat and checkered Converses. As I pass the huge snow globe, a girl steps out from behind it. “Fair warning,” Britt whispers. “She’s not your fairy princess.”
I draw my sword and Britt retreats.
We’re alone onstage. The lights have been extinguished. Reeve says, “Tell me what you see.”
My mouth moves, but indistinguishable sounds come out.
“Tell me what you see,” she demands.
I CANT
She peels away a second layer and the face is shapeless skin. No eyes, no nose, no mouth.
This can’t be her, I think. Not the real Reeve.
• • •
Chapter 34
The organist is pl
aying a dirge while a man in a gray suit sits on a high-back wing chair behind the pulpit. Tessa’s crying.
Tessa cried more at Mom’s funeral than I did.
Reeve and I slip into the row behind Tessa and Martin. There are two tall stands, like plant stands, supporting two square objects draped with cloths.
The ashes. Robbie’s ashes and their mom’s.
The minister gets up and says a prayer while I hold Reeve’s hand. It’s limp and cold. No one else is here. Wait. A person sneaks in on the other side. She kneels and steeples her hands. Novak.
The minister reads a passage from the Bible, then asks if anyone would like to come up and speak about the deceased. Reeve shrinks in her seat. I look to Novak, who is blowing her nose. When I die, I want someone, anyone, to speak for me.
I stand and sidestep out of the pew. Everyone’s eyes are on me. At the pulpit, I say, “Robbie didn’t deserve to die. He never hurt a living soul in his life.” Not on purpose. “He was a good friend and a great brother and he didn’t deserve this.” I feel my throat tighten and I stumble back to my place. I was mostly mean to him. Everyone was.
The organist plays a hymn and the minister hands the urns to Reeve. She won’t take them. Tessa and I end up with one each.
When we get home, Martin leaves for work. Reeve heads for the blue room and I follow, but at the door she turns and pushes me back. An arm shoots out to clench Reeve’s wrist. It’s Tessa.
Reeve says, “I just want to be left alone.”
Tessa says, “Then go. But don’t ever push her.”
Reeve shuts the door on us.
I’m up early to save Reeve. No, I don’t mean save. I don’t know what I mean.
“She’s gone,” Tessa says as I pass by the dining table, where she’s casting on, beginning a new knitting project. The click-click of her needles takes me back. I used to sit at her feet and ball yarn while she told me about her date the night before.
“Where’d she go?”
“I don’t know,” Tessa says. She gets up and pours a cup of coffee.
“You’re lying.” She’s lying. She lifts her cup to her lips and I smack it out of her hand. It shatters against the wall and coffee splashes everywhere. Tessa looks at me, through me. Calmly, she crosses the room, but I beat her there and kick the pieces away.
Tessa squats to pick up a shard and I push her into the wall. She bangs her head.
“She’s turned you into a monster.”
“Where is she!” I screech.
Tessa stands. “Johanna, we need to talk about Reeve.”
“Shut up.” I tell Tessa, “Don’t talk to me. Don’t ever talk to me again.”
The phone call comes while I’m sitting on the divan, fuming. Feeling wrecked and worried about Reeve. It has to be Reeve calling. I lunge for the phone.
“Hello, Johanna. This is Jeannette.”
All the blood drains from my face.
“I’ve been waiting for you to call me to explain, but I guess that’s not going to happen.”
Words jam up in my throat.
“All I have is Evelyn’s version. If you have a different story, I’m willing to listen.”
The jam unclogs, but I can only manage one word: “No.” Evelyn got it right.
Jeannette waits, then sighs and says, “You realize I’m going to have to ask you not to return to the hospice.”
A candle inside me extinguishes.
* * *
Martin pounds on my door and when I answer, he says, “I’ll collect this now.” He shoves my IOU at me.
“I don’t have it,” I tell him. “I lost my job. But I’m looking for another one. I’m going to pay you back.”
His eyes are black. As he clomps down the stairs, I call to him, “I promise.”
He clomps back up. His vibe scares me. “For your information, your sister put you on our car insurance. I told her to take away your keys and make you ride the bus, but she’s too nice for that. I expect you to pay both of us back.”
“I will,” I say. “Every penny. As soon as—”
He stomps down the stairs and I close the door behind him, sinking to the divan. All I want to do is crawl in a hole and die.
Day after day I drive by Reeve’s house. The police tape is gone, but the windows are boarded up and the health department has posted a green notice on the door. Where is she?
I’m so desperate for human contact I actually call Novak. Her mother tells me she’s gone; she moved to California to get ready for college.
She didn’t even call to say goodbye.
Time is meaningless and insignificant. I need to look for a job, but it’s so hard to get out of bed in the morning. One inconsequential day I’m jolted awake by shouting outside my window, and a door slamming.
I drag to my door and open it a crack. Martin’s in the backyard, lighting up the grill. I squint at the TV clock. He’s grilling at seven a.m.?
Tessa steps out and pulls the patio door shut. She looks worse than I feel. She’s dressed for work, but her jacket is wrinkled and her hair isn’t combed.
I glance back and see Martin looking straight at me. As I ease the door closed, I hear him snap at Tessa, “Get Johanna in therapy too. She needs it even more than you do.”
Chapter 35
“Call me Mary-Dean,” she says. I think it’s a weird name for a therapist. I don’t know why I come, because all I do is sit on this hard chair and cry. Mary-Dean says, “It’s okay to get it out. We’ll talk when you’re ready.”
I’ll never be ready.
At our third session, Mary-Dean says, “Tell me about your girlfriend. Reeve. Is that her name?”
My brain instantly engages. Tessa’s been talking to her about me. I should’ve known. “Whatever she told you is wrong,” I say.
“Who?”
You know who. I blow my nose.
“The only thing Tessa told me is that you got hurt.”
“By her,” I mutter.
Mary-Dean says, “How did Tessa hurt you?”
A torrent of tears threatens.
Mary-Dean goes, “Then tell me about Reeve. She seems to be someone you care about very much.”
I stammer out the words: “I-I loved her. I mean, I love her.”
Mary-Dean leans forward. “What does love mean to you, Johanna?”
That’s the question. “You know.”
“I want to hear it from you.”
“Reeve was—is—my girlfriend. I’m gay.” I wonder if Tessa told her that.
Mary-Dean doesn’t look shocked. In fact, she smiles. Not fake, not patronizing.
“I love Reeve with all my heart.”
Mary-Dean says, “That’s a good feeling, isn’t it? Falling in love. Does Reeve love you?”
“Yes.”
Mary-Dean nods and says, “How do you know? How does she show her love?”
I know where she’s going with this. I won’t go there. I can’t. I stare over Mary-Dean’s shoulder at the black-and-white photo on the wall of a mother holding a child. I have to get out of here.
Tessa’s appointments with Mary-Dean are on different days than mine. I don’t think it’s right that she’s talking about me when I’m not there, so I go down to the house to confront her. She isn’t home. Neither is Martin. He’s left her a note on the counter. “Sweetie. Your grief support group mtg is canceled today. Luv U.”
Tessa’s in a grief support group. Of course. She lost her baby. She lost two babies. And her parents. And me.
Mary-Dean tries again. “Tell me what love means, Johanna. I’d just like to hear your take on it.”
I’ve been thinking a lot about it and I’m prepared. “Love is being there for someone no matter what.”
“Even if they hurt you?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Especially then.”
Mary-Dean studies me. “Why?” She removes her glasses and sets them on the table between us. “Why does love have to hurt?”
“That’s not what I said.” Is
it?
“Do you think love hurts?”
The people I know who’ve loved and been loved have all been hurt. Mom when Dad died. Novak every time she got dumped. Tessa.
“Yeah, I think there’s an element of hurt.”
“Physical?”
“Sometimes,” I say. “Not all the time.”
“But when?”
“When you let it.”
“Did you let it?”
I say to her, “Sometimes you don’t have a choice.”
She says, “Don’t you always have a choice? At least about your actions, how you respond?”
These questions make me anxious. Yes, I let Reeve hurt me. No, I don’t believe that’s showing love. But I love her. With all my heart, I still love her.
“I don’t know how to explain it,” I say to Mary-Dean.
She smiles and puts on her glasses. “You’ll get there.”
I land a job at the cineplex. I figure, hey, can’t let that Film Studies class go to waste. Mostly, I’m proud of myself for finding the motivation. It’s hard to get out of bed every day and face myself in the mirror. The bruises are gone, but I don’t feel healed.
On my way out one day, I pass Tessa coming in. “I’ve got a job now,” I tell her. “I’ll pay you guys back soon.”
Tessa raises her eyes to meet mine. She says, “It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does.” I say more insistently, “It matters to me. I need to pay you back.”
“Okay.” She nods. I think she understands.
The next session, Mary-Dean hands me a yellow tablet and says, “I want you to make two columns, or two separate lists. Label one ‘Gains’ and the other ‘Losses.’” I must look confused, because she adds, “Write down all you gained and all you lost, with Reeve.”
“Now?” I say.
“You can take it with you for homework,” she adds. “Sometime soon I want to hear about your mother and father, and your sister leaving. It must’ve been extremely hard to lose them all so close together.”
I break down, and Mary-Dean immediately passes me a giant box of Kleenex.
* * *
It’s a slow night, Tuesday night, and the ten o’clock shows have all started. In the ticket booth, I take out the yellow tablet and begin with Gains. I think, This’ll be easy.