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In June of 2008, Marah moves into my condo on one of those scaldingly beautiful early summer days that make Seattleites come out of their darkened homes in last year’s shorts, blinking like moles in the brightness, looking for sunglasses that have been lost and unused for months.
I feel proud; never have I fulfilled my promise to Katie more completely. It’s true that I am not my best self these days, that panic often crouches in my peripheral vision, pouncing into the foreground when I least expect it. And, yes, I am drinking more than I should and taking a few too many Xanax. I can no longer sleep without sleeping pills.
But all of that will fade now that I have this obligation. I help her unpack her small suitcase and then, in our first evening together, we sit in the living room together, talking about her mother as if Kate is at the store and will return any moment. I know it is wrong, this pretense, but we need it, both of us.
“Are you ready for Monday?” I ask at last.
“For my appointment with Dr. Bloom?” she says. “No, not really. ”
“I’ll be with you every step of the way,” I promise. I don’t know what else there is to say.
The next day, while Marah is in the meeting with Dr. Bloom, I move impatiently, pacing back and forth in the waiting room.
“You’re wearing a groove in the carpet. Take a Xanax. ”
I stop dead in my tracks and turn.
A boy stands in the door. He is dressed all in black, with painted fingernails and enough macabre jewelry to fill a store on Bourbon Street. But he is strangely handsome beneath all the goth-ware. He moves forward in a gliding Richard-Gere-in-American-Gigolo way and slouches on the couch. He is holding a book of poetry.
I could use something to occupy my mind, so I go to him, sit down in the chair beside him. This close, I smell both marijuana and incense on him. “How long have you been seeing Dr. Bloom?”
He shrugs. “A while. ”
“She helping you?”
He gives me a sly smile. “Who says I need help? ‘All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream. ’”
“Poe,” I say. “Kind of cliché. I would have been really surprised if you’d quoted Rod McKuen. ”
“Who?”
I can’t help smiling. It is a name I haven’t thought of in years. As girls, Kate and I had read a lot of lovey-dovey-feel-good poetry from people like Rod McKuen and Kahlil Gibran. We had memorized “Desiderata. ” “Rod McKuen. Look him up. ”
Before he can answer, the door opens and I lurch to my feet. Marah comes out of the office looking pale and shaken. How can Johnny not have noticed how thin she is? I rush toward her. “How was it?”
Before she answers, Dr. Bloom appears beside her and asks me to step aside with her.
“I’ll be right back,” I say to Marah, and go to the doctor.
“I’ll want to see her twice a week,” Dr. Bloom says quietly. “At least until she starts school in the fall. And I have a teen grief support group that might help her. It meets on Wednesdays. Seven P. M. ”
“She’ll do whatever you suggest,” I promise.
“Will she?”
“Of course. So how did it go?” I ask. “Did she—”
“Marah’s an adult, Tully. Our sessions are private. ”
“I know. I just wanted to know if she said—”
“Private. ”
“Oh. Well, what should I tell her father? He’s expecting a report. ”
Dr. Bloom thinks carefully and then says, “Marah is fragile, Tully. My advice to you and to her father would be to treat her as such. ”
