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“No, thank you, Sasha,” she said, and then she surprised me even more by hugging me. “Sweet dreams,” she said, and went into her bedroom.
I hurried to mine. It was still difficult to think of it as mine. There was so much of Alena in it, not haunting it as much as continuing to possess it. I slept in what had been her bed with her choice of headboard. Most of the clothes I wore every day had been her clothes. Her pictures were still on the dressers, tables, and walls. I wished it was different, wished that her things were gone and it was really my bedroom suite, but I felt guilty wishing that. I now knew as well as anyone that those you loved died gradually after their funerals. The blood of their immortality consists of the memories you have of them. As they are gradually forgotten or thought of less and less, they drift farther away, closing the lid on that darkness. Mrs. March, as would any mother, refused to close the lid.
Perhaps by embracing me, if that was really what she was doing, Kiera was avoiding the pain of losing her sister. Would I be doing the same thing in relation to Mama if I accepted Mrs. March even as a surrogate mother? Could you really slip people in and out of your family the way you slipped your feet in and out of different shoes? It seemed so mean and horrible to me right now, but I knew that people did it all the time. Husbands and wives remarried and slipped new spouses into the spaces beside them on their beds, into the chairs across from them at their dinner tables, and into their arms when they danced.
Maybe loneliness was worse than grief after all. The guilty feeling that followed and grew as you began to accept someone else and bury your loved one deeper could be overcome. In the beginning, you did that by using anger. How dare the one you loved so much die? How dare he or she not fight off death, defy fate or destiny, or drive away some mysterious plan God supposedly had? There should have been some greater resistance so as not to leave you alone.
After that, you thought, if the person you loved was just as loving of you, he or she wouldn’t want you to be lonely. When you found someone else, it was almost as if you were building a new relationship for your loved one who had passed away as much as for yourself. Why add grief to the soul already struggling in the afterlife?
Mama would want me to have someone fill the role of a mother—and a father, too. Mama would want me to have an older sister looking after me. Mama would want me to be happy and safe and healthy. After all, she drank whiskey and gin not only to escape who she had become but also to escape feeling guilty about not providing for me. I was like a can tied to the tail of a dog or a cat. No matter how fast she ran or what turn and twist she made, I was there, clanking behind her, reminding her of just how deep down she had fallen. Maybe that was why she refused my help carrying her suitcase and why she ran so blindly in the rain that night. Maybe she was only trying to escape.
Okay, I thought as I sat on the bed while I was still dressed in the clothing Kiera had chosen for me and still wore the makeup. I’ll put on Alena’s clothes. I’ll accept Mrs. March’s affection. More important, I’ll accept Kiera and let her be my big sister, at least for now, at least until I can stand as alone as anyone can stand. I’ll try not to forget Mama, but I won’t use her as a reason to reject any of this anymore.
It was fun being with Kiera and he
r friends. It was exciting. I liked being a regular teenager, flirting, laughing, saying outrageous things. I wanted to have their dreams and possess that same invulnerability that made them reckless, carefree, and rebellious. Up to now, since Mama’s death, I had been in some sort of cloudy, vague place. Because of the fiction that had been created about me, I no longer had my name. At least, with Mama, even on the street, I knew who I was. Whatever space we found in the parks, on the beach, even in that deserted automobile, became ours, whether it was for a short time or not. There was nothing I could call mine in my new place. It was funny to think about it, but I was living in one of the biggest homes in Southern California, and I was still homeless.
So, don’t blame yourself for accepting Kiera’s friendship, I told myself. Don’t go to sleep feeling guilty. If you need to justify it, justify it the way Jackie Knee, your nurse, proposed. Be selfish now. Take whatever you can get, even their affection. Embrace it. Turn something into yours.
I gazed at myself one more time before taking off the clothes and washing off the makeup. As recently as just days ago, I would never have imagined myself looking and feeling like this. A new kind of energy had entered my body. I could see it in my eyes and could feel it everywhere, tingling right down to the small of my stomach. I loved the new feeling.
I looked back at the bed as if I expected to see my old self lying there, looking as lethargic and lost as ever but angry at me for leaving her behind.
Go away, I wanted to tell her. Go your mousy way into the shadows, and drown yourself in self-pity. Dwell on your limp. Practice your “Yes, sir” and “No, sir,” and remain a beggar hoping for some handout of love. Do that while I seize the tail of the wind.
My old self disappeared like smoke. With a new bounce in my steps despite my limp, I prepared for bed, and when I went to sleep, I didn’t think about Alena and my sleeping in her nightgown and in her bed with her favorites, the giraffes, above me. I thought about myself and about the way those UCLA college boys had been looking at me.
For the first time in a very long time, I couldn’t wait for morning.
I was already dressed when Kiera came around. She was still in her robe and slippers. “Why did you get up so early?” she complained. “It’s Sunday.”
“I couldn’t sleep anymore,” I said. “I felt so awake and anxious to start the day.” She saw and heard the change in me and smiled. “I’m hungry, too.”
“Me, too. I know. We could have breakfast brought up to us. Let’s have it in my suite. It’s like room service in the best hotel, after all,” she said, going to the phone.
I was sure that when she picked up the receiver, Mrs. Duval thought I was calling.
“This is Kiera,” she said. Although Mrs. Duval would certainly recognize her voice, Kiera obviously liked to announce herself as if she were a princess. “Sasha and I will be taking breakfast in my suite this morning, Mrs. Duval. I’ll have my usual Sunday breakfast, and Sasha will have … ” She listened and then shook her head. “I don’t know if she wants that.” She put her hand over the mouthpiece. “Do you want your usual cheese and egg omelet?” She grimaced and shook her head. “Or what I have?”
“I’ll have what you have,” I said. I knew that on Sundays, she had a cup of fruit sorbet with a dab of whipped cream, coffee, and glazed doughnuts. Mrs. March always complained about the way Kiera ate.
“She’ll have exactly the same as me, Mrs. Duval. Thank you very much.” After she hung up the phone, she laughed. “She didn’t sound pleased, but they’re here to please us, and not vice versa. I’m going to go take a quick shower. Oh,” she added at the door, “I sorta agreed we’d go to Disneyland today. Ricky’s getting his father’s SUV. It will hold us all. They’ll be here in about an hour.”
“Disneyland?”
“Yes. Have you ever been there?”
“No, but … When will we return?”
“I don’t know. What’s the difference?”
“Homework left to do,” I said.
“We’ll get to it when we can. If we can,” she added with a smile. She paused and tilted her head a little as she looked at me. “What are you wearing? I think Alena wore that to someone’s baptism. Don’t worry. When you come into my suite, I’ll have something better for you.”
“Okay,” I said, and she left.
I looked at the clothes I had put on. Mrs. March sort of suggested things for me to wear by organizing the front of the walk-in closet so I could go from outfit to outfit. I hadn’t thought much of it, but I certainly didn’t want to go to Disneyland dressed the way I would dress if I were going to a baptism.
