When I was finally, truly awake, I found I’d been left behind.
“September,” Lev answers.
September. I try to hold myself to the numbness, to not give into the raw, furious pain I sense just beyond it. September.
I turn away from him.
“Casey—never said anything to me at the sermon.”
After Bea told me they died, I was sedated. I remember vaguely, the seconds before that; the feeling that my heart was on the verge of total disintegration—
And then nothing.
When I woke up again, Bea was holding my hand so tightly, my fingers ached.
So tightly, I felt it long after she decided to leave me behind too.
The way Bea talked about this place to me, her eyes shining with it, her body trembling with the relief of its discovery and all it meant for her was nothing I knew how to reason with. She was a stranger to me then. I’ve found God, Lo, I’ve found Him. The Unity Project was so burned into her there was no other place for that stranger but here. And if that stranger isn’t here, and my sister still isn’t with me—
Who is she now?
“I stood right in front of you—”
“After arriving unannounced,” Lev finishes. I face him. His arms are crossed and he’s staring out the windows. He glances at me. “We can either talk about when we should have had the conversation, Lo, or we can have it now.”
“Where is she?”
He turns to me. “We’re not sure.”
“I want to know everything.”
My voice is shaking, my whole body, I realize, shaking, as numbness gives way to shock. I wrap my arms around myself, trying to keep still. Lev licks his lips, and I watch him think, try to guess what he’s thinking, as he stares at me.
“Do you know the mere fact of you standing here in front of me is…” He gestures to me, his hand following the path of my body from my face down. “It’s…” He trails off.
“What?”
“It’s God’s work.”
“Bullshit.”
“You’re a miracle, Lo. It’s sad you don’t see it.”
He seems lost in it for a moment, in me, and the longer he is, the tighter my skin feels around my bones. The wind outside makes itself known again, another rattle against the windows. The soft tapping of the dog’s nails sound on the floor as she reenters the room.
“You won’t like anything I’m about to say,” he tells me.
“Why would that stop you?”
He hesitates, but when he speaks his voice is soft. “Bea was terrified of the possibility of losing you. And when it was certain you would live, it made it that much worse. She wanted to keep you in a place where she would never have to confront that again and that place was as far from her as she could make it. It was here. And she was happy here. She had purpose here.”
I shake my head slowly over and over as he speaks, trying to reconcile with everything he’s saying: my living was a greater burden to her than my death would have been.
“Three years ago, she was again confronted with another prospective, earth-shattering loss. It nearly killed her. And then Jeremy died and that was the final straw. If she was going to lose people, it would be on her own terms.” He pauses. “So she did to us what she did to you: she ran. And I let her. Because I’ve never held anyone here who didn’t want to be.”
I bring my hand to my chest.
“You’re telling me she loved me so much she let me go.”
“Yes.”
I remember the way Bea looked at me when I was hurt. How afraid she was of me. How that fear consumed her and pulled her away bit by bit. She was at my bedside, and then she wasn’t, the chair next to my bed, and then she wasn’t, standing tentatively in the doorway, until she wasn’t, until she was gone …
I imagine my calls with Casey, but now Bea is at her side, relief smoothing her face every time Casey hung up on me and the day I gave up—
The day I finally gave up.
My heart on the verge of total disintegration.
“Lo,” Lev says, moving toward me because it must be all over my face. I hold my hand out, keeping my eyes off him, and he stops in his tracks.
“What happened three years ago?” I ask.
“She almost lost Emmy.”
I squeeze my eyes shut.
“Who is Emmy?”
* * *
Atara keeps pace with Lev as he leads me down the hall.
She’s an elegant animal, eyes only for him. I watch her make minor adjustments to her gait as he does his. We pass a series of closed doors until he stops and points to the floor and Atara sits, her tongue hanging out. Lev rests against the frame, his eyes on me as he knocks lightly on the door with the back of his hand. After a moment, it opens and a pretty brunette steps out. She’s tiny, her skin pale white. She wears a denim work shirt and black leggings. She smiles at Lev after briefly glancing at me.
“Jenny,” Lev greets her. “I’d like a moment alone.”
“Of course.”
She slips back into the room, and after a moment, slips out again, Foster close behind. His eyes meet mine before flickering away. I turn, watching as they head toward the Great Room and when I turn back, Lev is looking at me expectantly.
“You go,” I say shakily.
He nods and steps into the room. I wipe my palms on my thighs, my pulse thrumming in my ears and I feel a desperate urge to turn around, to head back to Morel, to bury myself in its familiarity, in everything I knew to be true there, and to stop holding so tightly to the things that brought me here. None of this would be happening if I could just let things go.
Why can’t I let things go?
I look upward at the ceiling, at a small crack in the plaster branching out from the light fixture there, listening to Atara pant.
I take a deep breath and enter the room.
It’s a child’s room. Toys and books scattered all over the floor, tiny tables and chairs, a small bed next to a bookshelf. The windows in here overlook still more wilderness and I watch the pines sway back and forth for a long moment before facing them.
The little girl, the one I saw at the farm, stands next to Lev, her small hand wrapped around a cluster of his fingers. She stares up at me and then presses herself closer to him, pulling at Lev’s hand until he gives her his attention, kneeling down so she can whisper in his ear. He regards her tenderly in response and then says, quietly:
“Emmy, this is Lo.”
She eyes me warily, unsatisfied.
I move carefully toward her, like I could spook her if my actions were too hasty, but it’s more for my own protection, as though I could let this moment unfold slowly enough to preserve a point of return. To walk away. I stop in front of her and I can tell my silence unnerves her but there are no words I can think to say.
She looks like Bea.
The shiny brown hair and rosy face, the too-close-together brown eyes. I can see beyond this moment, know with every passing year Emmy will become more and more my sister. I’m briefly overcome by a raw wave of anger that my body doesn’t know what to do with. It wants to shake her on the impossible chance Bea might feel it too, wherever she is. I close my eyes until the urge disappears. When I open them, the Bea parts of Emmy fade away, and what’s left is my mother and my father. That’s my mother’s button nose in the center of Emmy’s face. The soft shape of her mouth, my father’s.