Page 39 of Nothing Less than Magic
“Lolly went to Mom and Dad’s grave for the anniversary,” I blurt.
He doesn’t say anything at first, then, “I know. She told me. After the fact, otherwise I would’ve gone with her.”
I could take that as another jab, because I should’ve been the one to go with her. But he doesn’t mean it that way, that much I know. He’s never pressured us to do anything we weren’t comfortable doing.
“Do you think we made a mistake burying them next to each other?” I ask. “Was it cruel? Or worse, was it denial?”
“Honey, you were twelve. Of course you were in denial. Thank God. No kid should ever have to go through what you and Lolly did.”
“But was it wrong of us to bury them together?”
“They were dead, honey. All that’s in those graves are their bodies. Their souls are long gone. Burial is for the living, not for the dead. And that’s what you and Lolly wanted. It gave you peace, and that’s all I wanted. I wanted you girls to have peace.”
“If it was just you, though, would’ve you done it that way? Would you have buried them side by side?”
“Yes,” he says without hesitation. “Because they loved each other. Even in the very end, they loved each other, and I believe that’s how your mother would’ve wanted it. Why are you doing this to yourself, Chelsea? Why now?”
“I guess it’s the anniversary. It brings it all back, everything about that day.”
“I’ve always told you girls to focus on the good, to remember the happy times. There were more of those than the bad ones. For a long time, I couldn’t forgive your father for what he did. But I always knew that my sister would’ve wanted me to. And eventually, I did forgive him. That’s the way you’ve got to look at this, Chels. You’ve got to forgive and let go.” He takes a long pause. “Lolly and I are so proud of you. You channeled what happened with your parents into something good. You turned all that pain into something productive.”
It’s definitely why I became a psychologist, a marriage counselor. I suppose I thought I could save people from the same trauma my parents couldn’t save themselves from. But somewhere along the way, it became more about me than me helping people.
“I miss them,” I say.
“I miss them, too. And I miss you. I know you and your sister have your problems, but it would be nice to see you every once in a while.”
“Did Lolly tell you about my accident?”
“What accident?”
I tell him about being hit by a streetcar, leaving out the stuff about Austin.
“Chelsea, you need to slow down, take a vacation. All this constant work is grinding you down. It’ll kill you if you let it.”
I let out a snort. “Now isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black?”
“I didn’t get hit by a cable car, kid.”
“Touché. If it’s any consolation, I’m on vacation now. Up at the cabin.” I start to tell him that Lolly came for a visit, but this thing between my sister and me is still tenuous. I don’t want to jinx whatever progress we’ve made.
“Good. I still have to see that cabin of yours. It sounds like a special place.”
“My door is open twenty-four-seven,” I say. “I love you, Uncle Sylvester.”
“I love you, too.”
Our call leaves me a little melancholy but at the same time, a little consoled, if it’s even possible to be both at the same time. Twenty-four years is a long time to hold on to guilt over something I insisted on when I was twelve. Something that, as my uncle pointed out, could only matter to my parents’ survivors.
At the time, I believed that my parents would forever be soulmates, even in the afterlife, despite what my father had done. Despite that he’d shot my mother three times in the heart before turning his service weapon on himself. I believed they needed each other as much in death as they needed each other in life.
Was it the romantic delusion of a young girl to help her sleep at night? Or was it something only a child of their DNA could intuit? I no longer know what I once so solidly understood about them, about their love for each other. Age has a way of making you skeptical. It has a way of making you question yourself.
But Misty said my mother wasn’t angry. Misty. The woman is either wanted in fifty states or a complete nutjob.
I go to the kitchen and make myself a cup of chamomile tea. Supposedly the herb binds to the benzodiazepine receptors in the brain and makes you sleepy. I travel with a box whenever I’m out of town, because I find it difficult to sleep in strange places. Who knows if it really works? I remind myself to ask Knox about it. It seems like something a biophysicist might know about.
Tonight, the tea is useless. I don’t nod off until well after midnight, and it’s a fitful sleep, filled with bizarre dreams. I see the fox again. This time, it’s curled up at the foot of my bed on top of my feet. When I try to kick it away, it bares its teeth.
