The Summer We Came to Life

Chapter

23





THE INCOMING TEXT MESSAGES BUZZED KENDRA’S phone inside the gym locker room.

Roller-skating might appeal to some people, but Kendra swam her way through inner turmoil. Makes sense she wouldn’t like something improvisational and whimsical that shifted with the stereo tunes. Kendra loved laps. Back and forth, orderly and repetitive—that was the mature way to sort through life-changing decisions.

That night after work, she headed for the indoor pool. She had it all planned out. A lap for every angle of the decision, then choose. Kendra sat down on the rough lip of the pool, and plunged her feet into the chemically balanced water. She stared down the lanes. This was Kendra’s version of a pep talk. By the time you get out of the water, you will have decided whether to A-bomb your life or not.

Michael was exasperated, and done discussing it. That left Kendra roiling in an isolated limbo of hesitation. And in unfamiliar territory. She made million-dollar decisions every week, by following a personally honed formula. One pro, one con, on down the list, a run-through of all pertinent information, a quick projection of consequence scenarios, and then she decided. And then she stuck to it. That’s it. That’s how Kendra approached everything from buying bath towels to firing interns. Practice. Plan. Execute. And no looking back. She could completely avoid regret by approaching everything this way.

With a firm nod to agree with herself, Kendra slipped into the water. The chill awakened all her senses. She felt almost elated. Routine would save her. She had made countless major decisions this way. This would be no different.

I don’t believe in luck, Mina. Hard work and planning. That’s what matters.

Lap one. It’s what Michael wants. Michael was the only person who hated surprises more than Kendra. He would want to have a baby on his schedule, in order for him to be a good father. This was the thrust of his argument these past few days. And it made Kendra’s arms slice through the water with aplomb. He wanted to have a baby with her. Just not now.

Lap two. She was too old to consider abortion. It was her mistake and the adult thing to do was to take responsibility for it. She had the means to take care of a child. Apparently just not the backbone. Kendra suddenly wondered what would happen if you had to throw up while swimming.

Lap three. Moral implications. Kendra’s mother always said that the right choice was the one that made your heart pound but didn’t make your stomach churn. In that case, it was time for mental imaging.

Lap four. Kendra chopped at the water with her hands as she filled her head with the first scenario. She envisioned the huge fight with Michael, the standoff that would follow, the terrifying possibility of being pregnant alone, of being pregnant at work, the whispers, dealing with the vacation club in every incarnation—pity, concern, opinion, advice. Kendra’s heart began to race, sending a whale’s heartbeat pulsing through the water. She pictured the agony of giving birth, the destruction of her figure, the flood of hormones and helplessness. Then she focused on the thing in her hands, a tiny wrinkled screaming mashup of herself and the man she once thought she would marry, knowing that Michael would abandon her eventually if she went against his wishes. She counted the toes, stroked the little fingers, smoothed down the damp hair.

Stop! Kendra realized she was about to go into a full-blown panic attack—her heart was pounding her ribs like an Olympic sprinter’s sneakers pound track. Her right hand reached out and found the edge of the pool. Thank God.

Lap five. Deep breath and then back under the water. She saw herself on the operating table, sedated, a flurry of efficient doctors and nurses quickly removing the problem. Now she walked into the waiting room, into Michael’s open arms. At home, he made her tea and microwaved the heating pad. There were roses on the table, with a handwritten card. He held her all night long. The next day she returned to work and never mentioned it to anyone, except her two best friends. Everything was exactly the same as it was. Exactly.

Ouch! Kendra smacked her head against the side of the pool. She came up sputtering, surprised and in pain. She treaded water and looked around. The echoes of the last vision bounced back to her. Hooking her arms over the edge of the pool, she gave a nod. It was clear what the better decision was. Kendra slipped out of the water. She reached up to take off her swimming cap.

Then she doubled over and projectile vomited onto the concrete. A nearby child shrieked in horror.



Two hours later, Kendra hung her keys on the ring by the door and dropped down to the couch like a goldfish flinging itself into a puddle. Chills crept along her skin as she fished her phone out of her gym bag.

She read the texts one by one, the initial smile on her mouth fading as the tears pooled in her eyes. Kendra’s stomach lurched along with her heart. Dizziness swept over her and she lay back down. They were right, she knew. They could take it. It was time to tell them.

She started to hit the call button but the room began to spin like a disco ball. Kendra closed her eyes and held onto the couch. The thought of talking to the vacation club was exhausting beyond measure, the sheer number of them daunting. And she definitely did not want to speak to her mother about it, maybe ever. The thought made Kendra put a hand to her forehead, where a fine sweat beaded above her eyebrows.

More than anything, Kendra was tired, the kind of tired that clogs your veins with wool. Or lead. Kendra felt she would never be able to lift herself off the couch again.

She caught sight of her calendar on the wall. She loved nothing more than the promise of hanging a new calendar every January. But now she wrenched her eyes away, the new implications of months and days too overbearing.

She looked at her phone, ready to dial again. Instead, she hit reply and typed out a text message three lines long.

Kendra hit send and the message disappeared. She leaned forward to get a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Her hair stuck up like a holly bush from all the scalp scratching. Kendra thought briefly of shaving it all off. Black women can pull that shit off, she thought, and gave the mirror a smirk.

She let out a craggy cough.

“Oh, for f*ck’s sake, stop being such a baby,” she told the mirror. At which point, the girl in the reflection curled up into the fetal position and closed her eyes.



“Kendra wrote,” I told Isabel when she returned from the bathroom, ready for bed.

“Yeah? But didn’t call us.” Isabel climbed into bed and stared at the ceiling.

I looked at my phone and read the text again. I’m sorry. I’ll call soon. I love you all. I rolled onto my side facing Isabel. “What do you think?”

“I think people keep too many goddamn secrets.”



November 23

Samantha



Besides Ivy League physicists—there are plenty of “pseudoscientists” out there connecting physics to the paranormal. Okay, Deepak Chopra, Amit Goswami, and Fred Alan Wolf would certainly not appreciate being called pseudoscientists, nor would they agree with the term “paranormal.” They are all Ph.D.’s and M.D.’s and world-renowned speakers and authors. They are, however, the ones that guest appear on Oprah specials on The Secret. Hollywood yoga moms download their books onto Kindles and devour them over skinny vanilla soy lattes.

Jeez—why am I being so harsh?

These guys are the ones we need to believe in the most. And when I’m reading them in the wee hours of the morning…I do feel like I’ve found what you were hoping for. They talk about dying in one parallel universe and being reborn in another. They say that in our dreams we experience glimpses of these parallel universes, and of our other lives. They say that if we believe in something strongly enough, it will happen, for better or worse.

But then I come to see you in the morning, you shrinking in your big bed. And I think they’re all full of shit. My best friend is dying and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. That’s when I begin to suspect that you gave me this project to distract me, because you know me better than anyone in the world, better than I know myself. You raised me, you know. I’ve always been like the child. Who’s going to take care of me when I fall now? I always fall. I’m rash and I’m impatient and I’m bossy. You know it’s all a defense. Who’s going to understand me better than you? Who’s going to calm me, soothe me, tell me to shut up? If I only get to see you in my dreams, I might never want to wake up. Life is going to be scary without you, Mina. I’m not ready.