Buffie Lucas was a no-nonsense psych tech who should have been on Broadway. She sang as she worked and could do Aretha Franklin better than Aretha Franklin could do Aretha Franklin. She’d lost her parents within three months of each other. When I asked her if her mom had given her a quilt made out of all her concert T-shirts before she died, she had stopped mid-song. Then she smacked me and made me promise not to hold anything back.
People came, and they brought gifts. Paper and grease pencils, water colors and chalk, and about two months into my stay, Dr. June brought me a letter from Georgia. I’d done something that pleased Dr. June, and I suppose she was trying to reward me. I hadn’t meant to please her. I didn’t especially like Dr. June. But she’d seen a picture I’d drawn of Gigi. I’d meant to hide it and then hadn’t been able to bring myself to put it away. It was a chalk drawing. Simple and beautiful, just like Gi always was. In the picture she was folded around a child, though I told myself the child wasn’t me. June had stared at it, and then raised her eyes to mine.
“This is beautiful. Touching. Tell me about it.”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Okay. I’ll tell you what I see,” Dr. June said.
I shrugged.
“I see a child and a woman who love each other very much.”
I shrugged again.
“Is this you?”
“Does it look like me?”
She looked down at the drawing and then back at me. “It looks like a child. You were a child once.”
I didn’t respond and she continued.
“Is this your grandmother?” she asked.
“I suppose it could be,” I conceded.
“Did you love her?”
“I don’t love anyone.”
“Do you miss her?”
I sighed and asked a question of my own. “Do you miss your sister?”
“Yes I do.” She nodded as she spoke. “And I think you miss your grandmother.”
I nodded. “Okay. I miss my grandmother.”
“That’s healthy, Moses.”
“Okay.” Awesome. I was healed. Hallelujah.
“Is she the only one you miss?”
I stayed silent, unsure of where she was leading me.
“She keeps coming back, you know.”
I waited.
“Georgia. Every week. She comes. And you don’t want to see her?”
“No.” I suddenly felt dizzy.
“Can you tell me why?”
“Georgia thinks she loves me.” I winced at the admission, and Dr. June’s eyes widened slightly. I’d just given her a meaty, dripping spoonful of psyche stew, and she was salivating over it.
“And you don’t love her?” she said, trying not to drool.
“I don’t love anyone,” I responded immediately. Hadn’t I already said that? I took a deep breath, trying to steady myself. It both pleased and bothered me that Georgia had been so persistent. And it bothered me that I was pleased. It bothered me that my pulse had quickened and that my palms were damp. It bothered me that at the mention of her name, I had immediately felt that rush of color behind my eyes, reminiscent of the kaleidoscope Georgia’s kisses had always created in my head.
“I see. Why?” Dr. June asked.
“I just don’t. I’m broken, I guess.” Cracked.
She nodded, almost agreeing with me.
“Do you think you might love someone someday?”
“I don’t plan on it.”
She nodded again and persisted for a while, but finally her time was up, and she’d really only gotten that one spoonful, which made me happy.
“That’s enough for today,” she said, standing briskly, folder in hand.
She slid an envelope from the back of the file and set it carefully on the table in front of me.
“She wanted me to give this to you. Georgia did. I told her I wouldn’t. I told her if you had wanted to contact her, you would have. I think that hurt her. But it’s the truth, isn’t it?” I felt a flash of anger that June had been rude to Georgia, and was bothered once again that I was bothered.
“But I decided to give it to you and let you choose whether or not you wanted to read it.” She shrugged. “It’s up to you.”
I stared at the letter for a long time after Dr. June ended our session. I was sure that was what she had expected. She thought I would give in and read it, I was sure of that too. But she didn’t understand my laws.
I tossed the letter in the trash and gathered up the drawings Dr. June had been flipping through. The one of Gi was there on top, and the intertwined figures made me pause. I pulled Georgia’s letter back out of the trash, painstakingly unsealed it, and drew the single handwritten page from inside without letting myself focus on the curving letters and the swooping G at the bottom that began her name. Then I carefully folded the picture of Gi, the way Gi enfolded the child in the drawing. The child that wasn’t me, not anymore at least. The child could be Georgia now, and Gi could look after her. Then I took the drawing and tucked it inside the envelope. I wrote Georgia’s address on the outside and when Chaz brought me my dinner that night I asked him if he would make sure it got sent.
I slipped Georgia’s letter beneath my mattress where I wouldn’t have to see it, where I wouldn’t have to feel it, where I wouldn’t have to acknowledge it.
Georgia
HIS NAME WASN’T in the top left-hand corner but the envelope said Montlake and it was his handwriting that slashed across the envelope. Georgia Shepherd, PO Box 5, Levan Utah, 84639. Moses and I had had a discussion about Levan and her post office boxes, and apparently Moses hadn’t forgotten it. The only mail boxes anyone had at their homes in Levan were for the Daily Herald, a newspaper most of Levan subscribed to, if only for the Sunday comics and the coupon inserts. The Daily Herald was delivered by paper boys or families and it was delivered door to door. But the actual mail was delivered to the little brick post office on the main drag and distributed to the keyed, ornate boxes inside. My family had one of the lower numbers because we’d inherited our box as it was passed down through the Shepherd line.
“So your family is Levan royalty, then?” Moses had teased.
“Yes. We Shepherds rule this town,” I replied.
“Who has PO Box number 1?” he inquired immediately.
“God,” I said, not missing a beat.
“And box number 2?” He was laughing as he asked.
“Pam Jackman.”
“From down the street?”
“Yes. She’s like one of the Kennedys.”
“She drives the bus, right?” he asked.
“Yes. Bus driver is a highly lauded position in our community.” I didn’t even crack a smile.