“How did that make you feel, Brynna?”
She wanted to laugh at the stereotypical psychiatrist question, how it made it sound like Brynna and the doctor were in some poorly written play that would have three acts, a dark moment (this one), and an ending where the crowd would applaud. There didn’t seem to be an ending to what Brynna was going through.
“What do you want me to say?”
Dr. Rother straightened in her chair. “I want you to tell me how you’re feeling. Have your feelings changed significantly now that we know Erica is deceased?”
Brynna pressed her fingernail into the wood grain of her chair. “You told me I had to accept that she was dead a long time ago.”
“But you never did.”
She refused to react.
“So now that the proof is irrefutable—”
“Irrefutable? They found remains. It wasn’t even a body. It wasn’t even Erica’s body.” She pressed her fingernail harder, relishing the sting of pain as the nail bent. She focused hard on the pain, on the chalky white mark that spread across her peachy nail.
“They’ve tested it, Brynna. It is Erica. Your mother told me there is going to be a memorial.”
Brynna’s chest tightened. All at once, the cloying smell of those lilies hit her nostrils and turned her stomach, and she could feel the stifling heat of the mortuary. “We already had a memorial for Erica.”
“I guess at this one they’re planning to inter her remains. Your mother said you were thinking of going.”
Truthfully, Brynna had walked into the kitchen while her mother sat at the counter, her cell phone pressed to her ear. She was sitting stark silent and still, which was odd for the woman who routinely multitasked, and Brynna had paused in the near darkness of the hallway.
“I’m so sorry, Melanie,” her mother had said. “I know this can’t be easy for you.”
Brynna felt the burn in her cheeks when she heard the name Melanie—Melanie Shaw was Erica’s mother’s name.
“Of course we’ll be there.”
There was a beat of silence and Brynna watched as her mother pulled a pencil and a piece of paper from the junk drawer and very carefully, very precisely wrote something down.
“I know Brynna will want to say a proper good-bye to Erica.”
Brynna turned to leave as her mother hung up the phone. “Bryn? Is that you?”
She turned slowly as her mother slid off the barstool and came toward her. “That was Mrs. Shaw.” She looked at her daughter as though she didn’t know whether to smile or cry. “There’s going to be a memorial for Erica. Small, graveside. Just family and close friends.” She brushed a hand through Brynna’s hair. “I told Melanie that we would be there. It’ll be nice for you to say good-bye.”
The memory flitted through Brynna’s head, and she shifted in the chair she was sitting in, pressing her shoes against the gray industrial carpet in Dr. Rother’s office.
They were quiet for a long while. Brynna stared down at her finger on the chair arm, studied the way the wood grain ran. She could feel Dr. Rother’s eyes intent on her, a silent challenge.
Finally, “It should have been me that died.”
Dr. Rother looked at her over the top of her legal pad and calmly set down her pen. Brynna absently wondered if the doctor had learned that in shrink school: when a patient says they should have died, set down your pen and look interested—even if you agree with them.
“Did finding Erica’s body make you think that?”
Brynna wagged her head. “I’ve always thought that.”
“And why do you think that, Brynna?”
Brynna hated the breathy way Dr. Rother’s voice sounded.
“It just would have been better. Erica—Erica was better at—at everything. She was the better student, the better swimmer. She probably wouldn’t have gotten fucked up.” Brynna looked up from her jeans, feeling the creep of pink on her cheeks. “Sorry. Erica probably wouldn’t have gotten messed up on drugs if I died.”
“First of all, let’s not go assuming what Erica would have done if the situation were reversed.” Now the doctor put her notebook down too and leaned back in her chair, giving Brynna her “we’re about to make a breakthrough” stare. “And second of all, about Erica being better than you at everything. Do you see what you’re doing there?”
Brynna hated this part—the part where she was supposed to stumble on some brilliant realization and break down in tears or skip out of here, cured.
“No,” she said with a slight grumble.
“You’re idolizing her.”
“So?”
“So, was Erica really better than you were scholastically? Didn’t you say that you used to help her study?”
“Yeah, but—”
“And you were both on the swim team, were you not?”
Brynna raised an eyebrow, unwilling to speak.