The past is like a foreign country. It seems as though I visited long ago, but I have no idea how to get back there. And even if I could get back there, I don’t know that I’d ever want to take such a perilous, awful journey. Sometimes, I don’t get a choice, though. There are occasions when I’m dragged back there by my boot heels and I can’t stop the process no matter how hard I kick and scream and cry.
I travel back to that first night in the basement all the time. For a while, making myself throw up was the only way to stop the violent memories hitting me over and over again. Throwing up was the only way to break the cycle.
I thought once I’d left Port Royal, everything would get better. It didn’t, though. For years I was sick, distraught over what had happened. And losing Jo. Not being able to say goodbye to her. Mostly, I was torn to pieces over losing Callan. In my head, I had to cling onto the idea that I was mad at him. That I did hate him for selling that photograph of me to the world. It made it easier that he was gone. That I’d walked away.
Now it seems like he’s walking away, and I don’t blame him. I can’t. I mean, I’ve had well over a decade to come to terms with what happened and I still haven’t managed it. How can I expect him to get his head around it and accept it in less than twenty-four hours? And how can I expect him to forgive me for keeping it a secret? My father should have gone to jail for what he did, both to me and to our baby, and I let him get away with it. I couldn’t have faced reporting the crime. It took me years to even confess it to a therapist, and I had a major panic attack when I did get the words out. That’s when my eating disorder was at it’s worst. When my drinking was beyond out of control. I’ve never been as close to spiraling down that rabbit hole again as I have been the past few weeks. I’m not frightened about losing control anymore, though. I was afraid because I knew I was going to have to tell Callan, and now that I have, despite how terrible and hard it was, I feel a little lighter. I don’t want to pour a bottle of vodka down my throat. I don’t want to puke hard enough to tear my esophagus.
It’s a relief.
“You’re a foolish child,” Friday tells me, handing me a glass of sweet tea. “You shoulda done tol’ me ‘bout all this nonsense back when it happened. I get it, though. I do. Sometimes the only thing that can fix things is time, and you gotta just get there on yo’ own. Ain’t a journey that other people can take for you. Or even ride along on.”
I don’t have anything to say to that. I don’t talk about my emotions easily. There’s always been this block inside me, this insurmountable wall that I can never overcome. Climbing the wall or trying to knock it down has always been a futile task. Now that I seem to have managed it, I’m content to take things slowly, one step at a time.
“You and him were never meant to stay here, Coralie. You was both meant to leave and see what was what out in the world. The circumstances for you both leaving were the worst kind, but it was your fate. And now fate has brought you both back here again to heal your wounds.”
“Callan’s wounds are too fresh. They’re going to take a long time to heal.”
Friday shrugs, looking off into the distance. Behind us, I can hear the gentle susurrus of the river, the same cadence and chatter it’s been whispering for as long as I can remember. Cicadas roar and quiet in turn, a bizarre and beautiful symphony. “Men are strange creatures, Coralie,” Friday tells me softly. “They recover from their injuries different to womenfolk. Who knows how long that boy’s heart will take to come back together. May not be as long as you think.”
We both sit, watching the world go on slowly around us. After a long while, Callan arrives in his beaten up Ford, pulling into his driveway on the other side of the street, and I realize for the first time that it’s his mother’s old car—the one he used to drive on errands for her back when we were kids.
“You gonna go talk to him, child?” Friday asks.
I think about this for a moment, and then I shake my head. “I’ve said everything I can say, Friday. It’s done now. It’s over.” My eyes flicker toward the house next to Callan’s—old colonial columns cracked, paint peeling, window frames choked with ivy, kudzu draped in graceful bows over the porch—and I really see the place for the first time since I got back. I’ve avoided looking at it, not wanting to see it, to relive any of the hurt that went on there, and now that I’m facing it, letting it in, nothing happens. I’m not scared like I thought I’d be. I remember my mother pushing me on a tire swing in the front yard when I was tiny. I remember hours at night spent talking to Callan across the seven-meter gap that stands between the properties. That’s it. Nothing else.