On our last day in Kona, after the boys had gone to school and Chuck had gone to work, I laid out my purple mat and stretched. The birds and the water heater and I heard her voice the whole time. Breathe, she said. Close your eyes. Imagine you are made of feathers. Imagine yourself as a bird above your life. You are untethered but you hover. Pleasantly you hover. You watch, amazed. This life is amazing. You are both weightless and so full.
I made oatmeal on the stove, and while it cooked I went through the cupboards. All this food we were going to throw away. All this bread. All this peanut butter.
Repentance, I thought, as I opened the Ziploc. Repayment, I thought, as I put the sandwich inside. I feel better already, I thought, as I drove down the winding road toward town.
Our old route. From Huggo’s to the King Kam and then the parking lots. Top down, I drove slowly. Daniel didn’t recognize me until I held up a sandwich. “New car,” he said, dragging his elegant piano player fingers over what would have been her headrest. He moved with such grace. “Mahalos,” he said, and in the moment he lifted the sandwich from my hands, I felt better.
The girl whose sign simply said HELP was back. I tossed her two sandwiches. She gave me a thumbs-up. This was the most alive I’d ever seen her.
Mana at the bus stop bellowed, “Where’s your sistah?”
“Busy!” I yelled.
He caught the sandwich with the free hand—the one that wasn’t holding the brown paper bag. “You da best!”
The boys weren’t at the banyan tree, and Marigold and Petunia weren’t at their usual dumpster. I left sandwiches in those spots anyway, and then I handed out the rest to new hungry people I hadn’t met before.
When I had one sandwich left, I went to McDonald’s. Maybe the man in the sleeping bag was still there. He wasn’t. I set the sandwich under the speakers for when he came back.
I walked back to my car feeling lighter. Maybe it wasn’t real. Maybe I didn’t deserve to feel lighter. And maybe it was selfish—doing this good thing to make myself feel better, to make myself better. But, even if it was selfish and even if I didn’t deserve to feel better, no one could argue that a person who did good deeds wasn’t a good person, at least some of the time.
In the shadows of the car next to mine, a woman scarfing a Big Mac. She chewed with her eyes closed. Sandy hair, responsibly combed. I tried not to look, but I couldn’t look away. Her doughy hands, her floral hat. Wait. And then she turned her head.
Marcy.
The second she saw me, she put the burger down. She wiped her mouth. She chewed faster.
Hi, I waved.
She rolled the window down. “Oh,” she said, covering the ketchup on her chin, “I’m embarrassed.”
“Don’t be,” I said. I noticed she was wearing my San Diego Zoo shirt.
“It’s great to see you, Nancy,” she said, studying my face. “You look good.”
“Oh.” This was nice to hear.
“I mean it. You look great.”
I wanted to say, “You, too,” but I had caught her at such an inopportune moment. I couldn’t bring myself to lie. I gave her a hopeful smile instead.
“You’re glowing,” she went on. “You seem less stressed than the last time I saw you.”
“I do?”
She shrugged. She was too polite to tell me I’d been a wreck before.
I laughed. What to say. “We’re going back to the mainland.”
“You are?” Her face twisted and fell. “I’m jealous. I hate it here.”
I shook my head at the sun, the sky. It was the most perfect sunny day.
“Listen,” I said, “I’m sorry I never called you. I just—I don’t know—I got caught up.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “Maybe I’ll see you in San Diego. I’m a better version of myself there, I promise.”
My hand covered my heart like a reflex. “I hope to meet you then.” I waved good-bye.
“Nice shoes!” she called after me. “I have those exact same ones! Same color even!”
I’d never gotten around to throwing the Tevas away. “Good choice!” I called back.
On the drive home, I enjoyed everything. The wind in my hair, the sun on my face, the smell of my mango air freshener and the smell of the wet jungle and how easily they blended together.
42
We would make it home just in time for Thanksgiving. Chuck would brine a Costco turkey for two days like he did every year. The rusty garage door would moan when it opened and the roof would leak when it rained, and together we would complain about these things. Someday we would fix them.
I would still hear her voice. Sometimes in the mirror, I would catch a glimpse of her. Ana, my twin, my sister, how I had envied her freedom. How it would take me so long to understand her freedom wasn’t real. Ana wasn’t free. She was her sad past, replaying itself. In a way, she was still a child. She’d chosen the sky as a mother, as a guide. The sky. It was the biggest thing she could have chosen. The biggest empty thing.
While taking out the trash or scraping cheese off a pan, I would think: yes, I am a housewife and yes, my life is small and yes, sometimes boring.
But then maybe my boring life was a miracle.
Because, Nancy. Nan. You survived your past.
You reinvented yourself when you left home. When you left home, you left the past behind. You told no one the truth—of how your older boyfriend was paying you for sex by the end of that relationship, or of how you stole his credit cards and maxed them all out. Or of how, when you found your mother in her smelly chair, you had never really thought she was sleeping.
It had been just the two of you in the house that day. When you found her, there was no mistaking it for sleep. She was having a seizure. And you let her have it. Because that was what she deserved. You could have given her the medication and you didn’t. You weren’t worried about anyone walking in to find you because there was no one. She had no one. She was alone. And that was her choice—she had chosen her loneliness. Her last breaths were frantic. Her face was frantic. You still might not be sure how you just stood there and watched without mercy.
The first thing you did was drink her wine. White wine in a plastic cup on her table. Recently poured and nearly full. You downed it. You thought that when the police came, if they were coming, the scene should be found in its authentic state. The charade. It began when you went to refill the cup, but the white wine was gone. Red wine in the fridge. You used that instead. This is what had confused your story.
You’ve never told a soul about how she really died. You buried the past, and you became someone new. And every time the past has needed to be buried, you have buried it, and you can do it again. You do not get stuck. You do not get depressed. You move on. You keep moving. This is freedom.
When you remember her frantic face, you might be sorry. If there is a God, you might say, God, I am sorry about my mother. I am sorry about Peter. I am sorry for everything I have ever done wrong. From now on it will be different. I know that innately I am a good person. I will show you. I promise.