CHAPTER Thirty-Four
Diane Acton’s house is small and tidy. There are pink impatiens planted around the tree in her front yard. The blue station wagon is parked in the driveway, looking much less sinister than it seemed when it was driving by my house.
“Do you want me to come in with you guys?” Rollins asks, subconsciously touching his chest. It’s been weeks since he got out of the hospital, but he still feels quite a bit of pain where the bullet hit him.
I’m about to say no, but then I change my mind. I have a tendency to get myself into some pretty crazy situations. “That’d probably be best.”
Mattie, Rollins, and I get out of the car and cross the lawn. A small dog yaps at us from across the street. We crowd onto the front step, and I ring the doorbell.
The door swings open, and Diane peeks out. Her mouth drops open when she sees me. “Sylvia? What are you doing here?”
I put my hands on my hips. “So you do remember me.”
“Of course I remember. What do you need?”
“I have some questions I’m hoping you can answer for me. Can we come in?”
Diane nods. “Of course.”
She holds open the door, and we all walk into her house. She leads us into the living room and gestures to a couch. “Would you like anything to drink?”
I shake my head and sit down. Mattie and Rollins sit on either side of me.
“Is this your sister?” Diane asks, sitting in a rocking chair on the other side of the room. “I can see the resemblance.”
“Yes, this is Mattie. And this,” I say, pointing, “is Rollins.”
Diane raises her eyebrows. “I’ve never met anyone named Rollins before.”
I ignore her comment and jump right in. “Why are you following me?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I don’t believe it was a coincidence that you were driving along Highway 6 the night I got into an accident. I never told you my address, but you knew how to get there anyway. And since then I’ve seen you watching me at the mall and driving by our house. Don’t try to deny it, Diane.”
“I won’t,” she says.
“Why were you following me?”
She pushes out of the rocking chair, steadies herself. I feel Rollins tense beside me. I put my hand on his knee. It’s not like this old woman is going to attack me. At least, I don’t think she is.
Wordlessly, she walks out of the room. A moment later, she returns carrying two stuffed animals in her arms. One is a turtle with a missing eye. The other is a sheep. She gives the turtle to me, the sheep to Mattie.
A flurry of memories rushes through me. I haven’t thought of this turtle in ages, but now that I’m holding it in my hands, I wonder how I ever could have forgotten it.
“Slowpoke,” I say, calling it by its name. I look up at Diane, who has returned to the rocking chair. “How did you get this?”
“Your mother gave it to me.”
I exchange an incredulous look with Mattie. “Are you serious? I mean, I know you knew our mom, but why would she give you our things?”
“Let me start at the beginning. Susan and I met at the hospital. She’d come by to bring your father lunch, and we just got to talking. After that, we were fast friends. I realized we had a lot in common.”
Mattie speaks up. “Like what?”
Diane looks carefully at Rollins. “Would you mind excusing us, dear? This is private business.”
“Anything you say to me, you can say in front of Rollins. There are no secrets between us,” I tell her.
She straightens her skirt. “Okay, then. Susan, like me, had the gift of extraordinary empathy.”
“Extraordinary what?” Mattie asks.
“Empathy is the ability to experience the feelings of another—”
I cut her off. “Is that what you call it? Extraordinary empathy?”
Diane studies me. “Well, that’s what it is, isn’t it? The capacity to literally walk in someone else’s shoes?”
I gasp. “You’re able to sl—to walk in someone else’s shoes?”
A wry smile spreads across her lips. “My dear, I’ve walked in your shoes. Or should I say your bare feet?”
I wonder what she’s talking about, and then I remember the night I got into the car accident. There was a moment, right before Scotch came down the road, I kind of blacked out. I thought it was because I was so disoriented from the car crash, but maybe this woman slid into me. I look at the stuffed animal in my hands. I’d loved it so much when I was small. Surely there was enough of an emotional imprint attached for Diane to use and find me.
“That night of the accident,” I say.
She nods.
“But why?”
“I made a promise to your mother before she died. She came here shortly after she was diagnosed with cancer, and she made me promise to watch over you and Mattie. That’s why she gave me the stuffed animals. In case I ever needed to . . . tap into you. I never thought I’d actually have to use them. But when I read in the papers about what happened with your friend Zane, I started to get nervous.”
Hearing Zane’s name is like a stab to the heart. I shake it off, try to concentrate on what Diane’s saying.
She goes on. “I started following you periodically. One night, I happened to pass by your house. Vee, I saw you backing out of the driveway in your father’s car. I’d never seen you driving before. I suspected it was because of your condition. So it was very odd to see you behind the wheel. I wanted to follow you, but I was nearly out of gas. I had to stop, and then I had no idea where you’d gone. That was the first night I used the turtle. I wanted to make sure you were okay. When I tapped into you, I saw that you were stranded on the side of the road.”
“And then you came to pick me up,” I said.
She nods.
Rollins speaks up.
“Are there more people like you and Vee and Mattie? Others with . . . extraordinary empathy?”
“Not many, but there are a few I’ve come across in my lifetime.”
“Can we meet them? I have so many questions,” says Mattie.
I realize that I have a lot of questions myself. Like, how was Mattie able to control people so easily, while I had to work up to it? Why does she slide only when she’s asleep? Is sliding from a waking state something you work up to?
“If that’s what you want,” says Diane. “It’s probably hard for you, without anyone to talk to about your ability. I could get in touch with one or two of them. And, in the meantime, you can always talk to me.”
“I’d like that,” I say.
I run my fingers through the turtle’s soft fur, thinking how glad I am to have found others who are able to do what I can do. For so long, I felt alone, but now I have someone to guide me.
I look at Mattie and smile.
And someone to share my journey.