Circle the Soul Softly (13 page)

I am so confused.

kt13: i'm confused
hamlet99: yeah. hey, can I call you? This would be better in person

“Okay, this sounds weird when you say it,” David says on the phone a few seconds later, “but it was totally awesome.”

I don't care at this point; we're talking.
“Okay.”

“I never met this woman, all right? I just gave her my signature the
day before the appointment, and she slept with it under her pillow.”
He's right. It's weird.
“So,we're in this little room and she lights a candle and tells me I need to welcome the spirits when they come and then at the end, say thank you and goodbye, so they'll leave. Except I can't tell that the spirits are there until she starts talking.”

“Why—did her voice get all creepy?”

“No, she starts saying things about me no one else should know. I swear. She looks like she's listening to someone I can't see and repeating their words. Then she starts talking about my soul, who it was in past lives and what it agreed to do in this lifetime.”

“Like, promises you made?”

“Exactly. Except she calls them ‘contracts,' and let me tell you, it's one thing to read about it and totally freaky to have it be about you.”

“How do you know she's not making it all up?”

“Because everything made sense. Everything. All the things my soul wants to learn in this lifetime? It's what I feel. It's like I already knew all the stuff—I just didn't know I knew it.”

“You are so losing me.”

“Sorry, I guess you have to be there. But I do want to tell you the part about me and you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. She was talking about how the soul has to circle and explore and experience until it finds where it's supposed to be. And then it settles a bit; it fits more comfortably in the universe or whatever you want to call it, because it starts to be in the correct relationship with itself. Is this making sense?”

“Uh, that would be no.”

He laughs a little.“You think I'm a lunatic?”

“Um, well …yeah.”

“I wish you'd been there. It's much easier to get when you hear it from her.”

“Go on, I'll try to keep up.”

“All right. See—each soul travels through time with a group of other souls. So like, you may have been with your mom or dad in a past life, in a different relationship. You might have been the father, or you and your mom could have been brothers or sisters. And each time you come back, your soul agrees to experience something that will make you grow. Sometimes it works, and your soul settles and moves on. Sometimes it doesn't.”

“I kinda get it. But how come she mentioned me? Was I your father or something?”

“No. At the end, she said I could ask questions, so we talked about you.”

Whoa. Heart jumps, brain twirls, stomach flips.

“I told her your name, and she told me your soul is struggling to rearrange relationships so it can find a more solid place to be. It's circling—or maybe you're circling around it. I forget exactly. I figured it's probably about your dad.”

Warning, warning.
“What do you mean?”

“Well, when someone dies, all the other—”

“Wait a minute, hold it. How do you know my dad died?”

“Your mom told me a couple months ago.”

All systems ice.
“Why?”

“I don't know. I called and you weren't home, and we started talking.”

“And all of a sudden she says,‘ Oh, by the way . . .'?”

“No. No, it wasn't like that; she was talking about getting married or something—why? Didn't you want me to know?”

“I don't care. It's just weird, that's all.”
More than you know.
“Neither one of you said anything to me.”

“I'm sorry, I didn't think—”

“It's okay. No problem.”
I wonder what else they talked about.
“So go on with your fortune lady.”

“Okay, well, I told her your name—”

“We did this part.”

“Right. Well, you and I have been together in the past, and probably will again in the future. We could even be soul mates.”

I don't say anything for a second, I'm still on my dad.

“Hello?” David says. “Are we still here?”

“Yeah. I was just thinking …that's pretty cool.”

THIRTY-FIVE

Mom and I are in the living room of Robert's Mini Mansion, aka Bob's Beach House, folding napkins and making table ornaments for the guests at Mom and Robert's upcoming wedding. We aren't talking. That is, until she blurts, “Your father went through a really difficult time before he got sick.”

I am seriously not in the mood for conversation about my father, unless she wants to explain why she and David have conversations about him. She is definitely off the Trusted Parent List, leaving only …oh.Yeah. That would be no one. But I have no bitterness. I don't feel left out at all, even though he's
my
boyfriend and she's
my
mother. I'm the Good Daughter. I'll be polite and listen.

“He lost his job. Just after he got the promotion he'd been working for. The company downsized. It was pretty overwhelming.”

I think,
“Who
are
you?”

I say, “Yeah, I can imagine.”

She drones on. I nod and act like I'm paying attention. But I happen to know that I wouldn't even be here if it weren't for Robert. I heard them “discussing” me—she didn't want me to come. Robert had to talk her into it.

That + (Talking to David) = (Screw You, Mom)

A formula! I did learn something in geometry!

“I had to get a job, and he stayed home with the two of you. That's when I worked at the college. Don't you remember?”

“Not really.”
Can she not hear the boredom in my voice?

“Well, you were only in first or second grade, I think.”

“I actually don't remember a whole lot about any of my childhood, and—”

“I guess that's natural, huh?” She interrupts.
God forbid we talk
about anything but her.
She finishes one of the table decorations and steps back to look at it.“Anyway, it was a hard time for him. Especially since I was providing the salary.” She points to the finished decoration.“What do you think?”

That you're totally selfish?

“It's great, Mom. It fits the house.”

“This place is something, isn't it?”

“Yeah. Sure is.”

“Anyway, I just wanted to share that about your dad.”

“Why?”
Uh-oh—direct hit.

She pauses, and when she speaks again, her voice is somewhat deeper.“Mostly because Robert thinks I should.”

“What do you think?”
Second volley.

“I don't know what to think, Katie.” I realize, as she turns to look at me, that it's the first time today we've made eye contact.

“This is really about what I told you, isn't it?”

“I don't believe what you told us, honey.” That pushes her away again, and she looks to find a new
decoration, even though the one she has in her hands isn't finished.“I mean, I don't think you'd lie, but I do think you made some kind of mistake. It doesn't make sense.”

Whoa. Big one for her side. Initial impulses:
Tell her I'm pissed
about her secret conversations with David, say “Fuck off and die, Mom”
and walk away, or walk away without saying anything and never talk
to her again.

Second thoughts:
Recognize what's happening to me, how I want
to disassociate (thank you, Internet search engine) and let Stupid Kate
take over. And—understand it's a
choice
. My choice
.

And so—I choose to stay.

I also choose
not
to speak.

She watches me a second and then goes on. Her voice remains low and gentle. “Your father loved you, Kaitlyn. So much. He loved both you kids.”

I wait.

“He would never hurt you. He couldn't. He wasn't that kind of man.”

My lips tighten a little, but I still do not speak.

“Maybe you misinterpreted something. You know? Little kids don't always understand what's going on, so they make up scenarios to explain it.”

Ice is forming inside me at a spectacular pace. I have to physically move to keep myself from freezing completely. “I didn't make it up, Mom.”

She doesn't hear me. “I know you had nightmares. And he'd go in sometimes to sit with you. Maybe you got confused, huh? Maybe the nightmares folded over, and you thought he was the bad guy or something.”

“Did he close the door?”

“What?”

“Did he close my bedroom door?”

“When you had a nightmare?” She pauses to think. “I don't think so; you didn't like that, remember? We always kept the door open.”

“Are you sure?”

“No, I'm not sure. I was usually asleep. He's the one who'd hear you.”

“You didn't?”

“Hear you? No. But I sleep like a rock.”

“That's not true, Mom. You woke up if I even walked down the hall.”

“Well, Katie,” she says, her voice defensive,“it wasn't the best time for me then, either, and the doctor gave me sleeping pills. So, no, I didn't always hear you call me.”

“How about Michael? He was right next door.”

“Yes, and pretty much living under his headphones, remember? A train could run through and he'd never know it.”

My heart's doing a speed lap, but I'm working desperately to stay calm and keep my voice emotionless. It would be so easy right now to shut down and tell her she's right. Except then I'd be back where I was before.

She sighs, hugely. “Katie, I believe you think something happened to you. I just can't make the facts support that.” Her voice is infinitely reasonable. It's a Mother Voice, and she's winning; I can feel it.

Nevertheless, I speak. “I don't remember having nightmares until much later. And then I called for
you
, not him.”

“No, you had nightmares in kindergarten.”

“How do you know, if you were taking sleeping pills?”

“Your father told me.”

Yes!

Yes, yes, and
yes
!

I pause for the words to land. My voice gets even softer when I say, “So there you are.”

Her voice is equally soft.“No, Kaitlyn.
No
.Your father would not have hurt you—ever—especially not like that. He couldn't. I knew him; I was married to him; he was not that kind of man.”

Why won't she hear me?

“Besides, you would have told me. I know you would have. But you never said a thing.” She speaks with conviction and a tinge of hurt. “
Never
, Katie. So it's very strange why now, all of a sudden, just when I'm getting married, you . . .”

“You must never tell Mommy, Skates. Never.”

“He said you and Michael would go away.”

“What?”

As I say the words, I hear the echo again; I know it's true.“He told me I was having a bad dream, and if I bothered you with it, you wouldn't want me anymore. You'd take Michael and you'd leave. That's why I didn't say anything.”

In the silence that follows, I drink in the sound of the waves not fifty yards from where we sit. She shakes her head, as if jarring her thoughts will make them dissolve. I can't read her expression.

And right now, this minute, I don't care.

She picks up a new decoration kit and heads toward the door. For a second she pauses and looks back at me.

“If he hurt you—if he did that . . .” She shakes her head again. I can't tell if she is talking to herself or to me. “I don't know if I can stand it.”

It is truly remarkable how two relatively intelligent human beings can spend a day together and never mention the huge contentious polar bear lurking about the middle of the room. But we do. We talk of the wedding and the weather, dresses and the weather, the weather and the weather. After dinner we escape to separate spaces.

By midnight I'm wrapped in a blanket on the balcony of “my” room at the Mini Mansion. There's no man-made light on the beach or out in the ocean, nothing to outline where the water ends and the sky begins. A misty fog hides most of the stars—only the brightest manage to twinkle through. Waves rumble their approach and then crash, pounding down against the shore. The frothy whiteness of the breaking water glows eerily as the moonlight hits and outlines its ripples' journey up the coast.

So many voices in my head—Tess's, David's, Michael's, Robert's, my mother's. Stacey's, too, from her journal—how strange. I sit in silence, allowing them free range, accepting the bombardment, wishing somewhere in there, I could hear my father.

Did he love me?

I'm not sure.

Did he come into my room?

Yes.

I sigh and give my self to the ocean. It begins to order the anarchy inside. Over and over again, it gathers and strikes and flows; true to a rhythm I wish I could always hear.

THIRTY-SIX

“Do you remember where you got your nickname?”

Mom and I are having breakfast on the patio. We've already walked on the beach, rearranged the stuff in the kitchen so we know where to find everything, and called home to check in with Robert. We're been here four days and will stay through the weekend; each day the big white polar bear lumbers about, but never completely leaves the room. David's coming for dinner tonight, bringing a DVD we can watch on Robert's big screen. Michael's joining us Saturday to help move the heavy furniture.

I shake my head no and stuff my mouth with a huge strawberry. There's something luxurious about ocean air and fresh fruit. It almost makes me able to stand my mom.