Megan's Way (25 page)

“You didn’t know who your dad was? Were you
adopted?” he asked.

“No. My mom had me, but she never told me who
my father was. I know now, but I just found out. I mean, she left a
note, so I know who he is, but I’m not sure that I want to say
anything.” She faced him and saw compassion in his eyes.

“Why don’t you want to say anything? Are you
afraid he won’t want you?” he asked.

“No. I’m afraid of what knowing I’m his will
do to his family,” she said.

They exchanged a look of understanding.

“A note? Why didn’t your mom just tell
you?”

“I don’t think I was supposed to find the
note. I sort of went crazy in her room and found it in her box of
personal stuff that she kept. She always said she didn’t want me to
know until I was older, but—whatever!”

Side by side they made their way back to the
lighthouse. Olivia saw Holly in the distance and waved. Holly waved
back. Relief was evident in her smile.

“I better go. It looks like everyone is
leaving,” Olivia said. She played with a twig she had picked up on
the trail. “Thanks for letting me see the bog.”

Jason didn’t want her to go. He had many
friends, but none as pretty as Olivia. Beyond being pretty, they
had something in common that bound him to her in a way that other
kids his age couldn’t understand. “When are you moving again?”

“I’m not sure. Soon, probably,” Olivia said.
“Well, I guess I’ll see you ’round then.”

Olivia’s heart sank to the pit of her
stomach.
He didn’t even ask for my number. I guess he doesn’t
like me. Who would? I’m a mess. I shouldn’t have cried
. “Yeah,
see you ’round.” She forced a smile and turned to walk away.

As she neared Holly, she heard his footfalls
behind her.

Her stomach leapt into her throat.
Yes!

“Olivia!” he yelled, just as she reached the
empty chairs.

She spun around, smiled.

“Wait!” he yelled again. When he reached her
he put his hand on her forearm, and once again electricity shot
through her.

“Yeah?” she laughed.

“Can I,” he looked at the ocean, “Can I, um,
get your number maybe?” Jason couldn’t stand still, his feet moved
from side to side as the distance between his question and her
answer lengthened. His nerves were on fire.

“Sure.”

“Great!” His eyes lit up. He continued to
move from one foot to the other. “Great!”

excitement hung in the air between the two.
“Oh, I don’t have a pen,” Olivia said, “Or paper.”

Jack looked around, then pointed his finger
up toward the sky and lifted is eyebrows. “You have a phone, right?
You have Holly’s phone?”

“Yeah,” she laughed, “but that won’t help
you.”

“Sure it will.” He dug deep into his shorts
pocket and pulled out a cell phone. “Text me your number.”

She giggled. “Okay. good idea.” She texted
him her cell and home phone numbers, then Holly’s number, then her
name.

He laughed as it came through on his phone.
“Which one is your number?”

“The first one,” she said. She pointed to the
numbers displayed on his phone, “And that’s my number at my house,
and I’m moving to Holly’s soon, so, just in case, I gave you her
number, too.”

“Olivia Taylor.” He smiled, her name felt
good coming out of his mouth. “Jason Forrester.” He put his phone
in his pocket. The grin never left his face. “I’ll call you!”

Holly entered Megan’s home with great
trepidation. The conversation with Megan’s mother had been
difficult. The memories that bombarded her at the sound of her
voice—the years that they shared, the laughter and tears— had
brought with them the realization that Megan would not be coming
back. She was gone. gone! The hole Megan left in Holly’s life was
enormous, but the sadness that her mother harbored was inescapable.
She practically begged Holly to take care of Megan’s belongings.
She said it wasn’t the illness that would hold her back, although
it certainly would, it was the idea of seeing Megan’s belongings,
smelling her, knowing she wasn’t there—the finality of it. She
wanted no part of it. She had pleaded with Holly, and Holly had
succumbed.

Holly stood on the landing at the bottom of
the stairs, willing herself to walk up to Megan’s room, to begin
the process of wrapping up Megan’s life. How do you wrap up a life?
How do you fit a friend’s life into tidy little boxes? How was she
supposed to go through her friend’s belongings without collapsing
from sheer sadness?

Her heart raced as she looked up at the dark
stairway. A chill rushed through her body as an image of Megan’s
peaceful face, the morning after the ritual, lingered in her
mind.

Holly turned away. She wasn’t ready. She
stared at the French doors in the living room. Settling her hair
behind her ears, she walked slowly toward the door. Her legs shook.
She stared out at the bonfire pit and was overcome with loneliness
as she spied remnants of their evening—burnt embers, logs half
black and charred sitting cockeyed on each other, and—what was
that? A bit of color lay in the pit, tucked between two blackened
sticks. She cocked her head and squinted, but could not define its
shape. She opened the door carefully, as if the noise might make
the item flee. She walked toward the colored object and bent down
to inspect it more closely.

Tears sprang to her eyes as she opened the
carefully-folded paper, burnt around the edges and brown in the
middle.
A note
.

Slowly she opened the folds. The paper was
stiff, the edges crumbled under her fingers. Once opened, she
crouched down, resting her bottom on her heels, and stared at the
handwritten note.
How did we not see this before?
She looked
around, and everything else was just as she had left it, nothing
changed, nothing rearranged.

Tears fell gently onto the paper and smeared
the purple ink as she read.

Mom, where do I go from here?

I don’t know what to do. I feel lost. Please
come back to me. I need you. I’m sorry I was trouble to you. I’m
sorry if you wanted to leave me. I love you. Olivia

Holly clutched the note to her chest, crying.
Her hand shook.
Olivia
.

She tucked the note in between the two burned
logs where she found it and felt her heart grow heavy with grief.
My poor girl
.

In Megan’s room, Holly straightened the mess
that Olivia had left.
I’ll leave the clothes and go through them
with Olivia
. She moved from the bathroom to the closet, the
closet to the bed. She folded clothes and set things right along
the way, as if in a trance. Her hands went through the motions, but
her mind was in a fog. Holly reached down to pick up Megan’s
tie-dyed sleeping pants. They slipped through her fingers. Holly
crouched to the floor and held the pants in her hands, running the
soft cotton material through her fingers.
These were your
favorite
. She smiled. A piece of paper peeked out from under
the bed and caught her attention. She looked under the bed, taking
the paper in her hand, and saw a small wooden box.

Instinct made her look around the room, like
a child being caught snooping for Christmas presents. As her
fingers grasped the box, she felt warmth spread through her body.
Nerves
. She slid the box out from under the bed and walked
to the window seat. She sat with it in her lap.
I promise, Meg,
I’m only looking for things you might not want Olivia to find. No
judgments here
.

The sun beat on her shoulders. She sighed
deeply, again settling the stray hairs that had fallen into her
face behind her ears. She lifted the lid of the box and was met
with what looked like letters. She smiled.
Good for you, Meg.
Maybe you did have a love life after all, you sneaky girl
.

Holly took out the letters one by one. Most
of them were from Holly, written when they were little girls while
Megan was at summer camp. Holly nodded, laughing to herself at how
much she used to miss Megan while she was away.
I can’t live
without her!
she remembered telling her mother over and over,
knowing that they could not afford to send her to camp, but feeling
better by complaining all the same.

“Oh Meg,” Holly said. She dug through the
pile, and found a few from Peter, written, she thought, while he
was away for summer vacations during college. There were two from
Lawrence Childs, which Holly did not remove from the envelopes,
though she was aching to know what they said.

As she closed the box, her finger brushed the
inside of the top, where the cloth had come loose. She opened it
wide again, and inspected the seam, immediately noticing a small
envelope tucked between the material and the wood.

“Oh Meg. What do we have here?” She suddenly
felt shameful, going through Megan’s things. Her hands shook and
she closed the box, spreading her fingers across the top and looked
out the window. “Meg? What should I do?” She stood and placed the
box on the bed. She turned and walked away. Halfway across the
room, she turned back. Something inside her told her that the
letter was vital, that she should read it. Just as loudly, a voice
told her she was breaching Megan’s privacy.

She walked back to the bed and stood over the
box. “What the hell am I supposed to do?” With shaking hands she
withdrew the envelope, which unfolded on its own as it was removed
from the confines of its chamber, and two tiny photos dropped to
the floor. She looked down, then closed her eyes, and let them
remain there, scattered at her feet like forgotten crumbs. She
scanned the document, and although she had known for a long time
that what she was reading was true, her hand flew to her mouth, and
a flood of tears streamed down her face. She folded the document as
well as her trembling would allow, picked up the photos, which she
glanced at quickly, and stuffed them back into the envelope. She
put the envelope in her back pocket, and sat down on the edge of
Megan’s bed, trying to settle her nerves.

Stop it! You knew. You’ve known for a long
time. Why are you so upset?
Holly tried to reason herself out
of her anxious state. She felt anger bubbling in her gut, mixed
with sadness, regret, and…jealousy.

They don’t know. What do I do now, Megan?
How could you leave us with this type of burden?
As the thought
whipped through her mind with the force of a whole gale, the room
filled with the scent of Megan, lavender and coconut.

The smell permeated her senses. Holly stood,
feeling dazed and lightheaded. She looked around Megan’s room. The
smell overpowered her, as if she were standing right next to Megan.
Her shaking doubled, her legs threatened collapse. Her voice
trembled, “Megan?” she said.

There was no answer.
Of course
. Her
eyes darted across the room, the pungent odor hung in the air like
a cloud. “Megan?” she said a little louder, still just a trembling,
forced whisper.

From above, Megan watched Holly. She didn’t
know what to do, how to lighten her burden. She had spent so much
time protecting Olivia’s father’s identity that she hadn’t prepared
Holly. How could she have left this unsaid? How could she put Holly
through that?

Megan looked down at her form, which, over
the last twenty-four hours had started to fade into the air. She
was certain she wouldn’t remain in this place, this trap between
two realms, much longer. Frustrated, she whisked her form around
the room, invisibly circling Holly, trying to find a way to connect
with her, to let her know she was sorry.

Holly was rooted to the floor. She was too
scared to move, too shocked to find the strength to continue
cleaning up. She willed herself to move toward the bedroom door.
She moved slowly toward it, her legs felt weighed down with the
knowledge she’d gained. As she moved, she noticed that the floral
smell, Megan’s smell, was stronger, as if it were trying to fill
the space of the doorway, to block her way. She pushed through and
rushed downstairs.

Megan was left with her own guilt wrapped
around her body like a snake, squeezing her opaque form until she
cried out in anger. Her hot tears streamed to her right,
disappeared into the clouds. She watched them turn gray and heavy
and felt her heart do the same.

Peter found himself floundering, as if out at
sea with only a life preserver and no land in sight. He felt as
though he were in a completely different place in his life without
Megan nearby. It’s not that he had seen her very often or had
confided in her any more than he had his other close friends.
Something had been happening to him, though, during the month since
Megan’s passing. There was an undeniable change occurring within
his mind, his soul.

The realization of how quickly one’s life
could change made him rethink his actions, all of his actions. He
had carried anger toward his mother for so many years that it had
become part of who he was. It was a crutch that he relied on and
rued at the same time—subconsciously, certainly, and on occasion,
consciously as well. He’d felt it bubble beneath his skin when he
was younger and was teased by his playmates about his mother
leaving him. As he matured, and relationships would end, he always
thrust the blame of his partner’s leaving on his mother. How
quickly he learned not to trust, not to fully give himself to
someone else, not to put himself out there, in the open, splayed
for the emotional beating that was sure to follow.

Megan’s death changed how he viewed himself,
how he viewed others. He felt a difference when he woke in the
morning, seeing each day through more positive eyes,
Like
Megan’s eyes
, he thought.