The Invisibles (2 page)

This was a lie. A few years earlier, she'd been in a relationship with an accountant named Tom Robertson who had asked her out after finishing her tax return and then went and ruined everything
by picking his nose while sitting in her living room one night and, thinking she was still out of the room, wiping the offending extraction on the arm of her couch. In her twenties, she'd gone with a guy named Sinclair Westley, whom she had liked well enough. He was her car mechanic and liked to come over early on Saturday mornings with Boston cream doughnuts and coffee before heading into the shop. She couldn't remember anymore why that one had fizzled out, but it didn't matter. Now, though, there was nothing to tell. Nothing at all.

“Oh, that's great!” Ozzie said. “What's he like?”

“He's . . . sweet. And funny. You would love him.”

“Do
you
love him?”

“Yes!” Nora said, too quickly. “Of course!”

“Good.” Ozzie said. “Good, I'm glad.”

Why was she doing this? What was she ashamed of, still being single after all this time? If anyone would understand the way things were, it was Ozzie Randol. Wasn't it? Ozzie had always been one of those people who said things like it was better to be alone than with the wrong person, that there was no man in the world worth compromising one's self for. In high school, she'd snubbed a senior boy named Linus Worthington, who, despite the fact that Ozzie was only a junior, had pursued her relentlessly, smitten with her brash personality and obvious confidence. She hadn't cared a whit that he was older, or that he was so popular that to get an invitation to one of his legendary house parties was the equivalent of achieving a social status of ethereal proportions; she'd said he just didn't do it for her, period. But had Ozzie ever gone twelve days without talking to anyone in the entire world? Did she know what it was like to hold an animal against her
chest, just to feel the soft pulse of breath against her skin, the thrum of a beating heart from inside another living thing? Had she ever gone to bed directly after dinner and prayed for sleep, just so that she didn't have to figure out how to fill one more empty hour by herself?

“Hey, is Turning Winds still around?” Ozzie asked, not seeming to notice Nora's evasive answers. “They still running the place?”

“No.” Nora turned as Alice Walker barked from the kitchen, alerting her to her empty water bowl. “It's just an old empty building now.”

“Wow,” Ozzie said. “I can hardly remember what it even looks like anymore. It's been so long!”

“Fifteen years,” Nora said, holding Alice Walker's red plastic bowl under the running faucet.

“Fifteen years,” Ozzie repeated. “That's practically a lifetime.”

Two lifetimes,
Nora thought.

“So I know it seems crazy that I'm just calling you out of the blue like this,” Ozzie said, “but I do have a reason.”

Nora froze. The water spilled over the top of the dog's bowl and rushed down the sides.

“It's about Grace,” Ozzie said. “I mean Petal. She goes by Petal now, you know.”

“Wait.” Nora shook her head, feeling as though something had drained from inside her chest. She turned off the faucet, set the water bowl down in front of Alice Walker. “Grace goes by Petal now? What are you talking about?”

“She changed her name. I don't think she went and made it
legal
or anything, but her husband says she likes to be called Petal
now.” Ozzie paused. “It could be worse. She could be calling herself Stem. Or Root.”

Nora didn't laugh. “Why would she change her name?”

“Oh, I'm sure it's part of that whole artist-persona thing she had going on. You remember.”

Nora did remember. The four of them had been as close as sisters in that house, but she had shared a bedroom with Grace for two years. Nora knew parts of Grace that Ozzie and Monica did not. Parts they might not ever know.

“Anyway,” Ozzie said. “Grace—I mean Petal—”

“Just call her Grace.” Nora felt impatient suddenly, and it startled her. She rarely got impatient. With anyone. “I mean, at least to me. Petal's . . . I don't know. It's too weird.”

“Okay, so Grace's husband called me last night, and we talked for a long time. Over an hour, I'd guess. They live right outside of Chicago now; I don't remember where, exactly. Somewhere in the suburbs, I think. Anyway, the point is, she's not doing so well.”

Nora held her breath, as if to block the pinprick of fear rising behind it. “Can you be more specific?”

“She's . . . well, her husband—his name is Henry, by the way—said that she was in the hospital.”

“She's sick?”

“Yeah, but not physically sick,” Ozzie said. “It was a mental hospital. She tried to kill herself, Nora. Just a few months ago.”

The pinprick exploded into a flash of heat that spread out across the front of Nora's chest and down into her stomach.

“And it was no joke, either,” Ozzie continued. “You know how some people kind of do it half-assed because they don't know
how to ask for help and making a few scratches on their wrist is the only way they can get anyone to take them seriously? Well, Grace wasn't asking for anyone's help. Henry said he found her hanging in the closet. She was blue. Her eyes were bulging out of her sockets.”

Nora blocked a cry that was trying to escape from her mouth with the side of her fist. It just didn't seem possible. Grace had always been horrified by death. Once, when the two of them had been walking back to Turning Winds from school, they had come across a dead bird lying on the sidewalk. It was a sparrow, small and brown, with tiny feet that curled up under it like fern fronds. There was no sign of violence, no mark that gave any indication as to how it had died, and for a moment, as Grace sank down next to it, Nora had been sure it would wake up and fly away. It hadn't, of course, and when Grace turned to her, her wide face stricken, and said, “What do you think
happened
?” she hadn't known how to answer.

“Why?
” Nora asked now. Her voice was a whisper.

“Henry said they've been having a lot of problems,” Ozzie said. “I mean, obviously. But I think she's been struggling with depression for a while. And then she just had a baby this past May. Henry thinks it was postpartum depression mixed in with everything else. I guess it made her suicidal.” She paused. “If he hadn't come home when he did that day, we'd all be meeting up again at her funeral instead of talking like this.”

Just for a moment Nora wished Ozzie had learned not to speak so bluntly. And then, in the next breath, she was glad she hadn't. Ozzie had always been the one who said the things that the rest of them could not.

“She has a baby then?” Nora pulled at the soft skin along her throat.

“Yeah. A little girl. Henry's parents have been taking care of her until he can get things sorted out, I guess.”

“Is Grace back home? Or is she still in the hospital?”

“No, she's been home for a while. Since the end of July, I think. Henry said she's really been making progress. But he also said that he was worried she was starting to relapse again.”

“Relapse?”

“You know, reverting back to her old behaviors. Crying a lot, not sleeping. Especially in the last two weeks or so. I think he's scared.”

“Well, he should bring her back to the hospital!” Nora stood up and raked her fingers through the top of her hair. “What's he doing calling you?” She bit her lip, realizing how that sounded. “I mean . . . you're not a doctor. He should be calling her doctor, right?”

“He's done that.” Nora could hear a catch in Ozzie's voice. “Her therapist, too. They upped her meds, and they're monitoring her pretty closely. Henry says rough patches are normal; that they'll come and go.”

“Okay,” Nora said uncertainly.

“Here's the thing, though, Nora. Henry says that she just wants us. If he said it once last night, he said it ten times. Apparently Grace keeps telling him over and over again that all she wants is to see the three of us.”

“The three of us?” Nora repeated. “You mean you and me and Monica?”

“Uh-huh. That's why he called.”

Nora let her hand fall from the back of her head. She had been carrying the hope of this—or something exactly like this—around like a stone in her pocket, a toothache that never stopped throbbing, a constant, steady pulse. The stone had gotten smaller, the toothache less painful, but the pulse was still there. It was always there.

And yet . . .

“Nora?”

“God, Ozzie. I don't know.”

“You don't know what?”

“Are you going to see her?”

“Well, of course I'm going to see her.”

“What about Monica?”

“Monica's in,” Ozzie answered. “I called her just before I called you. She already booked her flight, and she's meeting me at O'Hare tomorrow afternoon, which is what I was hoping you would do. Then we could all drive to Grace's house. Together. Like she asked.”

“And . . .” Nora walked over to the window and pressed her palm flat against the cold glass. “And . . . do what?”

“What do you mean, ‘do what?'” Ozzie sounded indignant. “I don't think Grace is looking for us to take her to the
mall
or anything here, Nora. She just wants us to be there. For . . . support.” A faint clicking sound came over the phone, and Nora realized that Ozzie was biting her nails. Ozzie had bitten her nails back in high school, so badly sometimes that she drew blood and had to wear Band-Aids over the raw skin. “Don't you
want
to be there for her?” Ozzie's question hung in the air.

“Well, yeah.” Nora's voice wavered. “I mean, of course I do.
But I don't think you can blame me for being hesitant about seeing people I haven't seen in almost fifteen years.”

“
People?
” Ozzie repeated. “I know it's been a while, Nora, but we're not just people. It's us! We were the best friends of your life!”

“Were.” Nora repeated Ozzie's word gently. “We
were
best friends, Ozzie. And then nothing. Not a card, a letter. Not even a phone call. For . . .” Her voice drifted off. It had been a long time, but she wanted to say forever. That was what it felt like. Forever and then some.

A small child's voice wailed in the background. “Mommy! Olivia dumped the flour on the floor!”

Ozzie muted the mouthpiece again with her hand. “Two more minutes!” she bellowed. “Mommy's busy right now!”

There was a short silence. And then, “I . . .” Ozzie's voice was already heavy with apology. Quieter too, as if letting Nora in on a secret. “Shit, you know how we all left things, Nora. After that night. And I know I was probably the most vocal about just forgetting all of it and moving ahead. I know I was. I said those exact words, didn't I? To all of us?”

Nora didn't say anything, afraid that Ozzie would stop talking.

“I did,” Ozzie said, answering her own question. “And you know, back then, I really thought that was what we should do. I mean, we were seventeen years old! None of us knew what the hell to do after it was all over. At least I didn't. Shit, the only thing going through my stupid head was how fast we were going to get the hell out of there, and what we'd need to do to forget it.”

Nora could hear herself breathing through the line, a desperate sound, muffled like a trapped animal. She wanted to scream,
could feel it moving like a living thing from the depths of her belly. “And have you?” she asked instead. “Forgotten, I mean?'

“Mostly.” The word entered Nora's ear like a bullet. “What about you? Do you ever think about it anymore?” Ozzie's voice was hoarse, barely audible. “Or are you okay with things now?”

Nora removed her hand from the window glass. A large, damp stain remained, the outline of something that looked as though it might still be breathing. “I'm okay with things now.”

“All right.” Ozzie swallowed through the phone. “But you know, maybe Grace isn't. I mean, she was a basket case afterward. You remember. Maybe she has some kind of posttraumatic stress thing going on. I don't know. I'm not a shrink. All I know is that she needs us. She needs the three of us to help her get through this, whatever it is. I know we're not teenagers anymore. I'm not asking you to come out to Chicago so we can stand around in Grace's backyard and stare up at the moon. But I think she needs us to be around right now, you know? To just . . . be there for her.
I
need you to be there for her.”

“You?” Nora repeated. “Why do you need me to be there?”

“Because it won't work without you. There's no such thing as three of us. There never was. It's the four of us or nothing.” She paused. “C'mon, Nora. Please say you'll come.”

The pale purple had drained from the morning sky, leaving behind a slate of gray. The sky had been that kind of gray the morning Ozzie left, as solemn and still as Nora had felt. Nora had held her tightly at the bus station, knowing that she would not see her for a long, long time after everything that had happened. She might have held on longer if Ozzie had not pulled back, insisting, “Let go now, Nora. You have to let go.” She'd obeyed, unclenching
her arms, watching as Ozzie ascended the narrow set of steps into the bus and disappeared into the belly of it.

Now her own belly churned like some kind of lopsided washing machine. Just the thought of reuniting with all of them again made the inside of her mouth taste sour. A rushing sounded in her head, and the tips of her fingers tingled. There was no way she had it in her to go through it again; she'd barely made it through the first time. And yet there was something about hearing her name again—
Norster
—combined with the nearly defunct feeling of being needed that almost made her knees buckle. Two parallel lines of pain began to work their way up the back of her throat. Beyond the red maple tree on the sidewalk, she could see the narrow steeple of Saint Augustine's rising in the air like a pair of folded hands, a perpetual prayer. She'd stopped praying so long ago that she couldn't even remember how to begin anymore. And yet right now, this instant, she knew that one of her prayers had just been answered.