The Mark (11 page)

“Yeah,” Drea said, taking another sip and looking out the window again. “We didn’t realize she was so young back then. Danny kept that to himself. Kept the whole thing to himself for a while. He was finishing his graduate work in Wichita, so she just moved into his apartment, was there for months before we knew about it.”

“Wow.” I tried to imagine Nan’s reaction. Was this why she’d never talked about my mother?

“Was she …” I wasn’t sure how to ask it. I mean, I knew what I’d think if someone at school ran off with a guy in his twenties, but back then? In the kind of tight-knit, old-fashioned community Greektown had always sounded like?

Drea read my mind. “Your mother was a good girl, Cassie. Much more than I ever was, that’s for sure.” She paused, refilling her glass from the bottle beside her chair. “She missed your grandmother a lot. Talked about her all the time.”

“So why’d she leave? I mean, if she was so into my father, couldn’t she just have … I don’t know, dated him long-distance or something?”

“Who knows?” Drea said. “The way Danny told it, there was some bad stuff back home that she had to get away from. He was ‘rescuing’ her.” Drea said the last sentence with a bitterness that made it pretty clear what she’d thought of my mother. Or at least of “Danny” being with her.

“What kind of bad stuff?”

“A friend of hers died. Her best friend.” She sipped her wine. “Your mother was there when it happened and kind of lost it.”

“What?! Jeez …” I couldn’t believe Nan had never told me this. Any of it. “How did the friend die?”

“Stung by a bee.”

“Huh?”

“Some kind of allergic reaction. They were at your mom’s house with your grandmother and this friend, Roberta—God only knows why I remember that—swelled up, stopped breathing.” Drea paused thoughtfully. “I guess I can see it being pretty freaky, especially for a sixteen-year-old.”

“Yeah.” I pictured watching something like that happen to Tasha. Terrible. “But I still don’t get why she ran away. I mean, Nan would have helped her …”

“Dunno.” Drea shook her head. “Danny said the girl’s family blamed your grandmother, was furious that she’d let them play hooky. Maybe that had something to do with it.”

That sounded like Nan. I remembered plenty of “field trips,” as she called them, on days I should have been in school. Sometimes the museum, often the beach.

Drea drained the last of her wine before adding, “Or maybe your mom just jumped at a chance to get out of that shithole she was living in.” She glanced out the window again. “She talked about it like she missed it, but it always sounded a lot like this place to me.”

Drea stood, slightly unsteady and obviously finished with the conversation. I suspected these weren’t her first glasses of wine.

“Enjoy your book,” she said, walking carefully to the kitchen for a bottled water, then down the hall to her bedroom.

chapter 14

It was our second week of classes, day twenty-three of my ninety with Drea—not that I was counting—when the heat wave finally broke. I’d always thought the middle of the country would have more of a dry heat—something about the absence of the ocean. I was wrong. The humidity in Bering was as bad as Ashville. Worse, since our apartment back there at least had air-conditioning.

But finally, I woke one morning to find the fan’s breeze crisp and dry across my legs. It was Tuesday and I had an early shift at Cuppa, six to eleven, but the rest of the day was mine and I knew just where I’d go—the park on the south side of Bering, my favorite place to study.

I was eager to continue our assignment, Aristotle’s Nichoma-chean Ethics. Philosophy was every bit as interesting as I’d hoped, Professor McMillan pacing the front of the classroom asking question after question, the Socratic method, I now knew. I’d found myself doing it too, to see if Aristotle was right that everything we do has the end goal of happiness. Why did I wear a black shirt? Because I had to work and coffee stains on my clothes make me self-conscious. Black shirt equals clean and confident. Happy. Why was I making an espresso? Because if I didn’t the customer who’d ordered it would get angry. Then Doug might fire me; I’d have no job and be back to moping around the apartment, maybe with Drea there. Definitely less happy. How could my mother have run away at sixteen? That one I had no answer for. Inconceivable.

Still, I thought Aristotle might be on to something.

I looked forward to our Monday and Thursday sessions. The empty seats in our second class were fewer than I’d expected, though I understood why Professor McMillan had warned us. Philosophy was hard. It could take an hour to get through five pages and really understand them, unlike my classes at Ashville High, where I’d mostly had to memorize dates and facts. This was
thinking.

I’d started to wonder if maybe it could help me sort out the mark, answer some of the questions my trip to the library hadn’t.

Professor McMillan had said that Lucas would teach part of our next lesson and I was eager to see how he’d handle it. He hadn’t asked me to coffee again, barely acknowledged me in classes. I was disappointed, but tried to focus on the lectures instead of the way his dark hair fell gracefully forward as he jotted notes in a black journal.

It was just before noon when I entered the park carrying my bag filled with pencils, textbooks, and lunch. I had barely gotten to spread my blanket on the grass by the pond when I saw the woman with the mark.

I felt the familiar queasiness mixed with a tiny touch of relief, like the way you hold your breath during a scary movie until the killer jumps out or you finally see what’s behind the closet door. I’d expected it to show up again, though not so soon after the woman at Cuppa. It made me worry that maybe it was somehow feeding on itself, getting stronger.

This woman walked right toward me, the glow clearly visible even in the bright sunshine. For a minute I had a weird feeling she knew and was coming over to yell at me or ask for help, but she was smiling, blissfully unaware.

“Here, Ginger!” she called, and I realized she
was
walking toward me, to fetch the dog who’d run to the edge of the pond.

At the sound of her voice, the dog turned and started back up the slope, stopping by my blanket. She sniffed at its edges, probably still smelling of Nan’s incense. I felt the woman beside me, watched her well-used sneakers gently prod the dog away.

“I’m sorry,” she said warmly. “Ginger, no!”

“That’s okay. I don’t mind.” My voice was thin, barely able to force out the words. I looked up at her, shielding my eyes from the sun. Wishing I could cover them to block out the light around her.

“What a beautiful day,” she breathed. She was older, maybe in her late forties or early fifties, slightly overweight and smiling. I could tell from the creases by her eyes and mouth that it was an expression she wore often.

“Yeah, it is,” I said. Together we watched the pond, light glinting off soft ripples in the water like shiny fish flicking to the surface. Ginger had finished her inspection of my blanket, deemed it good, and moved on to my leg.

“Just push her aside,” the woman said, shaking her head ruefully. “She can be such a pain.”

“I don’t mind, really,” I told her. “I love dogs.” I scratched Ginger’s ears, happy for the distraction. Her fur was warm and silky, and she rolled her head back, pushing into my hand for more. I stole another look at the woman, watching her dog fondly. Out of habit, I checked her left hand. No ring.

“I feel blessed to have days like these,” she said. “I took today off for her vet appointment this morning. It’s been so hot, I thought we’d end up inside most of the day, and look what we got instead.” She turned her face up to the sky, still smiling.

I wondered, as I always did when I saw them, how it would happen. And whether it was better or worse that it was unexpected, as her death clearly would be.

Ginger looked up then, her ears perking at a squirrel scavenging nearby. Like a rocket, she was gone, blazing a path toward the nut tree the squirrel scampered up.

“Ginger!” The woman turned to follow, giving me a quick wave before she left. “Enjoy the day!”

“You too,” I said automatically to her retreating back, immediately feeling stupid. Of course she wouldn’t. I watched the woman standing by the tree, arms folded as she patiently waited for Ginger, running rings around the trunk. Finally the dog came to a stop, jumping up, scratching at the thick bark, before loping over to her master. The woman squatted, nuzzling the dog’s neck and talking, the hum of her voice barely audible. I felt terribly sad. Why her? Why did she have to take today off work?

It was wearing on me, seeing these people with the mark. Knowing what it meant made all the difference, even though I tried hard to pretend it didn’t. I mean, everyone dies, right? What did it matter if it was today or tomorrow or next year, or if I knew about it or didn’t?

But it did matter. Even if I couldn’t help, I had started to wonder if I was wrong not to tell them. Was I denying them a chance to make whatever final preparations there were: say goodbye, call their lawyer, or the mother or daughter they hadn’t talked to all month, the husband they’d had a fight with last night? Or was it better to let things take their course, let that woman enjoy what she could of her last day?

I was so torn, my insides twisting at the idea of trying to tell her, not knowing how or if I really should.

The woman and Ginger lingered by a bench, then a trash can, then a bush. I walked to the edge of the pond. Closer, the flashes of light on the water were brighter, almost painfully so, sharp pinpricks cutting across my vision. I closed my eyes, breathing deeply, willing her away. Letting indecision be my decision, like I had with the woman at the coffee shop.

When I finally went back to my blanket, she was gone.

And I felt awful.

chapter 15

“Today we’re going to talk about right and wrong.”

That was how Lucas introduced his lesson. Back home, it would have been “Tell me the first line of the Gettysburg address.” Here it was life and death, good and bad, the meaning of existence.

“Ethics is the study of right and wrong, derived from the Greek word
ethos,
or habit,” he said. “We are what we repeatedly do. Anyone ever heard that before?”

A few nods.

“It’s one of my dad’s favorite sayings,” Lucas said. “I always hated it.”

A few laughs. Already I could tell he was good and definitely more fun to watch than my teachers in Ashville. I’d been surprised Lucas would actually be teaching classes, but he was hardly on his own, with Professor McMillan right there watching and taking notes.

Lucas recapped some of the philosophies we’d covered: Plato’s three souls—that “right” was when the mind, will, and desire were all working for the same goal—and Aristotle’s “choice-worthy” actions, ones that avoided extremes. He moved on to Kant, who was beyond confusing. I’d had to search the Internet to learn that he thought you should do your duty, no matter what.

I’d spent a lot of time on this week’s readings after seeing that woman in the park with her dog.

I hadn’t looked her up. Didn’t want to read about how her life had ended and who she’d left behind or hadn’t. I was sure she’d died—no longer needed the black-and-white confirmation—but I couldn’t stop thinking about whether I’d done the right thing.

At the front of the room, Lucas kept talking, but I wasn’t really listening to him, unable to ignore the question that had been less than a whisper when Nan died, but grew louder, more insistent, each time I saw the mark. Should I tell or not?

I’d scoured the philosophy readings, but it wasn’t there. None of them ever got down to how to tackle a real problem, one with lots more gray than black and white. I’d hoped for more. I wanted answers. So when Lucas paused, asking if we had any questions, I raised my hand, my throat tightening at the thought of speaking it aloud. But I had to. Had to know.

“Maybe I missed it, but for all the time the philosophers spent talking about making the right choice, none of them ever talked about
how
to do it when the choices are hard.”

“What kinds of choices are you thinking about, Ms. Renfield?”

I pretended to think, then took a deep breath and asked it. “Let’s say you somehow knew someone was about to die.” My stomach was in knots as I finally said aloud what I’d barely been willing to ask myself. “Should you tell them? Or not? What’s the right thing to do?” Everyone was looking at me.

Lucas frowned. “You know they’re about to die? What do you mean? Like a doctor who can see a cancer?”

Not what I had in mind, but that would do. “Sure.”

He nodded. “Well, I think both Aristotle and Kant would say the doctor’s responsibility is clear: to tell the patient so they could explore treatment options.”

“What if there were no treatment options? The cancer was too far along, definitely fatal.”

“I think they’d say it’s still the doctor’s responsibility to tell the patient.”

“Why?”

“So the person can decide how to spend their remaining time.”

“Why is that the better course? If there’s no cure and happiness is the greatest good, wouldn’t it be better for the doctor to let the patient live in happiness?”

Lucas thought for a moment. “Well. Incurable diseases are not painless. The person would be suffering and has come to the doctor for an answer. The doctor’s role is to provide health. In this case, maybe he can’t provide physical health, but he could provide mental rest by telling the patient the truth. It is what the patient has come seeking. It is the doctor’s duty to provide it.”

“Okay.” I paused, regrouping. This wasn’t going the way I wanted it to. “What if the patient hadn’t come seeking it?”

“How could that be?”

“Well … let’s say the patient doesn’t feel any pain. They’re just at the doctor for a routine physical, but the doctor finds this incurable cancer, widespread. Untreatable. The patient is totally unaware of a problem. If there’s nothing that can be done for the patient—their physical health can’t be improved and their mental health may be harmed by the news—what is the doctor’s responsibility?”