Her: A Memoir (29 page)

ME:
I don’t know, probably. I just don’t know.

PSYCHIC:
Did they find her in bed?

ME:
No.

PSYCHIC:
I don’t know if she’s talking about her or you. She’s showing me a bedroom. Next to the bed there is a little night table. She’s pulling out the drawer and she’s showing me all of these bottles of prescription pills. I’m seeing a lot of pills. Is that you or is that her?

ME:
It’s the night table that I have right now.

PSYCHIC:
And that’s you with the pills in the night table?

ME:
[Softly.] Yeah.

PSYCHIC:
Are they for a bunch of different things? She’s telling me that there are some for antianxiety; some of them are for sleeping—sleeping aids. I don’t think you’re taking any narcotic painkillers, are you?

ME:
No.

PSYCHIC:
Your sister is saying, “No, there’s none of that.”

ME:
Okay.

PSYCHIC:
Your sister wants me to give you a word of caution. She’s saying, “Be careful with those pills because you’re walking a very fine line.” There is a thin line between having them help you and making everything worse. Don’t take more than you are prescribed to take, okay?

ME:
Yeah.

PSYCHIC:
She says, “It’s a delicate balance.” You know? “Pills can calm you but they can send you in the opposite direction from calm, too, if you rely on them.” Be careful.

ME:
Yeah, right. I know.

PSYCHIC:
She’s telling me that you are a very sensitive person anyway. She’s telling me emotionally you’re very sensitive.

ME:
Right.

PSYCHIC:
Even if your sister didn’t pass, even if your life was wonderful and perfect—you’re a very emotionally sensitive person.

ME:
Right, right.

PSYCHIC:
So, for people like you—and I’m one of those people, it’s a little harder to maintain balance in your life. It’s easy for people like us to get thrown off balance, especially when bad things happen in our lives to the people we love. So, she’s saying that she feels like it would be a good idea for you to go into behavioral counseling.… If you need somebody there is a wonderful man I work with—he wrote the foreword to my book. He works with people who have lost people to sudden death. He’s been doing that work for over twenty years.

ME:
[Annoyed.] Okay.

PSYCHIC:
If you feel like you need someone, I can give you his number. He can work with you by phone. [Psychic pauses.] Do you have a little boy at home?

ME:
No.

PSYCHIC:
Do you have a son at all?

ME:
No.

PSYCHIC:
Did your sister leave a son?

ME:
No.

PSYCHIC:
Why do I see one single boy? Is there a single boy in the family—like, does someone have a son? He is appearing to me at about—

ME:
I had an abortion when I was younger.

PSYCHIC:
He’s appearing to me at about ten or twelve years old. So that means to me that there is either someone in your life that age or passed at that age. It could also be a termination of pregnancy that was that many years ago.

ME:
It was exactly twelve years ago.

PSYCHIC:
Okay, well your sister is showing me that she is there with him, your son. And whether a baby’s life ends, or a pregnancy ends naturally through miscarriage, or termination of pregnancy occurs, the soul is immortal. The soul lives on and the spirit lives on. You can’t destroy a spirit. Your sister is acknowledging him there, and she’s showing me that he’s okay.

ME:
Thank you.

PSYCHIC:
This is kind of specific. Did your sister either fall from something or jump from something?

ME:
No.

PSYCHIC:
Do you know somebody who ended his or her life by either falling off of something or jumping off of something?

ME:
Yes. I knew someone, but not very well.

PSYCHIC:
Is that person like a cousin to you?

ME:
No. It was one of my best friend’s boyfriends.

PSYCHIC:
I have that person here. I have that young man here, also. Is there a question of whether he fell or jumped?

ME:
I don’t know. I didn’t know him well enough to say.

PSYCHIC:
This young man wants to let his partner know that he’s okay.

ME:
Okay, I’ll let him know.

PSYCHIC:
Did that happen in New York City, the suicide?

ME:
Yes.

PSYCHIC:
Was it the Brooklyn Bridge or one of those bridges that goes over to New York?

ME:
It was the Queensboro Bridge.

PSYCHIC:
Yeah, I’m seeing that. This man just needs to get the message through to his partner that he’s okay, that he’s sorry. If your friend ever wants to talk to his boyfriend, he can always call me. Will you let him know?

ME:
Fine.

PSYCHIC:
Your friend’s boyfriend says to tell you, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt your reading.” He just really needed to get that through.

ME:
[Laughing.] Okay.

PSYCHIC:
Let me come back to your sister. You have some questions about the cause of her death?

ME:
Sort of, I do.

PSYCHIC:
She’s saying that the police and the medical examiners deemed it an accident but that you’re not so sure and that you think there is some kind of foul play.

ME:
I think that it was an accident. She got bad drugs from my ex-boyfriend. That’s what I think happened.

PSYCHIC:
Is this the same ex-boyfriend that we were talking about earlier?

ME:
Yes it is.

PSYCHIC:
So that’s why they were bringing up the ex-boyfriend then. Was she injecting drugs with a needle?

ME:
Yes.

PSYCHIC:
Because, I’m seeing a speedball. She is talking about a speedball. I’m seeing her with a needle. Is that what it was? A mix of cocaine and heroin?

ME:
It was a mix of heroin and fentanyl.

PSYCHIC:
She’s saying, “Yes and yes.” To me that means: yes, it was an accident. It definitely wasn’t a suicide. But yes, she got bad drugs.

ME:
That’s right.

PSYCHIC:
“Too strong,” she says, “too potent.” It’s not so much that the drugs were contaminated with something, but they were too much for her, for anyone. The drugs were lethal in the mixture she got.

ME:
Right.

PSYCHIC:
It stopped her heart.

ME:
[Softly.] Yes, that’s right.

PSYCHIC:
“It was a stupid, stupid mistake,” she says. “But, it’s not his fault. It was mine. I insisted, I insisted,” she says. “He warned me not to take too much. His exact words were, ‘This stuff should come with a warning label.’ He told me how potent it was, but I didn’t listen.” Her intention wasn’t to end her life. Her intention was to get high. I see that now. [Pauses.] Is your ex-boyfriend’s name either Max or Mack?

ME:
His name is Sean.

PSYCHIC:
Did she know a Max?

ME:
That is the name of a cat we had. The cat died a couple of days before my sister died. My sister watched the cat die. The cat was twenty years old and had a stroke on the kitchen floor, at my sister’s feet.

PSYCHIC:
Oh! Then she has the cat. Is it Max or Mack?

ME:
Maxine.

PSYCHIC:
Maxine? But you called her Max?

ME:
I didn’t, but my mom did. She called her Max Cat.

PSYCHIC:
His days are numbered, I’m telling you. This guy, your ex, is—he’s an addict. I mean he’s like a shooting-up addict, this guy. She’s showing me that he’s run out of good veins and he’s shooting up between his toes. He’s pretty bad.

ME:
I don’t know. I don’t have anything to do with him. I haven’t for many, many years.

PSYCHIC:
You sister says, “Forgiveness, forgiveness, forgiveness. Please forgive.” She says, “Christa, you hold a lot of anger and a lot of bitterness in your heart. Not for me, for him.” I think that you blame him and I can certainly understand why. Your sister wants to say, “I take full responsibility for my death. I’m the one that’s accountable.”

ME:
Right.

PSYCHIC:
“I knew what I was doing. It was like playing Russian roulette. You think, this will never happen to me. On some level I thought I didn’t care if it did happen to me, because I wanted it so bad. I wanted relief.” She’s telling me that at the end you and she had started not to get along—I wouldn’t say you were estranged, she’s not saying that. She’s saying that you were getting on her about the drug use and she did not want to hear it.

ME:
[Crying.] Yes.

PSYCHIC:
That’s what she’s saying.

ME:
Yes.

PSYCHIC:
“It’s important”—these are your sister’s exact words—“that you recognize that you did everything you could for me and I know that now. I know that. I know everything you did was because you loved me. You told on me,” she says. You told your parents what was going on with her?

ME:
Yes. I told my mom.

PSYCHIC:
She was really mad at you. How could you do that, she said then, but not now. She totally understands now. She says, “I’m so grateful that you loved me enough to risk our friendship. I know how much you tried to help me. Christa, there was nothing more you could really do. You did everything you could.” She says your family had been talking about having an intervention right before this happened.

ME:
Yes, that’s right.

PSYCHIC:
One thing that I’m definitely picking up around the time that she’s tuning me into—your sister would have had none of it. Your sister was not in a place where she wanted to get help or wanted to get clean—

ME:
That’s sort of true and sort of not true. She’d gone to get methadone on the morning she died.

PSYCHIC:
So she went to get methadone, but she was still taking drugs.

ME:
Yes.

PSYCHIC:
Yeah. [Drawing out her words, sighing.] She wasn’t really ready. Well, you know—a lot of drug addicts use methadone. I mean, they go to the clinic and they get it, and then they turn it around and sell it on the streets—

ME:
My sister would never do something like that. She was a good girl. She probably just wanted to get drugs she could use more consistently, or legally.

PSYCHIC:
Exactly. That’s what that is. It’s not a cure for addiction; it’s a controlled substance. But, tuning in with your sister during that time in her life—no matter what she was saying to anyone around her, she was not in that place where an addict says they’ve had enough and want to get well. She just wasn’t. The reason I bring that up is, no matter what you would have done—if you and your parents had forced her into a clinic, she probably would have kept on using.

ME:
Right.

PSYCHIC:
They have to get to a place in their own minds where they really want it for themselves.

ME:
I know.

PSYCHIC:
I have addiction in my own family. I’ve seen it. It’s an awful feeling, because you’re watching someone basically kill herself. [Voice breaks.] You can’t do anything. You can’t get through to them. I just feel like you did everything you could have done—even if you took more drastic measures, she just wasn’t there yet. You couldn’t have changed the outcome.

ME:
Will I be alone for the rest of my life now?

PSYCHIC:
As far as the divorce, you mean? As far as having another relationship come in?

ME:
Yes.

PSYCHIC:
She says, “She’s very depressed, my sister.” Are you very depressed? Do you feel very depressed lately? Your sister is telling me you’re like, clinical depression. Have you talked to anyone about it?

ME:
Of course I have. I lost my identical twin, for God’s sake. Anyone would be depressed. It’s fucking depressing.

PSYCHIC:
Yeah, yeah.

ME:
I’m getting better.

PSYCHIC:
Yeah?

ME:
I’m sorry. This is just emotional.

PSYCHIC:
I know it is. Your sister is telling me you’re having a real struggle with depression. [Psychic pauses.] I think you might really want to consider calling my colleague.

ME:
Right. [Irritated.]

PSYCHIC:
I know he’ll talk to you initially at no charge. He’ll talk to you about what he does and the two of you can go from there. I’m only telling you this because I’ve worked with him for five years and he’s worked in grief recovery for twenty years. He’s fantastic.… It is possible to get better.

ME:
Right, right. I know that and I’m getting there.

PSYCHIC:
Yeah. [In disbelief.] You know if you need help, you should definitely get help. Sometimes we need an objective person to put things into perspective for us. What she’s saying to me is that it’s still really raw for you, the loss of her. Even though your sister has been gone for four years, your grief to me feels very raw.

ME:
Right.

PSYCHIC:
I can tell you that there is no formula.… You are still very raw and I think you need time to heal. I think that that is going to affect relationships coming into your life, in the short term.… Let me just see what your sister says about romance. [Pauses.] Are you in your late thirties now?