Indigo (5 page)

I picked up my phone, texted Mia-Joy quickly, trying not to think too much. Could Rennick be right? I couldn’t risk it.
Your pump is messed up? Switch to shots
. I typed.

I ran upstairs, reached under my bed. I touched my violin case, felt the fine layer of dust on the top. Part of me needed to play right now. I sat back on my heels, considering, and let out a sigh. It had been so long. Would I be terrible? Would I even recognize myself in the music anymore? I thought inexplicably about the old yellow sponge.

When I had first started playing by ear, with the Suzuki method in first grade, Mrs. Smelzer had given us each a sponge to use as a shoulder rest. I had loved cutting that sponge into just the right shape, using a rubber band to hold it on to my oily, dilapidated rental violin. I thought of the shape of it under my chin, the tension of the strings under my fingers, the vibration of the bow against my hand, the
smell of the rosin.
Why haven’t I played since Sophie?
I wondered. Could I really answer that?
Because it seems selfish to feel happy without her
.

“Happy,” I said out loud to my empty room, and my voice sounded brittle and alone. I grabbed my sketchpad off the bed and opened it to my most recent drawing. Mr. Lazette’s nearly finished portrait stared up at me. Grizzled and round-faced, he looked a little bit like Santa Claus, but with a more serious mouth.

There was something final in his stare. I didn’t like the way he looked, like he was saying goodbye. Was he next? Was he going to die?

Because of me? Some thin thread of connection?

I had to cut my strings. To absolutely everyone.

I plopped myself onto my bed, pictured myself leaving, running off to some remote place. There would always be people. But I had an iron will, didn’t I? Hadn’t Dad always teased me about that since I was a little girl? How I had sat at the dinner table with my mouth clamped shut well into the night, determined not to eat my peas. Dad had given in eventually, with me nodding off, sitting with my arms crossed, a determined scowl on my face. I didn’t give in. Not me. Never me.

I felt a pang of guilt when I thought about the petty fights with Annaliese or Cody back in Chicago, the squabbles with Sophie over whose CDs were whose, over stupid things. I never caved. I was stubborn and childish.

I could keep people away from me. I could quarantine myself. If all it took was willpower I could do it.

I faked a stomachache that day and the next, and I holed up in my room. When Mom came in with the news of Granny Lucy’s death, that finality, I took it like a punch in the gut.

I struggled for my breath for a few seconds, and Mom moved toward me like she was going to comfort me somehow. “No,” I said forcefully. I sat up, scooted away from her. “No,” I repeated ferociously. Logically I knew that Granny Lucy’s death might have had nothing to do with me. I knew that. She was old and sick.

But … I wasn’t sure. And what was I going to do? Just keep on going until I was sure I killed somebody off? Like Mia-Joy?

Mom left me alone. I had a stomachache, a real one, for the next two days. Again, I didn’t leave my room.

“I’m not going,” I said.

“You’re going to Lucy’s funeral,” Dad answered back through gritted teeth. “This bullshit has gone on long enough.”

I agree
, I thought wearily. “I’m not going, Dad.”

“And if I make you?”

Fear flashed across my face. Dad grabbing me, throwing me over his shoulder. There wasn’t much that would scare me more than Mom or Dad deliberately grabbing my hand, forcing physical contact. Dad must’ve seen the fear.

“Corrine.” Dad wavered. He was a big guy, a forceful-looking man with a square frame and a personality that got things done, but I knew he didn’t want to scare me. It wasn’t in his nature. “Corrine,” he said again.

Mom spoke up, her calm demeanor breaking. “Corrine, you loved Lucy. This is just a … crime. Let her stay, Paul,” she said to Dad.

“Leslie,” he started, but Mom turned then, burying her face in his shoulder, and my stomach churned. Dad gave me a hard look. I thought of how the funeral itself would be a reminder of Sophie’s, how Mom would have to relive it. And I gave in. I didn’t want to be that bullheaded kid. I would do this for my parents, and then that was it.

“Okay, I’ll go,” I said. “Give me a minute.”

In the end I went, but on my terms. I stood in the back of the church for the service, away from Mia-Joy and her family. Away from everyone. I watched my parents as they gave their condolences. I studied the curves of their backs, their downtrodden shoulders matching Mia-Joy’s parents’, and all I could think was,
At least they have each other
.

When I first spied the ornate cherrywood casket, a wave of guilt, slow and powerful, washed over me. I fought back the tears, and I dug my fingernails into my palms. This was why I was going to have to isolate myself. This was why I was not going to give in to my parents’ demands anymore. I had to quarantine this, whatever it was, firing up and coming
to life in my chest. And I knew the first glance of that beautiful coffin would be forever burned into my psyche. Just like so many memories of Sophie. This was the
why
of it.

When the service was over, the procession began, the New Orleans–style funeral, with Granny’s casket being pulled by a horse-drawn carriage through the Quarter to her family crypt. We followed on foot through the streets, her family loaded down with flowers—calla lilies, her favorite—and Mia-Joy’s brother’s band played old, lilting hymns, with Stone on sax, accompanied by a tambourine, a snare drum, and a trio of gospel singers, call-and-answer style. There was an older gentleman with a bright white beard, a bald head, and the deepest bass voice, giving foundation to all the instruments. I watched him and tried to get lost in the music.

A hundred people, at least, walked in the procession, and I gladly hung back, with Mom giving me a few glances to make sure I was joining the group. I walked by myself, watching the old singer, trying not to let the guilt overpower me, trying to swallow back the urge to run away and hide.

When the parade strolled by the Union Passenger Terminal, it kicked on then, fiery and alive in my chest. I lost my footing for a second, and then I ducked into the station, deciding I couldn’t go to the cemetery, couldn’t do this anymore. Every cell in my body seemed to be alert, crackling with energy, as I hustled into the waiting area and collapsed
in one of the sleek, wooden chairs. Could I possibly run? Just hop onto a train and get out of here?

I watched the seconds tick away on the large Art Deco clock above the ticket counter. Electrical?

I cracked my knuckles and read through the departure times. A ten-thirty train to Chicago was the first one going anywhere far. I could leave here. Although I wouldn’t be looking up any old friends, maybe I could visit Sophie’s grave before I decided where to go, what to do with myself—as if I could answer any of those questions. Ever.

It wouldn’t solve it. I knew that. I couldn’t run away from this.

I would just rest here for a minute and then walk home or catch a trolley, once I knew that the funeral procession had passed. I slunk inward and kept my eyes low, thinking. I thought about Annaliese and Cody back in Chicago. How easily Cody had let me shut him out after Sophie’s funeral. How hard Annaliese had worked to help me. How I wouldn’t let her.

I couldn’t dwell on it. I had been right to push them away.

Brahms. The same four measures, over and over. The deep bass accompaniment. A minor. Guilt.

Solitary confinement. That was the only answer.

Because even though I was sure of my curse, of my power, I couldn’t end it. I couldn’t end
me
. There was still too much inside me, too much of my mother’s daughter that
could not contemplate that. I knew, deep down in that dark place of truth, that someday, maybe someday soon, I might be able to contemplate it, but not now. And for that I was grateful.

The air around me tightened and shifted in a tangible way, and I looked up, expecting something. I didn’t know what.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said under my breath, but there he was, striding right toward me. Rennick. He had already spotted me, and he waved, walking all confident and breezy.

I didn’t trust myself with any more interactions. When your own body betrays you in such a violent and deadly way, how can you trust anything about yourself? And that was me now, teetering, unsure, the rug forever pulled out from under me. A constant state of disorientation.

I had knocked my head pretty badly once on the diving board at Chaney Pool during swim practice and went under, and there had been a five-second span of time when I panicked. Couldn’t tell up from down, front from back.

That was like my life now.

I hurried into the women’s restroom. Was it a coincidence that Rennick was here? Or had he been looking for me? Had he been at the funeral?

I took my sweet time in the restroom—washed my hands, fiddled with my hair, read all the graffiti on the wall—hoping against hope that he would get the hint.

He didn’t.

The train station had become bustling while I wasted time in the bathroom. Several groups of what looked like day-care children and their chaperones had entered the station, as well as a large knot of older kids, all wearing orange T-shirts, some kind of field trip.

I scanned the room and there he was. Standing right by my chair, arms crossed, waiting.

I tightened my posture, balled my hands at my sides, hunched my shoulders. It was crowded. Beyond crowded. And I couldn’t touch anyone. I swore under my breath.

I had to get away. I skirted toward the nearest exit and found myself outside on the concrete sidewalk in front of the station. A small crowd stood in line near a hot dog vendor; a mom with a half-dozen kids walking in line with linked hands passed in front of me. I didn’t want to cut through the children, so I moved laterally.

“Hey!” I heard from behind me. I knew it was him. I turned left, tried to pretend I didn’t hear him.

I balled my fists a little bit tighter, and my nails burrowed into my palms. When I was finally clear of the children, I walked quickly toward the makeshift farmer’s market set up on the large lawn in front of the station, hoping to get lost in the crowd.

I was in so much of a hurry, I narrowly missed running straight into an elderly man using a walker. As I worked my way more slowly through the throng of people, with
my hands balled at my sides, close to my hips—my normal stance—someone grabbed my arm. Low, near the wrist.

I gasped, frozen. “Don’t touch!”

It was Rennick, of course, and he looked at me peculiarly, but he didn’t let go right away. Just for a moment, he held my wrist. Long enough to let me know that he was in charge. Then he dropped it, leaned in close to me.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Corrine. But you have to listen to me.”

“No, you don’t understand. You can’t talk to me. I can’t be the—”

“I see the blue—the indigo—when I look at you,” he said, and then it was like the noise, the commotion, the world around us faded to gray. The bass of a nearby car radio, the couple speaking French beside us, the traffic sounds—they ceased to exist. It was just him and me standing there on the lawn, his eyes locked on me. I remembered the blue, the blinding indigo light on the rocks with Sophie. I had no doubt that this was what he was referring to.

My body slackened. I saw the edges of my vision get swimmy, begin to tunnel, but I pushed it back as quickly as it came.

“What do you know?” I said in a voice that I had intended to sound in charge but instead came out as nothing more than a squeak.

“Follow me.”

“No,” I answered, but then I was following him.

He led me farther into the farmers’ market, through the aisles of stalls, each one spilling over with brightly colored merchandise. There were too many people, too close and too loud. Before I knew it, we were at a standstill in front of a quasi voodoo booth, bearing gifts of gris-gris and Mardi Gras beads, tourist junk.

He grabbed my arm again, low near the wrist. “Come here.”

“No! Please!”

He gave me a look but didn’t let go. I yanked my arm violently, but his grip didn’t loosen.

“Please,” I whispered, terrified, his hold so close to my hand.
My hand
. The source of it all.

His brow furrowed, and he shook his head at me. Whereas he had seemed so nonthreatening before, so laid-back and friendly, now he was serious, forceful. “I’m not going to hurt you, Corrine,” he said again. “But you have to listen to me before you get on that train and I never see you again.”

“No, you don’t understand.” I tried to get myself thinking straight, but the pressure of his hand on my wrist, that physical touch, felt like a bomb about to blow up. “I don’t want to hurt you,” I said, getting my wits back a little. There was no way this stranger could know about Sophie, about me. “You have to let me go. Please. It’s dangerous for you. I’m not—”

“I see things,” he said in a low, stern voice. He looked
at me for a second, that playful, lackadaisical smile of the Crawdaddy Shack now gone. His deep blue eyes bored into me. “I see things about people, Corrine.”

I tried to yank my hand away, but he held it still, and I didn’t know if it was just because I hadn’t been touched in so many months, if it had always felt so hot, or if it was just his touch—
this
touch—but my skin under his hand was burning. It didn’t hurt, not in a harmful way, but like the sun on your face in a swimming pool.

“Please,” I begged. “Don’t make me scream. Because I will. You seem nice enough.” I was speaking quickly, trying desperately to ignore the unhinged note in my voice. “Just let me go before you regret this.”

“Here, here we go,” he said, pulling me across the aisle toward a fisherman’s stand. He drew a five-dollar bill out of the back pocket of his jeans and laid it on the woman’s metal table. “Do you have anything that’s really fresh?”

The woman eyed his hand around my wrist just for the briefest of beats, but then she looked at me. I could’ve said something. I didn’t. So the woman turned to Rennick, answered him. “Fresh and tasty, whatcha got a hankerin’ for? Gator nuggets?”