24. Healing Takes Time #3
Your name and the town were listed on the back of some of these, which is how I’ve found your address. I return these to you now hopefully not as a painful reminder of what could have been but as a beautiful remembrance of what was.
All my best,
Isla Clarkson
Great Aunt Isla’s eyes were glazed with tears when I finished reading.
“When I recovered from the shock, I gazed out at the ocean and the sky had honeyed. I heard Georgine’s voice as clear as day: Make a wish .
This time, I didn’t second-guess myself.
I said, ‘I wish for a child.’ The next day I got a call from your mother telling me how miserable you were in your elementary school aftercare program, asking if I’d be willing to bring you to my shop once or twice a week just to give you a break from it since you didn’t want to do any sports or clubs.
I didn’t know what an eight-year-old was going to do for hours stuck inside a vintage shop, but I said, ‘Sure. Why not?’ From that first day you walked into Isla’s Attic, you opened my world, doll. You answered my wish.”
I rounded the table and embraced her as fiercely as her brittle bones would allow.
“I know you thought me single and fabulous all these years, but I’ve had a lot of time to think about that evening I fell down the stairs of my apartment without any way to call for help.
If I’d allowed love and companionship back into my life instead of hiding out from the vulnerability and the hurt inside my comfort zone, maybe I wouldn’t have ended up in that situation.
Alone, in pain, waiting for daybreak,” she said as I pulled back.
Another uncovered secret threaded across her brow. “Wait a minute…” Delilah’s glass still sat there half drunk on the table across from me.
“I’m making the most of my time here, if that’s what you’re about to inquire after,” she said, reverting to tight-lipped when it came to the affairs of her heart.
“Okay. I won’t pry, but…”
“Oh Lord. Here we go.”
“Did you and Delilah ‘making the most of your time here’ have anything to do with why you weren’t at Christmas? Oh, and the scalping-Shirley situation?” I asked, pieces clicking together.
She clucked. “It had everything to do with that, doll. Life’s too short not to love with abandon and stand up to your bullies. Even the balding ones.”
Our laughter diffused the shroud of complicated feelings clouding up the room.
AIDAN
“You’re back,” Isla said, opening the door. Her widened eyes only heightened the appearance that she’d been crying. “Oh, Aidan. What a surprise. I don’t think I’ve ever had this many visitors in a single day before. Did you know that you have a search party chasing after you?”
“I do?” I asked, feeling like death.
Earlier that day, I’d been awoken by my noisy neighbors, except this time it was sex on the right and shouting on the left. Relationships could shift tones so quickly.
My head felt like there was tissue paper tucked up inside every crevice. An annoying scratchy rawness plagued the back of my throat. As soon as I sat up, snot dripped from my nostrils, and my limbs ached.
I collected myself well enough to go down to the lobby and inquire about breakfast, thinking perhaps I just needed to eat.
“This ain’t a Holiday Inn Express,” the receptionist said, with dark bags under his eyes as if he’d spent the entire night watching TV. I knew a thing or two about that. “There’s a vending machine down the way. Try your luck on it. See if anything’s not expired.”
I brought a Coke and a bag of stale tortilla chips to my room and scrolled through Henry’s attempts to contact me.
I’d spent the better part of four weeks chasing after him; he could stand to suffer some chasing of his own.
Especially when even a hot shower did nothing to remedy whatever was ailing me.
“A harried Henry and Alexa were here not even an hour ago inquiring on your whereabouts,” Isla said after a silent spell, motioning me inside. “Where’s your coat?”
“I don’t have one,” I said, then sniffled. “I left it at Alexa and Sid’s.”
“Sit, sit.” She must’ve noticed I was listing because she veered me toward the couch. The soft squish of the cushion beneath me brought a modicum of relief. “Where have you been all night?”
“Out walking.” My eyes drooped.
“Where did you sleep?” she asked.
“A motel I found along the way.” Though “sleep” was not exactly the word I’d have used. I tossed. I turned. I groaned. I buried my face in the flat, smelly pillow and shouted, my voice adding to the cacophony of the night owls the seedy place attracted.
“Oh, dollface.” She pressed the back of her hand to my forehead. “You’re warm.”
“Am I? I feel cold.”
“Lie down,” she instructed before marching into the bathroom. She emerged with a small beeping stick that she stuck under my tongue. “Ninety-nine point eight. You’ve got a low-grade fever. It’s probably a cold.”
“A cold?” I asked, straightening up in a panic. “Am I going to die?”
“Die?” she asked. She stopped rustling around in the cupboard to flash me a quizzical look. “A cold is nothing some over-the-counter medication and some soup can’t cure.”
My heart rate settled slightly. I pulled out my phone and amended my Things That Can Kill Me list, adding “soup” and “pills” as a note next to “colds” for next time.
If there’d ever be a next time. If the cold didn’t kill me, the magic would claim me.
Because Henry didn’t love me, even if he was looking for me.
He probably didn’t want my disappearance on his conscience.
“You’re a curious one,” Isla said sometime later, staring at me as I dozed on and off to the sounds of a craggy-voiced man talking with a wingless angel on the TV. “The more I look at you, the more I swear I know you.”
The cold medication she’d spooned out of a syrupy bottle for me earlier made me loopy. My tongue possessed a mind of its own. “You do know me. Not me-me. But the me before. The me I will be again soon enough.”
“You’re talking nonsense,” she said with a chuckle.
“No, I’m not. Nonsense is wishing someone into existence, making them realize how beautiful life is, and then not being willing to love them, so now they must go back to being a mannequin.” Perhaps I was wrong. I wasn’t loopy. The medication made me lucid. Unafraid to speak the truth.
“What do you mean, wishing someone into existence?” she asked, leaning forward in her recliner. It creaked with the sudden shift of weight.
“Henry wished for his perfect man on magic hour and… here I am. Though I don’t feel perfect right now. I feel like poop.”
Isla pressed a hand to her lips. “That’s where I know you from. The shop. All those years, and you’re…” She rocked back like an invisible hand had swiped in front of her face. “You’re alive.”
“For now,” I said, burrowing deeper into the couch. Her reaction was not nearly as calamitous as Henry had suggested it would be if I told another human the truth about my makeup.
“Again, a cold is no cause for alarm,” she said evenly.
“It’s not that. Henry doesn’t love me. If I don’t experience true human love before the midnight chime on New Year’s Eve, I go back to being a mannequin forever.
” I wanted to show her the glowing red card as proof, but it was probably back in Henry’s apartment.
It didn’t matter anyway because she already seemed to believe me.
Unless that was the fever playing tricks on me.
“Do you love him?” she asked.
“I don’t think it matters if I do,” I responded.
She scoffed. “I think it matters.”
“Okay, then, I do.” I reconsidered for a second. “Or I did before he told me I’d never be human because I didn’t know hurt or suffering. If only he could see me now.” Pain sizzled in my eye sockets.
“Hmm. I think you’re safe, dollface. There’s absolutely nothing more human than unrequited love,” she said.
“What’s that?” I asked, tilting my head to the side so I could see her better. Pressure reallocated behind my face, giving me relief on one side and sharp pain on the other.
“Unrequited love is love you have for someone else that that someone can’t, won’t, or doesn’t return,” she explained with patience.
“In Henry’s case, I can say for certain that the last one does not apply.
I’ve never seen him as happy as he was the day he brought you by for bingo nor have I seen him as frantic as he was to find you today.
I don’t seek to make excuses for him, but he’s been hurt in the past, and while he may be constantly seeking perfection, I think it’s born of insecurity.
Being human is to be imperfect, and to love another human is to embrace their imperfections.
I don’t think he’s quite grasped that yet. ”
“I’m not sure I want him to grasp it after all the mean things he said to me.” I sighed.
“You might change your mind once you’re feeling better. You’ll stay here tonight. Rest now,” she said.
“But the signs at the entrance say no overnight visitors unless approved,” I protested, despite having no energy to move from that spot, maybe ever.
“Dollface, rules are suggestions unless someone is watching. Are you going to snitch on us?” she asked.
“No. I’m too tired to snitch,” I said.
“Good. Then rest,” she said.
So I did.