Chapter 71 Amelia Blue
Somewhere over Middle America, I hold my mother’s notebook tightly. My muscles are sore, my body aching, as though I ran a marathon last night. I gaze out the window, studying the cloud cover like I’m going to be tested on it later.
My mother’s file is probably already back in place alongside the others in the cabinets beside the gym like it’s nothing special, as if she’s no different from any of the center’s other patients.
For all Andrew knows, I went straight to the local police station this morning.
He surely realized that a misplaced file would be suspicious.
Easier to say (should the police come asking questions) what he said last night: Plenty of addicts lose their sobriety after rehab.
He is, after all, an expert in the subject.
Perhaps he spent the night on the floor in his office, woke up bleary-eyed, his head sore where Edward hit it with a bat.
Maybe his mother offered him an ice pack, but he shoved it away because he didn’t want Evelyn taking care of him, her teeth stained with red wine, her eyes bloodshot with a hangover.
I agree with Andrew about one thing: The word of his impaired mother and Georgia’s mentally ill daughter probably isn’t enough to make the police open an investigation after all these years.
At least leaving Andrew and Evelyn together on that island feels like some kind of punishment, though it’s certainly not the justice Georgia deserves.
I shift in my narrow seat, twisting one leg over the other. I don’t wish I’d taken Georgia’s file. Edward was right. There was nothing for me in Evelyn’s notes. They didn’t have miraculous answers, only a flawed woman’s rather mundane observations.
Moreover, I’m through listening to what other people said about my mother. The press claimed to be experts, and they lied. That place, that was supposed to save her, killed her. I want, for the first time in my life, to hear what she had to say.
So I open Georgia’s notebook, focusing on the familiar quirks in her handwriting. For years, I thought (I knew) she was too messed up to concentrate on anything beyond her next high, but she never stopped songwriting.
There is so much I don’t know.
I reach into my bag, digging past the packs of gum and cigarettes, and pull out my phone, log on to the plane’s Wi-Fi, and pull up Sonja’s profile. I want to learn about the Georgia she knows.
Sonja’s most recent post is dated last night.
After she read the police report showing that Georgia was sober when she attacked Joni Jewell, sick of the rumors and lies that had dogged my mother’s career and determined to remind fans that Georgia was the reason Shocking Pink had any success to begin with, Sonja pretended to be in need of a digital detox and booked a stay at Rush’s Recovery.
She dyed her hair blond and had a fur coat custom made to look nearly identical to the one Georgia had been wearing the night she disappeared.
Last night, Sonja hitchhiked to the Shelter Shack, the last place the public saw Georgia.
At the time, witnesses said Georgia had her guitar with her, like she’d been planning to perform.
Sonja interviewed the bartender. She tracked down the woman, a teenager at the time, who picked up my hitchhiking mother and her guitar.
Andrew thought Sonja wanted to experience what my mother did, a macabre pilgrimage: stay in Georgia’s cottage, have her rooms cleaned by the same housekeeper, hitchhike into town just like Georgia had years before.
He thought Sonja was no different from people who lay flowers outside the Dakota to honor John Lennon, or who visit Jim Morrison’s grave at Père-Lachaise.
But Sonja wasn’t simply following in my mother’s footsteps.
In the face of Shocking Pink’s so-called reunion tour, Sonja wanted to remind the world that Georgia Blue ached to perform for her fans right up until the moment she died.
She risked her life for it, Sonja says, sneaking out of rehab for one more chance to sing.
The truth this time.
I never knew (or more accurately, never cared to know) how much my mother loved being onstage, singing for strangers, listening to them sing her own words back to her.
I finally understand why she was constantly writing, singing, marking her body with words for strangers to read.
Maybe I’d have known it sooner if I hadn’t been so determined not to hear what her fans had to say.
I bite my thumbnail, guilt twisting in my stomach.
I should’ve been the one asking questions, not last night, but immediately after Georgia died, when everyone’s memories were fresh and clear.
Naomi and I should’ve insisted on an autopsy, rather than take the coroner at his word, then cremating Georgia’s remains.
(What Georgia wanted, Naomi said, even though it’s against Jewish tradition.) If the police refused to investigate, I should’ve tracked down not only the bartender and the driver but also the local police chief who got the call that she was dead, the housekeeper who cleaned her cottage—anyone who might have come into contact with her during her stay on the island.
Who knows what they might have seen, what their stories, woven together, might have revealed?
Instead, I came to the island and searched only for answers about my mother’s disease, as though nothing else about her mattered. Did I forget—or did I never know to begin with (yet another gap in the things I thought I knew)—that there was more to her than her illness?
Maybe I forgot there’s more to me than mine, too.
The flight attendant walks down the aisle, handing out breakfast. I place my hand over my heart, feeling its beat. It wasn’t Georgia but me who was cavalier with the rules of life and death, neglecting the responsibility of having a body.
When the attendant gets to my row, I don’t pretend to sleep. I accept the tray she offers. Airplane food isn’t exactly appetizing. No one would blame me if I shoved the tray away, refused to eat, spat each morsel from my mouth. I think of Milo and the cereal he slipped between my lips this morning.
I open my phone’s texts, scroll to the name I’ve been avoiding.
I’m sick, Jonah. Maybe you knew that already, but I never actually told you.
I steady my hands, then type, When I get home, I’m entering treatment.
Slowly, I open a shiny foil packet of butter, spread it over a slice of crumbly bread, so stale it practically dissolves in my mouth.
The butter is the texture of glue. A day ago, Maurice would have cooked me anything I asked for with a smile, but today my arms ache where he gripped them.
I take three bites. I feel the calories enter my bloodstream, consider rushing to the bathroom.
I tighten my seat belt, stare at my phone, and start a new text thread.
I’m sorry I left without saying goodbye, I write to Edward. I have so much to tell you.
I return to Sonja’s profile, balancing my phone on top of Georgia’s notebook. After a childhood growing up in magazines and blogs, I kept my social media accounts private, anonymous, using them for ED tips and not much else. I don’t have a legion of devoted followers.
But Sonja does. More than one hundred thousand people follow her.
Maybe the truth about what happened to Georgia won’t be proven with subpoenaed records and testimony under oath.
And maybe Sonja, even with her many followers, can’t keep Shocking Pink from going on tour without Georgia.
But, I think as I clutch the notebook tight, there’s another way to get justice for my mother.
It won’t be another story.
Before I can send a DM, my phone vibrates in my hand. It’s a text from Edward, two small words.
Me too, he says.
I turn back to Mom’s notebook. By the time I land, I’ll know every song inside by heart.
Let me tell you what I know now.
She was singing to me all along.