Chapter 55
Will
I’m not sure how I ended up here, but in front of me are dozens of used cars, and behind me is the dealer who left his flier on my windshield and who’s now salivating over the Audi I’m about to get rid of.
I’m actually surprised I didn’t do it before.
Not that I dislike the car, but I don’t feel comfortable in it. Whereas here, my eyes are drawn immediately to an old Jeep that looks like it’s traveled a million miles.
“How much is that one?” I ask.
“Well, we have a special promotion this week…”
And he gives me the same spiel he must give everyone who comes there, with words like liquidation sale, unique opportunity, we’ve seen a lot of interest in that one.
I don’t care, though. I knew I’d buy it as soon as I saw it.
I tell the dealer, and his eyes light up with enthusiasm.
I get less for the Audi than I could have if I shopped around, but all I want is to be rid of it, and I don’t think twice before agreeing to his conditions.
I showed up in a tricked-out Audi, and I left in a ramshackle Jeep. In other words, I showed up feeling dreary and left happier than I could have hoped.
Driving it at first is a little weird. I put a lot of my junk in the back.
Most of my books I’m going to donate to the library, though.
I stomp the gas, leave the trailer park behind, and head for the suburbs, turning on the radio.
“All We Ever Knew” is playing. It feels like someone’s sending me a message.
I’m concentrating so hard on the lyrics and the freedom that I feel as I steer that I don’t know whether I took this turn consciously or if it was exactly where I wanted to go.
The closer I get, the slower I go. The sun will soon vanish behind the horizon.
Knowing this, I park and hurry in. I want to have a look around while I can still see.
I close the door and drop the keys in my pocket.
The home, in ruins, greets me silently.
I remember the day I came here with Greta and how important it felt, coming here with her by my side.
She had no idea what it meant to me. I liked what she said about how strange it was, intruding on a family’s privacy without knowing what had happened to them.
If I’d told her the truth about who I was, I could have cleared up her doubts as she looked at the photo: The parents are still together, they’re still wonderful people, the grandmother died in her sleep, and the kid…
He just slowly got lost. But the world is big, you can’t even imagine how big, and it’s normal to get lost in it sometimes, right?
If I didn’t tell her from the beginning that her sister and I had been friends, it’s because then, I’d have had to tell her everything else.
And I think…I think that deep down, I wanted Greta to know the real me, without prejudices, without judging me.
What I didn’t realize was she could never know me if I only showed her my exterior.
I walk inside.
Everything’s the same as it was before but more decayed.
I walk past the living room, where my grandmother used to read and sew and tell me stories, and carefully climb the stairs.
I’ve got a knot in my throat. My room is the first on the right.
All that’s left there is a box spring, some old frames, papers, and a moth-eaten blanket.
I stand in the middle and try to remember, try to remember myself.
Sometimes I feel as if my head were cracking open.
This is one of those times. What would I tell my eight- or nine-year-old self?
Probably the same words my grandmother told me on that solitary birthday: Don’t change, don’t let them win.
Someday, you’ll be surrounded by people who will love you for who you are.
You just need a little patience and strength.
Grandma was always right.
I stay there awhile longer, then go downstairs. It’s nighttime as I leave, and I feel strangely melancholic, knowing I’ll never come back. There’s nothing but ghosts in this place.
I get in the Jeep, turn on the heat, and wait at the wheel for the sun to set and the stars to brighten in the sky.
Of all the places in the world, why did I decide to come back to Ink Lake?
I could have started from zero in some unknown city, I could have traveled to another continent, I could have set forth on some new adventure.
But I came back here. Maybe it’s that seeing Lucy in the hospital reminded me of this place, this stage of my life, my lost innocence.
Or maybe it’s that human beings are just animals, and where would a frightened, wounded animal go? To its lair.
When I get back to the RV, I don’t even bother taking off my jacket before grabbing the purple envelope Lucy left me.
I still haven’t opened it. I’ve spent weeks looking at it, but I could never bring myself to read its contents.
I feel embarrassed. I’m sure all the Petersons have already done it.
I guess I’m a coward, maybe I always have been, or maybe I just needed to find the right time.
Well, this is it.
Dear friend:
If you’re holding this letter, it means you followed Greta along her map of forgotten longing.
I’m grateful to you for it. I imagine by now you know why I chose you to be her guide.
I knew you needed to make that same journey.
I hope it was nice, and I hope you enjoyed each step you took with Greta.
You must know by now what an incredible person she is.
She has her peculiarities, but as the years pass, you start to realize there’s no such thing as a normal person. We’re all so marvelously strange.
And you are too, Will.
The time we shared was an unexpected gift.
It may mean more to me than it does to you.
It’s easy to feel alone when you’re sick, everything around you looks so gray.
That’s why I ran away from my room that day.
It was a stupid act of rebellion. But thanks to it, I saw you in that bed.
I never forget a face. When you don’t have a future, you take refuge in your memories.
And there you were. It was like a sign. I thought a lot about you when I went back to school and learned you’d left.
You seemed so elusive to me, so empty, and I thought you probably needed a friend.
And the good news is, Will, that we can find the things that elude us, and we can fill the empty spaces.
I hope you learned to forgive yourself.
It’s easy to go on holding the life preserver. The hard stuff comes after, when you need to start swimming out there in the middle of the ocean.
I wish you luck, Will.
PS Remember how I promised you I’d show you my prom photos? Here’s one. If you ever think of me, remember me like this, in my red dress, wearing a smile.
Yours,
Lucy
I exhale the breath I’ve been holding as I read and stare at the photo.
Lucy is radiant on the stairs in front of the Peterson house.
To her right is a friend in a long, blue dress.
To her left is Greta. Probably her parents asked her to get in the photo.
She’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt that doesn’t even reach her belly button.
I look at her so long that I feel dizzy when I turn away.
Dizzy but more confident than I’ve been in a long time, as if magically, everything’s fallen into its place.
Lucy was right. The hard thing is learning to swim.