Chapter 17 #2
the men she’d run off with from time to time. She knew about the women. It was the cost of being together.”
“But it hurt her. Your infidelity.”
“We were both hurt.”
“So why couldn’t you have just ended it and saved us all the trouble?”
He leveled Vivi with a long, searching gaze. “For the same reason we can’t let go of you. Before I moved to Deer Creek, I’d
only known some pale approximation of family. You and Calla became my sisters, my parents, my kin. It was deeper than friendship.
We were all soul mates. The way I love her—you—is tied up in my most essential self.”
“And now?”
“It’s time to grow up. Calla was afraid of what that would mean. In her mind, you would never accept any part of her that
wasn’t what you wanted to see. She was complicated. Not just a victim. Not just your little sister.”
“I know that.”
“Did you, though? I worry that you’ve spent your life trying to keep her from growing up. Do you ever wonder why?”
Vivi paused. Why couldn’t she allow her sister the right of evolution? Calla was no longer five years old, the sleeping beauty Vivi was tasked with
guarding. In Vivi’s unflinching fidelity to the child version of Calla, the sweet-cheeked girl who hid in the woods, had she
inadvertently stunted Calla’s growth, stripping her of the nuance that made her a fully realized person? Ideals were only
beautiful until they became a shield against one’s fears.
But if Vivi wasn’t the protector, then who was she? What value could she command in the world, without Calla?
Wayland gave her a pitying look. “Your sister wore a thousand masks and switched them out like a person switches shoes. But
she gave you the best part of herself. You are the love of her life. Maybe the only person she could love unselfishly.”
“There’s no such thing as an unselfish love. Not for people like us.” She thought of Samuel rushing into the conservation
lab, finding the abandoned key, the stripped painting. She never deserved him. And, as Vivi had long suspected, he did not
deserve her.
“She’s taken off again, hasn’t she?” Wayland asked.
“Yes. She’s not in the Pilsen apartment, or any of her usual haunts.”
His smile was faint but sincere. “And you, always seeking.”
“I have to, Way. You know I do.”
“Calla’s in Deer Creek. At least, I think so. We still share a credit card. I keep meaning to cancel it. The last charge was
for a gas station outside of town.”
“What’s she doing in Wisconsin?”
“I don’t know. But I hope she’s happy. Despite what you might believe about me, Viv, I will always want her to flourish. She’s
family.”
As he spoke, he ran his hand over the top of the grass, like a barber inspecting a buzzcut.
His socks, she noticed, were sprinkled with tiny black skulls.
Vivi debated telling Wayland about the letter and sketch; the journal in Arles; what she thought awaited them in Viet Nam.
But in the end, she didn’t say a word. It was a secret between sisters.
He stopped grazing the grass. He took her hand, then held it up against the sun, a five-fingered blemish over the bright stretch
of sky.
“No antlers?” he asked.
“Calla has it.”
“I never knew which one of you would be wearing that ring in a given week.”
It was an impractical piece of jewelry. The prongs sometimes resembled thorns and over the years, they often caught on stray
threads and got in the way of Vivi’s work at the Forster. But she never took it off unless forced.
As soon as Calla saw the ring on Vivi’s finger, one cool spring evening as they played Seekers in the woods, she cajoled and
pouted and bargained until Vivi promised they could take turns. Starting now? Calla had asked. The very moment Vivi handed the ring over, Calla slid it onto her thumb, because it was too large for any
of her other fingers. Outwardly, Vivi had given her sister an indulgent smile, but she fought an internal surge of annoyance.
Now that May was gone, they were left scavenging over the scraps of her, like starving baby vultures. Somewhere within her
young mind, Vivi realized that scarcity would become the lens through which they viewed all beautiful things.
Wayland let her hand drop. “Did I ever tell you about my documentary? It’s about a group living in this remote settlement
in the Andes. They call themselves Los Brillantes, the Bright Ones. They believe in metempsychosis, the transmigration of
souls. There’s a big ritual after every death in the community in which they redirect the departed souls where they want them
to go.
“I didn’t really buy into anything they said when I first met them.
But somewhere along the way, I began thinking of belief and mythology, and how both are intrinsically linked to longing.
Isn’t the belief in reincarnation simply a desire to keep the person you’ve lost?
The alternative—living with aloneness—might be too much for the human constitution to bear. ”
“Who wants to live with aloneness?” An edge of defensiveness knifed into her question, which was only rhetorical on its surface.
“Some could ask: who wants to live with all that combustible hope?”
A giant bee looped between them. Its buzz grew louder and its down brushed her cheek. They sat motionless, as if spelled by
the hum of the bee, the echo of his question.
She said, “Go ahead. Tell me what you want to tell me.”
“I’m trying to say that you are drowning in your own longing, Vivi. Your belief in what was instead of what is. You want so badly to reach Calla, to save her from herself, but you never consider the possibility of
simply letting her go.”
“But when we played Seekers—”
“Fuck the games. We’re adults now.” His voice rose, startling the bee. It flew off into the grass, then made a drunken path
toward the runners near the lake. He lowered his voice. “Maybe all of us should find a way to let the past finally die.”
“I’m not sure how to do that.”
“You’ll figure it out. You always do. Never forget that you and your sister are survivors.”
He was right. They had survived everything life pitched their way. But it’d never mean anything if they didn’t have each other.
He saw the look on her face and sighed.
“Go on. You know she’s waiting for you there.”