Chapter 19 Britt #2
They had tea and banana bread and didn’t talk any further about the pills.
They didn’t talk about the shooting, either, not directly.
Rainbow asked, gently, if Britt missed her mother, and Britt surprised herself by admitting that she did.
Life with her mom had been difficult, but it was a difficult that was familiar.
There was stability in the instability. And of course, in between bouts of The Darkness, there were those days of raucous joy, days when her mom’s brain chemicals shifted just enough for Britt to sustain her fantasies of things being different.
As much as she lived in dread of the down times, she also lived in anticipation of those upswings, those times when she glimpsed her mom’s potential, dared to envision a better life for the two of them.
There would never be another upswing now.
She hadn’t realized how much hope she’d harbored until her mother had died, all that hope dying with her.
Britt’s palms started to get sweaty as her body informed her that it had been too long since she’d taken one of her pills.
She had a few at Ron and Ruby’s house. Ron and Ruby!
She had almost forgotten about this strange other world she inhabited.
She had to be back for dinner. They would already be worried that she hadn’t come home directly after school.
Britt told Rainbow and Becky she had to go. She took her teacup to the sink, crumpled up the paper towel that had held her banana bread and threw it in the trash.
“Do you need a ride?” Rainbow asked.
Britt had planned to catch the bus a few blocks away, but she would get back to Ron and Ruby’s sooner with a ride.
“Sure, yeah,” she said.
Britt rode in the passenger seat as Rainbow drove, Becky sitting in the back.
She missed this, the three of them. As they approached Ron and Ruby’s neighborhood, Britt felt suddenly ashamed at how she’d ended up here, with foster parents and foster siblings, the court basically affirming that she had nobody else who loved her.
“It’s that house right there,” Britt said, pointing to the two-story with the beige exterior, paint chipped in several places, plywood in place of a front window that had been broken since Britt arrived.
Britt was thankful nobody was outside to see her pull up with these people who were evidence of her other life. Did Carlo and Deanna have other lives? They must have. Nobody talked about it. Ron and Ruby acted like the three of them had just fallen from the sky.
It was only when Rainbow put the car in park that Britt realized she hadn’t even broached the topic of borrowing money. That had been the purpose of her visit, hadn’t it? Maybe she’d just told herself that.
“Take care of you, okay?” Rainbow said.
“I will,” Britt said, though she wasn’t sure if that was true.
“Promise?” Becky said.
Becky stuck out her pinkie finger like they used to do. Britt laughed. Becky kept her pinkie outstretched.
“Come on, now,” Becky said.
Britt rolled her eyes and stuck out her own pinkie, interlinking it with Becky’s.
“We love you,” Rainbow said.
And Britt considered that, just maybe, they did.
Britt could not return the cash to Ron and Ruby’s dresser drawer by the end of the week.
When they had another sit-down talk with Carlo, Deanna, and Britt, Deanna didn’t hesitate to identify Britt as the culprit.
Britt didn’t try to deny it. She wanted to be punished, in a way—for the stealing and so much more.
Ron and Ruby said they would have to discuss her punishment.
“We’re very disappointed in you,” Ruby said with a solemn shake of her head.
What was there to say to that? Britt was disappointed in everything.
When her case worker, a woman named Nora, came by, Britt assumed Ron and Ruby had asked that she be moved to another home. That was her punishment—complete rejection. It seemed appropriate. But that was not why Nora had come by.
“Your guardianship came through,” Nora said.
The three of them—Ron, Ruby, and Britt—were sitting at the kitchen table with Nora when she delivered this news.
“My guardianship?”
“That’s great news,” Ruby said.
Nora flipped through papers in a manila folder, then looked up and said, “Rainbow Reynolds? The court approved her as your guardian.”
“Rainbow? What kind of name is that?” Ron said. He crossed his arms over his chest.
“Is this real?” Britt asked.
She was sure it couldn’t be. But Nora said, with a sympathetic smile, “Yes, it’s real.”
Somehow, Britt expected her addiction to oxy to just go away the moment she moved into Rainbow’s house.
But that wasn’t how it worked. She tried going several hours without taking a pill, but then had body aches and heart palpitations so bad she thought she was having a panic attack.
Rainbow told her she couldn’t stop cold turkey. She had to do it right.
Rainbow had a friend called Harmony who had been through a pill addiction herself.
She helped Britt slowly taper off the pills.
It took weeks. As Britt started to feel more like herself, she enrolled at her local high school.
She and Becky resumed their friendship as if nothing had ever come between them.
They didn’t talk about the shooting, but clung to each other with a new ferocity that spoke to having experienced something together that nobody else would ever understand.
“I’m so glad you’re back,” Becky said to her one night as they lay together in bed.
The apartment only had the two bedrooms—Rainbow’s and Becky’s. Just as they’d done on so many sleepover nights, Britt and Becky slept together in Becky’s full-size bed. They often fell asleep holding hands.
“Not just back with us, but back to yourself,” Becky clarified.
Becky was rolled on her side, looking away from Britt. Britt rolled over and spooned her.
“I love you like a sister,” Britt said.
“I love you like a soulmate,” Becky said.
“I’m sorry about what happened,” Britt said. It was the most they’d talked about Britt’s mother’s death since that day.
Britt wasn’t sure Becky would know what she was talking about, but without missing a beat, Becky said, “I know you are.”
Britt clung tighter to Becky, felt the tears slide down the side of her cheek before landing on Becky’s shoulder.
“It was an accident,” Becky said. “You didn’t mean for it to happen like that.”
Britt had been over the event so many times in her mind. It was true that she’d had no conscious intention of hurting her mother, but had her subconscious been in charge? She thought back to that drive with her mother to the motel: I wish you were dead.
“Did you tell your mom?” Britt asked.
“I tell her everything,” Becky said. “I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s okay. I figured you had.”
“It doesn’t change how she feels about you. You know that, right? We both love you.”
Britt started to cry more. Becky turned over so they were both facing each other, their knees pulled up toward their chests, bumping against each other.
“I don’t know where I’d be without you and your mom,” Britt said.
It was true, she really didn’t know. In all likelihood, she would have bounced around the foster care system, escaping reality via more pills until she was a full-fledged addict, just like her mother.
“We don’t know where we’d be without you either,” Becky said.
Britt had never considered that her existence was beneficial to someone else’s. She rested her forehead against Becky’s forehead until they fell asleep in that position.
Rainbow began holding more and more gatherings at her apartment—not just name ceremonies, but also meetings of like-minded seekers, as she called them, looking to further their spiritual growth outside the confines of conventional religion.
Every Friday evening, people came—a handful at first, then twenty, then thirty.
Eventually, they moved the meetings to a nearby park because the apartment was too small to accommodate so many people.
Rainbow performed short sermons and then welcomed people from the congregation to speak their thoughts on what she’d shared.
The sermons were about love—how to cultivate it within oneself and then extend it to others.
She spoke of how humans were designed to come together and help each other evolve.
“We are all walking each other home,” she liked to say.
Britt was enthralled. She took notes in a spiral-bound notebook during every sermon, though Rainbow said that wasn’t necessary.
“I can just give you my own notebooks. I write down all my sermons before I share them,” she’d said.
Britt liked the act of note-taking, though.
It helped cement the learnings in her brain.
On a rainy Friday evening, the biggest crowd ever was gathered to hear Rainbow, undeterred by the weather.
She did a sermon about how world peace starts with our individual actions, specifically having compassion for ourselves and those in our lives.
“We are all threads in a beautiful tapestry. The more we ensure we are not frayed internally, the more we can strengthen our bond with our adjoining threads. In this way, humanity is a work of art.”
“Your mom is magnetic,” Britt said.
“She is,” Becky agreed.
They watched as Rainbow finished and people formed a line to come forward and share their own thoughts on the topic.
Most of the sharing was praise for Rainbow, gratitude for her wisdom.
Britt was in awe, overcome by not only love for her surrogate mother, but also a desire to be something like her one day.
Britt stayed with Rainbow and Becky through high school.
Both girls graduated with their diplomas.
Britt knew she never would have been able to do it without the support of Rainbow and Becky.
She would have been a dropout, like her mother had been.
When the girls turned eighteen, Rainbow said it was time for their name ceremonies.
They decided it would be intimate, just the three of them. Rainbow wanted it to be special, not a show for the whole congregation, which had grown to more than a hundred regulars at that point.
It was a Saturday evening, a thunderstorm outside, which seemed to add to the feeling of this being a special occasion. They sat in a circle in Rainbow’s living room, as they had for the name ceremonies Britt had witnessed in the early years, before Rainbow started holding them at the park.
“Okay, my loves, let’s hold hands and take a big inhale,” Rainbow said.
They closed their eyes, held hands, and took deep breaths in. They pressed their lips together and hummed. Rainbow said the vibration of the humming awakened something within.
“Thank you, Spirit, for joining us here today,” Rainbow said.
Britt could feel it—the attendance of Spirit. There was an electricity in the air around them.
“Dear Becky, what is the name that Spirit is giving you?” Rainbow asked.
Becky arched her neck back, tilting her head toward the sky to receive her new self. She moaned with pleasure.
“The name I’m receiving is . . .” she said. She took one more deep breath in and out. “Aurora.”
It was a name she’d never mentioned before. Britt believed it really had just come to her in that moment.
“Aurora,” Rainbow repeated.
“Aurora,” Rainbow and Britt said in unison.
“Aurora,” the three of them said.
They continued breathing and humming.
“Dear Britt, what is the name that Spirit is giving you?” Rainbow asked.
Britt knew that she was supposed to receive a name spontaneously, in that moment.
But she’d known for years what her name would be when this time came.
She exhaled and inhaled, acting as if she was still receiving the name.
She rocked back and forth as she’d seen so many others do.
Then she let out one big breath and said:
“Angeni.”
If Rainbow or Becky recognized the name from years ago, they didn’t let on.
“Angeni,” Rainbow repeated.
“Angeni,” Rainbow and Becky said in unison.
“Angeni,” the three of them said.