Chapter Twenty-Five
Twenty-Five
An hour or so later, we settled in the rearranged living room for the big special. The TV was new, and shockingly, mounted
to the wall. (Best Buy. Dad was unable to resist explaining the deal: free mounting with the purchase of any TV). Two new
sconces flanked it, along with framed family photos—the last one of all four of us, Sabrina’s smile tight; another with my
senior picture. I looked so young, my face rounder, freckles dancing on my nose.
While we waited, I muted the TV. The pre-show introduction featured Phoebe and Josef. Above them was a snapshot of the image
of the article from earlier that afternoon—Wells and I on the airplane. I stilled. They’d been called back to tape this today.
I wasn’t sure what to make of that.
From behind, Wells rubbed my ear. I bristled.
“Still can’t believe all of this,” Mom said. “The fact that you’re on TV. My baby.”
“It’s nothing.” I ducked my head. “This is even more out there than most of my segments. Just to forewarn. We really don’t have to watch it either,” I added.
When I appeared onscreen, Dad turned up the volume.
“I love your dress,” Natalie said automatically.
I poked her. “That’s because it’s yours.”
“It is?” Natalie squinted. “It is!”
“I like that,” Mom said. “Sharing clothes is good. For the earth.”
Dad gave a light laugh under his breath, then turned on the closed captioning.
If someone touched me, it was possible I would shatter. There was a reason I didn’t watch myself on camera. And this was it.
I examined this version of Olivia Jane Adler: the trace of dark under-eye circles, the puffiness inevitably present on mornings
after I eat fries. On-screen Olivia had no idea that Wells skulked in her office, about to rob her of her choice to not know
her soulmate.
Wells moved his seat to the one beside me. He dropped a hand on my thigh.
“Oh, Liv,” Mom said, sipping from a mug of tea. “I know I’m not supposed to comment on your body anymore, so I’ll just tell
you this: you look great, honey.”
“Thanks, Mom.” I stood. I once threw up on the previous carpet in this living room after insisting I was fine. My mother had
scrubbed it with a kelly-green can of Comet, which bleached the rug to the point it had to be replaced. Another time, on this
very couch, I’d recovered from wisdom teeth removal while hallucinating my dead sister sitting on my feet. I’d been too terrified
to tell my parents.
I focused on the white words at the bottom of the screen, not unlike the ones on the teleprompter. I wondered how closed captioning
worked. Did the teleprompter people send the language to the network? Does something automatic happen?
[The emergence of Soulmails
has impacted every
single
human being
on earth . . . Their existence . . .
confirms something big
for a group of people known as spiritualists.
On social media, a rising number
of them . . . have been
extolling the concept of a soul family]
“What on earth is a soul family?” Natalie asked.
“Well, according to this guy, it’s not on earth,” I said. “It’s like a family tree, but for souls.”
Mom made a polite throat-clear. We lapsed back into silence.
Camera B zeroed in. Ethan, the spiritual regressionist, seemed shorter on-screen. “Thank you, Olivia, and yes. When we die,
our soul is freed to journey back to its home.”
My smiled flashed. “A home, like what various religions would call the afterlife?”
“Or, the before-life,” Jada answered in that breathy way of hers. “It’s the spirit world. Where we all come from and return to.”
I remembered the poppy seed stuck in my molar. I’d been riding the high that came from preparing to leave for this trip. “And
what is this place like?” that me prompted.
Camera B framed Ethan and Jada together. They exchanged a glance that was so loaded, so full of something—trust? Joy?—that
I was suddenly sucked in, too. I didn’t remember this glance being so fraught with purpose.
“It’s warmth. It’s love. It’s dazzling,” Jada said.
Ethan grinned. “We’ve each got a soul group—soul family, right? Of, depending on who you talk to, about five, ten, twenty
people. And in your life, they might be your mother, your neighbor, your mailman. Let me ask you something: Have you ever
had the experience where you seemingly just have a solid bond with someone, without really being able to explain how you developed
it?”
“Of course,” I’d answered. (Now, it felt like everyone in the room turned to me, as if they wondered if it was them. I studiously glued my eyes to the screen.)
“So you know, then,” Jada said. “They can also be your childhood next-door neighbor. Or that one friend you meet when you’re
thirty-five who you just click with, like you’ve always been friends with them. They might start out as your grandmother,
and then in the next life, they might be your child. Roles change; purpose doesn’t.”
“If you’re just tuning in now, we’re with spiritual regressionists Ethan Kincaid and Jada Sawyer, whose lives have gotten
very busy since Soulmail began.” I turned to them. “It’s a fascinating field, one I’m sure viewers are interested in learning
more about. Tell me how Soulmail altered these beliefs for you.” The television version of me recrossed her legs.
“Oh, it’s only confirmed them. In the context of Soulmail, it makes so much sense,” Ethan explained. “Soulmail operates on
the concept of a soul pair. One to one.” Wells’s hand pulsed over my leg. “But we form additional bonds with other souls in
our direct path. If you’re someone on earth whose soulmate has passed back to that realm, then you still have those tangible
bonds with your soul-family-on-earth. So while Soulmail highlights your strongest bond, it might not be your best one.”
I stiffened. As soon as I’d spotted Wells sitting in my office, I forgot, forgot, forgot this part of the interview. Sitting
there, my mind had flashed to Natalie and Caleb, to my parents. To my sister, even. Ethan and Jada’s theories didn’t jive
with me, which was fine. It was my job to present them, not to subscribe to them. But I couldn’t help but wonder: What if
they were right? What if soul families were real, and Natalie was part of mine? Or Caleb?
The program went to commercial, and the room stirred. I stretched my arms above my head, seeking the relief of my elbow joints popping. I turned to ask Mom what she thought, and my mouth parted.
Grief aged most people. Mom had somehow withstood that test of time. Her hair had grayed early, the same way strands were
shooting in for me now, but where most peoples’ features lengthen and droop with time, my mother’s almost withdrew, lifted
instead. She was a classic beauty. A grocery store cashier had once compared her to Michelle Pfeiffer, and the comparison
fit.
But still, I was unprepared for this fragile vision of my mother. Mom’s profile, to be more specific, a single tear tracking
down her pert nose, the skin beneath her eyes glossy, wet. For a second, I’d mistaken the crying as a sign of pride, as her
only living daughter’s career had such an obvious display of success. But the raw glint in her eyes told me it was something
else. Something more, something I couldn’t tap dance around or make jokes to fix.
She looked at me. “Do you believe it?” she asked, her voice high. “The soul family? That we’re all together?” Mom sniffed.
Guilt blushed her face, and she worked to clear it, but it was too late.
“I don’t know,” I said finally.
“But you have to—it has to be true. That way . . .” Mom trailed off.
“Sally, that’s enough,” Dad said.
“Who are you to say what’s enough?” Mom snapped. “These—they’re never wrong?”
Wells. Caleb. “Somehow, they’re accurate.” As if I’d summoned him, Wells pressed this thumb to mine, a gesture I was certain
was meant to reassure me.
The pulse that passed between my parents was loaded. “See?” she said to my father.
I recoiled. I’d never heard her talk like that before. Some energy, or presence, or sensation in the room slid off-kilter, something you could sense only if you grew up here. My breath stumbled in my throat. “You’re not each other’s soulmates, are you?”
“Ugh.” Mom pressed the backs of her hands to her eyes, as if she could push tears back into their ducts. “Honey, please. Another
time.”
Heat flushed my temples. Caleb stood, retrieved a Kleenex from a wicker-patterned tissue box holder, offered it. “Here,” he
said gently.
“Mom,” I begged.
Her expression was heady, powerful. If I dipped even a pinky nail into it, it could take me away. Natalie slipped her hand
into mine.
My father was still locked on the TV. I cleared my throat. “Dad?”
“There’s nothing to worry about,” he said.
“But—”
“Nothing,” he said firmly. He stood. “I’m going to go clean the grill. You young people are a pleasure.” He jammed his feet
into his work boots, vanished.
I gripped Natalie’s hand.
Mom paused the TV. “You know, the night Sabrina died, we got into an argument about her wearing a crop top out. She’d made
it in home ec. The seam was as crooked as her eyeliner.” She fisted her hand over her mouth. “She told me I was a prude. Screamed
at me over and over, but I—” Teardrops traced her lashes. “I just didn’t want her to be cold,” she whispered.
“She had her hoodie with her,” I lied. “The zip-up from the beach in P-town.”
Mom blinked. “How do you know?”
“I looked for it after. I wanted to sleep in it,” I said, which was true. “And then I remember her having it in her friend’s
car.” Another lie, before I could stop myself. So much for facts.
“Huh,” my mother said.
Wells reached over to rub my mother’s shoulder. “It’s no consolation, but having known your family as long as I have, I have
no doubt she knew how much you loved her.”
“I hope that, too,” Mom said.
“So Sabrina is your soulmate.” I tried to brighten each syllable with breeziness. Acceptance. It clanked in my stomach then:
Mom’s interest in Natalie and Helena. “Who is Dad’s?”
“Petey,” Mom said.
It figured. Dad’s fishing partner. Brothers by the water. It would’ve been funny, ironic, sweet, if it weren’t so sad.