A half-hour later, I have hacked through the ancient piping of tree roots and dug a square hole about half the size of a baby crib, and a foot deep.
Carl is right.
There’s nothing here.
I can’t help but wonder whether he is watching. Not Carl. My monster.
On my knees, I rush to push the crumbly black earth back in place. It now looks like an animal’s grave.
My phone chirps, a silly sound, but my heart lurches anyway.
A text. Charlie.
Sorry I was grouchy Mommy
Charlie has passed her biology test.
I tuck the phone into my pocket and step into the deep shadows under the bridge. I think of the two girls who listened to the drone of traffic and imagined an ocean. Girls who had nothing more important to do than argue whether Jurassic Park could really happen and extol the virtues of Sonic drive-ins because they have hands-down the best ice for chewing. All of that, of course, before one of them ended up in a hole and the other one tried to pull her out.
Time to move on.
When I reach the pond, I see a mother kneeling beside a small child with a pink beret. The girl is pointing at a pair of ducks beak to beak in a staring contest.
Her delighted laugh trickles across the pond, rippling the water as it pulls more ducks her way. I see an old crazy quilt spread out behind her. A blue Igloo cooler.
What I don’t see is Carl.
Tessie, 1995
He’s jabbering.
Blah, blah. Jabber, jabber.
Apparently, it isn’t that unusual to experience something paranormal after an event.
Other people talk to the dead, too. No big deal. He doesn’t say it out loud, but I’m a cliché.
“The paranormal experience can happen during the event,” he is saying. “Or afterward.” The event. Like it is a royal wedding or the UT-OU football game. “The victims who survive sometimes believe that a person who died in the event is still speaking to them.” If he says event one more time, I am going to scream. The only thing holding me back is Oscar. He is sleeping, and I don’t want to freak him out.
“A patient of mine watched her best friend die in a tubing accident. It was especially traumatic because she never saw her surface the water. They didn’t find her body. She was convinced her friend was controlling things in her life from heaven. Ordinary things. Like whether it would rain on her. People in circumstances similar to yours suddenly see ghosts in broad daylight. Predict the future. They believe in omens, so much so that some of them can’t leave their houses.”
Circumstances similar to mine? Is he saying that with a straight face? Surely, he is smirking. And, surely, it isn’t a good idea right now to hold my head underwater with tangled fishing lines and human-eating tree stumps and silky, streaming strands of another girl’s hair. Lydia’s dad always warns us about what lies beneath the murky surface of the lake. Makes us wear scratchy nylon lifejackets in 103-degree heat no matter how much we sweat and whine.
“That’s crazy,” I say. “The rain thing. I’m not crazy. It happened. I mean I know it happened. She spoke to me.”
I wait for him to say it. I believe you think it happened, Tessie. Emphasis on believe. Emphasis on think.
He doesn’t say it. “Did you think she was alive or dead when she spoke to you?”
“Alive. Dead. I don’t know.” I hesitate, deciding how far to go. “I remember her eyes as really blue, but the paper said they were brown. But then, in my dreams they sometimes change colors.”
“Do you dream often?”
“A little.” Not going there.
“Tell me exactly what Meredith said to you.”
“Merry. Her mother calls her Merry.”
“OK, Merry, then. What’s the first thing Merry said to you in the grave?”
“She said she was hungry.” My mouth suddenly tastes like stale peanuts. I run my tongue over my teeth, trying not to gag.
“Did you give her something to eat?”
“That isn’t important. I don’t remember.”
Oh my God, it’s like I brushed my teeth with peanut butter. I feel like throwing up. I picture the space around me. If I throw up sideways, I spray the leather couch. Head down, it hits Oscar. Straight across, no holds barred, the doctor gets it.
“Merry was upset that her mother would be worried about her. So she told me her mother’s name. Dawna. With an a and a w. I remember, like, being frantic about getting to Merry’s mother. I wanted more than anything to climb out of there so I could tell her mom that she was safe. But I couldn’t move. My head, legs, arms. It was like a truck was crushing my chest.”
I didn’t know whether Merry was alive, and I was dead.
“The thing is, I know how to spell her mother’s name.” I’m insistent. “D-a-w-n-a, not D-o-n-n-a. So it must have happened. Otherwise, how would I know?”
“I have to ask you this, Tessie. You mentioned the paper. Has someone been reading you the newspaper reports?”
I don’t answer. It would get Lydia in a lot of trouble with Dad. With the lawyers, too, probably, who want me to testify “untainted” by media chatter. I overheard one of the assistants say, “If we have to, we can make this blind thing work in our favor.”
I don’t want anyone to take Lydia away.
“It is possible that you transposed time,” the doctor says. “That you know the detail of her mother’s name, how it was spelled, but found it out afterward.”
“Is that common, too?” Sarcastic.
“Not uncommon.”
He’s checking off all the little crazy boxes, and I’m making a hundred.
The toe of my boot is furiously knocking against the table leg. My foot slips and accidentally kicks Oscar, who lets out a cry. I think that nothing in the past month has felt as awful as this tiny hurt sound from Oscar. I lean down and bury my face in his fur. So sorry, so sorry. Oscar immediately slaps his tongue on my arm, the first thing he can reach.
“My Very Energetic Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas.” I murmur this into Oscar’s warm body again and again, calming Oscar. Calming myself.
“Tessie.” Concern. Not smirking now. He thinks he’s pushed me too far. I titter, and it sounds loony. It’s weird, because I really feel pretty good today. I just feel bad about kicking Oscar.
I raise my head, and Oscar resettles himself across my feet. His busy tail whacks like a broom against my leg. He’s fine. We’re fine.
“It’s a mnemonic device,” I say. “For remembering the planetary order.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars… My Very Energetic Mother…”
“I get that. But what does it have to do with Merry?” He’s sounding really worried.
“Merry thought we should come up with a code to help me remember the names of the mothers of the other Susans. So I could find them later. Tell them that their girls were OK, too.”
“And it had something to do… with the planets?”
“No,” I say impatiently. “I was repeating the planet thing in the grave, trying to, you know, stay sane. Not black out. Everything was kind of spinning. I could see the stars and stuff.” The moon, a tiny, thin smile. Don’t give up. “Anyway, it made Merry think of the idea for a mnemonic device so I wouldn’t forget the names of the other mothers. So I wouldn’t forget. N-U-S, a letter for each mother. Nasty Used Snot. Or something. I remember snot was part of it. But I flipped the letters around and made a real word. SUN.”