Is it possible that just as I can call on my gift at will, I can as easily will it away? That in removing the stuff of my life as a healer, I can remove the gift from my body? Or is it more like the charm getting lost, fallen through a hole in my pocket? And if so, where will it go? Will it be resting between the floorboards, waiting for me to find it again?
TWENTY
When I wake up on the first morning of my new life as Marlena Not the Healer, I do a number of things.
I pick and choose from the clothing now hanging in my closet. There is a glittery tank top I might never wear but decided I wanted anyway. There are jeans and jeans and more jeans. Skinny. Ripped at the knees. Cut off at the bottom. Jeans with studs. Jeans with embroidered flowers. T-shirts are piled on my shelves and cute, colorful dresses hang in a row, a bright tempting rainbow of choices. I decide on one of the T-shirts. Pale violet, with a V-neck. A pair of jeans with studs in the shape of tiny stars. Bright-green flip-flops. I’ve always wanted to wear flip-flops. I’ve seen girls wearing them at the beach, in town, on the boardwalk by the wharf, on the way to some takeout restaurant, thwacking along as they chat with their friends or hold hands with their boyfriends.
Boyfriends.
Am I going to have a boyfriend?
T-shirts, jeans, flip-flops, and a boyfriend, too?
There is a rush in my ears, a dizzying lightness in my head to accompany it.
I grab a deep-fuchsia sweater in case I get cold. I love the bright color.
So much color!
The sun shines through my bedroom window. I turn my face to it, my whole body, a flower discovering warmth and light.
My stomach grumbles low and loud.
I thwack my way down the hall and the steps and into the kitchen, smiling.
What do healers on vacation eat?
Candy bars? Ice cream? Cheeseburgers and fries?
“Marlena, you look nice.” Fatima looks up from the counter where she is chopping vegetables. Carrots. Celery. Onion. Kale. Kale, of course. She is making one of those Portuguese stews that take forever to cook, that she makes sometimes when my mother is feeling homesick for her own mother’s cooking, though she never admits this out loud.
Is Mama feeling homesick today?
“You really think so?” I ask Fatima. She smiles an uncertain smile, like she’s not quite sure what the rules are at the moment. I wonder what she overheard yesterday. If she overheard everything. What my mother told her, if anything.
“Yes. But Marlena?” Fatima comes around the counter to where I’m standing. “May I? Fix something?”
“Sure,” I say. But she hesitates. “Fatima, please don’t be afraid. I’m not a sacred object.” Fatima blinks. She looks around the kitchen like she’s expecting my mother to jump out of the fridge and scold her for being too close. “Besides, I need your advice on my outfit. Too much color?”
She shakes her head. “No. I think the color is nice. Different, but a good different.” She tugs a little at my T-shirt, where I’ve tucked it in. Once it’s completely untucked, she fixes it so it hangs to the edge of my hips. “That’s all. But it’s better.”
“Thank you.” I shrug on the bright sweater and hold out my arms, wait for Fatima’s verdict.
“I like the pink,” she says, then places a hand over her mouth.
We both start to laugh. I don’t know why.
Fatima returns to the other side of the counter. I think our conversation is over, but then she says something else. “Your mama told me this morning that things would be different, but she didn’t tell me how. Do you want to talk about it? I . . . I won’t tell her.”
My good feeling falters. “Where is she?”
“I don’t know. She left early. She didn’t say where she was going.” Fatima has gone back to chopping carrots, but she keeps looking up.
“I decided I’m not going to be a healer anymore, Fatima.”
A startled sound escapes her and the knife clatters to the counter. “Marlena? Really? But that is a big change.”
“I just . . . I needed a break. It’s just for a while.”
She takes a dish towel and wipes her hands. “Tudo bem, tudo bem,” Fatima says while nodding. “I suppose it makes sense, querida. I can imagine you might want a break. It’s a lonely life you’ve had.” Fatima draws in a deep breath. “Marlena, I . . .”
I climb onto one of the stools in front of the kitchen island and wait for her to continue.
“. . . I’ve always thought that things could be different for you.”
I lean my elbows on the counter. “What do you mean?”
“That being a healer, being who you are, doesn’t require that you live how you do. That you could be a normal girl, but one who is also a healer. That you could be both things.” She’s not looking me in the eye. “It’s your mama who’s made it seem like it’s one or the other. Your mama and maybe those books you’re always reading by those ancient women. Like it’s all or nothing.”
What Fatima has said is so simple it should be obvious, but it’s never been obvious to me. “I don’t know. It’s hard for me to think of things any other way. So, for now, I think it just has to be all or nothing. And I want it to be nothing.”
Fatima sighs, picking up her knife again. “That makes me sorry, Marlena. And sad. I hope you can find your way to a place where you can be both.”
I tug at the bright-pink ends of my sweater sleeves. “Do you think it’s real, Fatima? My gift? Ever since Mrs. Jacobs . . . I’ve wondered about it.”
Fatima’s eyes shift upward, toward heaven, then flicker back to me. “Yes, Marlena. I do.”
I go out the back of the house.
José is on his way to pick me up. I want to tell Angie about my decision. I feel like she should know that I’m quitting healing for a while. But I’m also going because Finn told me not so casually he’d be there today, and that maybe—if I stopped by to see Angie—he and I could hang out afterward. Do one of the things on my list of normal.
The ocean shines with sunlight, the waves lapping at the shore.
The air smells warm.
Inviting.
What’s that saying again?
The world is my oyster.
I take a step forward, and another, walk through the world, let myself be absorbed into it, embraced and beckoned and called. I wonder if today I am its pearl.
The moment I get in the car, José reaches his arm back and hands me an envelope. His eyebrows arch, his round face searches mine.
On it is my mother’s handwriting. “Marlena.”
I open it. Inside is a pile of cash. No note. Just money.
“Rosado, cariño,” José says. “I like you in pink. I think it’s your color.”
“I didn’t know I had a color.”
“I didn’t know either. But maybe you do now. Maybe you have more than one.”
“Maybe.”
José is still watching me. “¿A dónde vamos?”
“Where do you think?”
“Your friend Angie’s center?”
“Yes. Please,” I add.
I count the money. Then I count it again. Twenties, tens, fives. There is six hundred dollars. I’ve never held so much money in my hands. Huh. I told my mother I wanted money, and here it is, like magic.