“Maybe you can take photos and send them to me.”
“Maybe,” I say. “Maybe I’m like a living, breathing MRI machine?” I try to laugh. Maybe all this time I’ve been painting scans of people’s brain activity? Or maybe I’ve been painting images of my own brain, how it lights up during a healing? “That sounds crazy.”
Just then, Finn walks in. “Um, sorry to interrupt. I didn’t know anyone was in here.”
My entire body swoops like I’m flying. I wonder how this would show up on one of these brain scans. A bright saturated red? A pink as intense as the color of my sweater? The same hue as my cheeks now that Finn is here? “Hi, um, hi,” I say, eloquently.
Angie skips right over greetings and goes straight to the point. “Marlena was just telling me that her visions look like brain scans,” she tells Finn. Then to me, she says, “Finn has a photographic memory. I’ve never seen anyone who can grasp the map of someone’s brain like he does. I’m sure he’d love to take a look at your brain scan just as much as I would.”
In this moment, I remember Angie is a scientist, like a really serious scientist, and I wish she hadn’t just revealed this thing about me to Finn, the boy I’m obsessing over, like it isn’t a big deal. Though I do like that she just revealed this other, fascinating detail about Finn to me.
“Angie, come on!” Finn rolls his eyes.
I guess he must be feeling the same way I do. “You have a photographic memory?”
He nods.
“Wow,” I say.
He shrugs.
Then, maybe because I’m so nervous about everything, I drop, “So I’ve decided to take a break from healing.” After which I wonder if this lands like a bomb or just more of a somewhat-interesting revelation that fizzes and sputters.
Angie was about to say something else and instead she closes her mouth.
“Well, that’s quite the news,” Finn says, finding his voice.
I avoid looking directly at him and instead search Angie’s face, trying to guess what she is thinking. I don’t want to disappoint her. I worry that I am.
“Why don’t we go to my office and talk about this?” she suggests. “We’ll leave Finn to his scans.”
On my way out of the lab, Finn speaks softly to me. “See you later. Right?”
“Yes,” I say, just as softly.
When Angie and I get to her office she sits cross-legged on the floor, and I take a spot on the couch. I almost wish she would sit next to me like a mother might. “Does that mess up . . . this?” By this, I mean the project of Angie studying me.
“Well, that depends.” She says this calmly, like what I’ve just informed her of is no big deal. “Just because you’ve stopped healing doesn’t mean that my research and our conversations have to end. As long as you’re okay with it, we can continue as before.”
My breath quickens. I’m afraid to tell her the truth. “I don’t know. I think I want a break. Not from you. But even from thinking about healing. At least for now.”
Angie inhales deeply. “Marlena?”
“Yes?”
“What prompted this decision?”
Everyone keeps asking this.
“And just a moment ago,” she goes on, “you seemed so excited to talk about your visions and how you saw them in those scans.”
“I know.” I straighten my jeaned legs, study my toes against the green of my shoes, the windows and the sea beyond them outlining everything. My flip-flops are a glaring hue against the monochrome white of everything in Angie’s office. I used to match the decor, blend right into it, and now I’m an interruption. “Yesterday I got into a fight with my mother,” I start. “She has, or maybe had, plans for a television special about me. Film crews following me for weeks. She didn’t consult me, she just planned it. I got angry at her, like I’ve never gotten angry in my life. I threw a mug. It broke and it was a mess.”
Angie nods as she listens, always pulling stories through quiet and the need people have to fill the gaps in conversation.
“Sometimes I think my mother depends on me more than I depend on her. She just wants me to keep going, healing, so our life never has to change. It doesn’t even matter to her if my gift is real or not.”
“Do you want your mother to believe in you?” Angie asks.
I let my legs relax again. Slump into the cushions of the comfy couch. “I don’t know. Her belief in me has come at such a cost. Like, she doesn’t really see me as her daughter. I’m a healer first. A healer only.”
“Is this why you decided to take a break?”
I force myself to be the silent one now, afraid of what I might say. Yes, and also because I want to go out on dates with your research assistant.
“Is there anything else?” Angie presses.
“Probably.” I only allow myself the one word.
“Are you sure about your decision?”
“Yes,” I say, even though inside of me is a jumble of uncertainties. Do I really want a life without my visions, visions that look strangely similar to those beautiful scans? “You know a lot about the brain, right?” I find myself asking.
“I hope so, Marlena, since I’ve devoted my life to studying it.” Angie says. “Why?”
“Do you think the brain can . . . change?”
“Well.” The breeze from the open windows floats between us. “It depends on how you mean. The brain is always changing, remaking itself, depending on how we use it. Kind of like the colors that light up differently in the scans, depending on what a person is feeling.” She pulls her phone from her pocket. “For example, these things are changing our brains in ways we’re only now starting to comprehend. We have a long way to go in understanding this, and no idea what the long-term consequences will be. How they might literally remake our brains.” She sets the phone on the ground next to her. “But that’s not what you were asking me, is it?”
“I’m not sure. I guess I wonder if we can will our brains to change.”
“Say more,” Angie says.
I search for the right words. “Like, let’s say there’s a part of your brain you’re drawing on all the time? And suddenly you stop drawing on it? Will it forget how to be used in that way?” A thought occurs to me. One I don’t like. “Will it go dark of all its color?”
“You’re thinking about how your break might affect the way your brain works.”
I nod.
“The brain doesn’t change overnight, Marlena. Not like you’re suggesting.”
Angie sounds so sure, like even the possibility it might is just magical thinking. But then, Angie is a scientist, even though she’s also a scientist who dabbles with the mysterious and the unbelievable. “Okay,” I say, somewhat relieved, but not entirely convinced. I am somehow lighter today than I was yesterday. It’s as though the anchor of my gift has been pulled up from the ocean floor, allowing me to float out to sea.
“What would really help to answer your question is if you allowed me to do an MRI,” Angie suggests, yet again.
Before I can answer, the door opens and Finn pops his head inside Angie’s office. “Can I come in?”