“Lately, I forget I was, too,” I say, trying not to linger too long on the fact that, without even intending to, I phrased my life as a healer in the past tense.
Maybe my mother was right: it is all or nothing. Either a life as a healer or a life as a normal girl. How could I be satisfied with being a healer after this? I need more, I am more, want more, maybe even if it destroys the person I was. I will only be satisfied with Finn.
This truth blooms like the most beautiful vision I’ve ever had.
But I don’t tell Finn this. I’ll tell him soon. We have plenty of time for the secrets hidden inside us to emerge when they are ready, one by one, like bright-red cherries picked from a summer tree.
TWENTY-SIX
My new life as a normal person isn’t all candy and fashion magazines and parties. All Finn and freedom. A big bag of mail has been sitting outside my door for days. At first I ignored it. But it grows bigger and fuller every time I see it. The bigger it gets, the greater the wave of guilt that consumes me, like an ocean swell that could topple a massive fishing boat. It is a constant reminder that a healer might decide to take a break, but the pains and sicknesses of others never subside.
One morning I can’t resist any longer. I drag the bag inside my room. Then I sit down in my chair by the windows and open it, pulling up the letters and cards one by one.
Dear Marlena, you are my last hope in this world. . . .
Dear Marlena, without you, I may not see the end of this year. . . .
Dear Marlena, I’ve lost the will to go on, please help me. . . .
Most of the letters are pleading, but some are angry and full of accusations.
You should be ashamed of yourself! God has chosen you and yet you turn away from HIM!
God will surely punish you for having spit in His face!
There’s no such thing as a healer! And now you’ve proven this!
I hope YOU find out what it’s like to face down death and have no other choice but to go forward into it! You or SOMEONE YOU LOVE!
This last one I read over and over. It’s from a man my mother had promised a private audience, who was later told not to come.
Will there be a punishment for my freedom? Revenge on the part of God?
I’ve always wondered if I’d be punished for healing. For using my gift, and acting the part of God when I’m only a girl. Maybe there’s punishment in this life no matter which path I take. Maybe loss and sorrow and grief are simply a part of what it means to live as humans on this earth, and it is our duty to accept this. We can try to outsmart such things, yet they will eventually catch up, no matter what we do. Even if we are living girl-saints.
Then a letter from a girl named Alma goes straight to my heart in a way that none of the others have. Dear Marlena, it begins, like the others do. This is where the similarities end.
My name is Alma. My mother has spoken of your miracles since I was little. Sometimes I’ve thought you must be a witch like in stories. I’ve always wanted to see if you can really do the things my mother says. I have muscular dystrophy. I don’t know if you know what that is, but I’m in a wheelchair. My mother keeps telling me you are going to heal me soon, because the doctors say I don’t have long to live. Most people like me don’t live past eighteen.
The other day my mother heard that you’ve stopped healing. She doesn’t know why. “What God gives us, He sometimes takes away,” she said. She cried a lot. My mother really believed you’d save me in a way that none of the doctors can.
I’m writing because I wanted to tell you that I think it’s okay. With so many people needing you, it must be difficult. And I’m not sure if it’s right to wish for miracles, or to want to be different than I am. I might not be like other kids my age, but I’m living the life that I have and this is enough, even if other people don’t think it should be. The life I have is beautiful in its own way. People who aren’t like me will never understand, I guess.
I wish you the best. Maybe we’ll meet, if you ever start healing again. Even if you don’t, maybe we’ll meet anyway. I don’t need anything from you. But I would love to see you, so I know you are real and not just a character from one of the novels I’m always reading.
Sincerely, Alma
I set her letter in my lap and stare out the window.
Alma’s words remind me of a girl who came to one of my audiences. Though it’s truer to say she was dragged by her parents. Her name was Heather, she was fourteen at the time, and she was deaf. When I touched her that day I was—I don’t know how to describe it—repelled? I could tell right away she didn’t want to be there. That she didn’t think of being deaf as a disability, as something that needed curing. I could feel the rage inside her that her mother wished her different. I dropped her hands and stepped away. The mother looked at me with dismay, but the daughter had this expression of tremendous relief.
“I thought you were a healer,” the mother said to me. “I was promised you could help!”
I shook my head. “Your daughter isn’t sick.”
The mother turned and stomped away.
But the daughter lingered. I was younger than she was and she was at least six inches taller. She leaned toward me and pointed to her lips. I watched them intently.
“Thank you,” she mouthed slowly, “for not doing to me whatever it is you do to others.”
Is healing something I do to others? This made healings sound like something I might afflict on someone. A disease or virus in its own right. Something that I do to people, sometimes against their will.
I pick up Alma’s letter again. Like with the angry words from the man who wants me punished, I read hers over and over, until my eyes blur. Then I pick up a pen and a piece of paper. Shouldn’t I say something to her? Shouldn’t I write back? But then I put the pen and paper away. If I answer Alma, shouldn’t I answer all the others? Why should one child matter more than everyone else?
The thought that I could find a way to be both healer and girl pushes its way to the surface of my mind. That there might be another version of being a healer I’ve yet to discover. But then it sinks to the bottom again when the echo of my mother’s favorite refrain rings even louder. You are a saint and a healer, Marlena. Or you are no one at all.
Ever since the announcement about my break from healing, I’ve avoided going to Main Street. But like with the bag of mail, today I can’t seem to resist. Soon I find myself walking up the hill toward the shops. I look through the windows of Almeida’s Bakery. There is barely a loaf of bread in the glass case. The streets are empty of tourists. It’s like the town has gone dormant before a storm. As I walk down Main Street, I almost expect to see a single dark rain cloud following me, since I am the beneficiary of dirty looks from more than one of the shopkeepers.
Gertie is the first one to accost me. Of course, Gertie.