When we slow down again, Finn laughs, soft and low. “We were going for a walk?”
“What walk?”
He leads me to the bed and pulls me down on top of it. He trails a finger from my knee to my thigh and over the curve of my hip and the swell of my breast. Finn replaces his finger with his lips and it is dizzying. I shift onto my back and close my eyes. “I can’t believe I might have lived my whole life without this,” I whisper.
“I can’t believe it either, Marlena,” he whispers back.
I reach for the buttons on Finn’s jeans.
“It’s too tempting if both of us are naked,” he says. “You know that.”
“But what if I need it to be both of us?”
He pulls back. “Is that what you want?”
“Yes,” I say, undoing his top button as I say it. “It’s what I’ve always wanted.” I undo another one, and Finn’s breathing speeds up. “Are you going to tell me no?”
“No,” he says. “I mean yes. Yes, I want to.”
“I think it’s time.”
“Me too,” he says.
The two of us look at each other for a long time, taking this in. I stare at this boy I love, who loves me back, in every way, at his beautiful eyes that are all for me, that are full of me, the bright-red and pink hues of love that color my vision. They are all that I see. Finn is all that I can see. It is the most beautiful vision of my life.
“I love you so much.” These words are the glorious petals of a peony flower in bloom.
“I love you just as much,” Finn says, as he lets me undress him.
When we are both naked, I study the tattoo on his arm, something I have done a dozen times at this point, but this time seems different. I brush my fingers across the lines of it, and the shadows. “I could never forget this part of you, Finn. You are my heart. And I am yours.”
THIRTY-TWO
I stare up at the wall of my room on this first day that feels like fall. There is a new painting hanging there. The entire canvas is a bright, beautiful red, touched with a glaring, swirling pink. Slopes of white curl through it. It is abstract, but if you stare at it long enough you might make out that the swirls of red and pink come together to make peonies. A trail of them. My vision, a portrait of what it is like to love and be loved by Finn. I am brimming with love, carrying it all around like a pail of overflowing water at the beach. Like with my healing visions, I wanted to make it tangible.
I reach up and touch the rough edges of the canvas, glide my fingers over the paint, now dry and brightened by the light of the sun coming through the windows. Evidence that what I have with Finn is real.
Maybe someday I will give this to him.
I turn away from the painting and head downstairs for some coffee. The heat of the mug warms my hands. It’s strange how the chill of fall came so fast; from one day to the next the temperature must have dropped twenty degrees.
Through the kitchen window I see a car I recognize parked in the white pebble driveway. Angie is walking up to the door.
What is she doing here? Did she come to see the artwork of my visions?
I race to greet her before she can ring the bell, but I’m too late. The door swings wide, my mother blocking the view. My mother is wearing heels, dressed up, even though she’s been in the house and it’s morning.
“So you are the woman who’s taken my daughter away” is the first thing she says. “Poisoned her mind.”
“Mother,” I hiss from behind her. I wish I could say I’m surprised she would speak this way to Angie when they haven’t even been introduced, and while Angie is still standing outside on the front steps. But I’m not.
“I have taken no one’s daughter,” Angie says, sounding offended.
I push past my mother and stare at Angie, wanting to tell her, Run, run while you can! But after barely a nod to me, Angie’s eyes are stuck on my mother.
“I am the one who made the decision to speak to Angie,” I say, cutting into their staring match. “I am the person who decided to take this break from healing. Angie had nothing to do with it.”
My mother is shaking her head, the purple bruises of sleeplessness under her eyes darker than ever. They make me wonder if my mother has slept at all. She points to me and looks at Angie again. “This girl here”—my mother’s gaze swipes from my head to my toes, from my bright-green top to my jeans and my loud, obnoxious flip-flops—“is no longer mine.”
For the first time, I see anger on Angie’s face, a tightness in her jaw, a clench in her teeth. “Mrs. Oliveira, that is a choice you’ve made about your daughter that has nothing to do with me, to the detriment of yourself, I might add.” Angie reaches an arm out to me. I see the quiver of protection in it. But the devastation on my mother’s face stops me short from leaning into the crook of Angie’s elbow.
“It is not just me who is suffering,” my mother goes on, as if Angie hasn’t spoken. “You’ve taken everything from my daughter, her gift, her purpose, her sacred touch, even her virginity—”
“Mother!”
My mother is far from done, ignoring my protest. “From the moment you entered Marlena’s life you started her down a path from which there is no turning back. The entire town has seen her prancing around with that boy and knows she is ruined.” My mother’s eyes flicker upward, one might think toward the beautiful fall sky, but she is looking toward God. “God knows she is ruined and that is the worst of it. Lives will be lost because of you.”
Angie is trembling. “Mrs. Oliveira.” She keeps her voice slow and steady. “I did not come to speak with you, though it is obvious you have things you’d like to say to me. I’m happy to come back another time for that conversation. I’m here because I have important issues to discuss with your daughter.” Angie glances at me finally. The way she looks at me, her normally bright laughing eyes so grave, a frown on her lips, nearly makes my knees want to buckle. What could be wrong?
My mother huffs. “What could you need to tell Marlena that you can’t say in front of me? That you’ve officially proved her a fraud?” Her eyes finally shift to me. “Oh, Marlena, do you think me stupid? This town is full of gossips and I’ve heard about the inquiries your scientist has been making about your gift.” Her gaze slides back to Angie. “What then? Tell us both why you’re here.”
The tremble in Angie’s body subsides. “Marlena, do you have somewhere we can talk in private?”
My mother is unmoving in the doorway, but I beckon Angie past her. “Follow me.”
As Angie and I go upstairs, my heartbeat seems to have slowed, like it is resisting my moving forward. I usher her inside my room. It is still mostly bare, apart from my bed, my reading chair, and a stack of books on the table beside it. The only thing that brightens it is the new painting on the wall.
Angie goes straight up to inspect it. I sit down on the edge of the bed and put my hand to my chest to feel the pulse of my heart and make sure it’s still there.
“You told me you painted your visions,” Angie says finally. She is still studying the canvas.