I smile reassuringly. “I take all of them once in the morning. It’s not like it was when Mom was my age.”
She looks relieved, but still troubled. “She had to take so many…” Grandma breaks off and smiles back at me suddenly. “Come down when you’re ready, Magdalena. We’ll play cards tonight after dinner.”
“Great.”
Grandma finally leaves me. I take my phone out of my bag and plug it into the wall, but I don’t bother to turn it on. Nothing to check, anyway. I deleted my social media accounts months ago, and I have no friends anymore.
I sit on the bed and think about being thirteen. I’m not going to change anything about this room, I decide. I’ll let it stay frozen on the inside. Like me.
July 15
I sleep a lot.
It’s the pills. They knock me out. That is what they’re designed to do, I guess. I’m also getting more exercise than I’ve ever had before, so I need the rest. I garden in the late morning with Grandma, and after lunch I usually go for long hikes in the woods.
I’m not super outdoorsy or anything, but it’s hard not to get swept up in the magic of this place. Every day, I pack up one of those picnic blankets with the water-repellent bottoms, some books and a canteen, and I hike up into the hilly rain forest. My grandparents’ property is right next to the edge of a lovely trail. Of course. Why buy a summer home that’s so far away from the trail that you’re too exhausted to hike it once you’ve gotten there?
There are a few set paths I usually take, but today I go left instead of right, thinking about that Robert Frost poem.
And I find it.
A stream cuts its way downhill. A small, flat bank fans out to the side of the tiny waterfall, creating a shelf of green oxalis among the moss-covered Sitka spruces. Perfect for a picnic blanket. I wade through the little stream and spread out my blanket on the soft bank. The hill raises sheer behind me to nearly a seven-foot drop, and the waterfall sluices down the rocky face of it pleasantly. I nestle into this little cove of green and listen to the water.
I take out Walden by Henry David Thoreau and think about what it means to “live deliberately,” as he’d intended when he moved into the woods. I’m not really reading. I don’t know if it’s because I don’t like transcendental philosophy or because Thoreau is boring as hell, but I wish I liked this book better. I wish I had the sort of mind that could slog through the dull bits and follow along with the navel-gazing of a philosopher.
But I don’t. I need plot. So I’m just letting my eyes pick out phrases here and there to mull over. Things like to suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life. I like how high-minded Thoreau is. How deeply he believes in the innate goodness of conscious individuals. I like to pretend I agree with him.
I try to read, but it’s page after page of this guy obsessing about the beans he’s growing in his garden. I skim for a pithy quote to think about, but I’ve lost the thread. There’s always my notebook. I take it with me wherever I go out of habit, but I haven’t written in it since it served its final purpose. I have to admit, it scares me. It scares everyone around me. But that’s so silly. They’re words, not bullets. I could just jot down a few lines about this place. I only want to see if I can describe it accurately. I pick up my pen and hold it over the page.
The dappled sunlight and the sound of falling water overtake me. I sleep.
When I wake, all I can remember of my dream is a sense of fellowship. I’m smiling while I pack up my things and head back to my grandparents’ house.
I see an unfamiliar car parked in the drive. I don’t know a lot about cars, but I know it’s a Porsche. I have no idea what year it is or anything like that. I saw one like it in an eighties movie once, I think. Top Gun.
“You’re finally back,” my grandma calls. I take off my hiking sandals and join her in the living room. A young man stands and turns to face me. “Do you remember Robert Claybolt?” Grandma asks. “His family has summered down on the beach for years.”
I smile at him as I enter the room and join my grandmother. “Hi. Wow. Robert.”
He laughs, rolling his eyes. “You don’t remember me,” he teases.
“I do,” I say defensively.
I blush, because I don’t remember his face, but the name is familiar. Whoever he used to be, he didn’t used to be this good-looking, or I definitely would have paid more attention to him. That and the meds I’ve been taking for a year have left gigantic gaps in my memory.
I barely remember who I am most days, let alone some random guy I haven’t seen since puberty.
“But it’s been years, and you’ve…filled out,” I say, trying to turn my faux pas into a compliment. That seems to please him.
“You never come here anymore,” he says, letting me off the hook. He already has a tan, and his teeth are white and straight as he grins at me. “I guess New York City is tough to leave.”
I’m nodding a lot. Too much. I must look like a bobblehead.
“You want to get coffee?” he asks.
“Yeah, but I think we’re about to have dinner,” I say, turning to my grandma.
“Oh, there’s plenty of time,” Grandma says, pushing me toward Robert. “You go and enjoy yourself.”
She’s awfully eager. “Ah, okay,” I say. I look down at what I’m wearing. Frayed shorts and a dirty T-shirt. “Let me wash up real quick? I was hiking.”
“Hiking?” Robert makes a face. “I still haven’t figured out why people do that.”
Something clicks in my head. “Rob! That’s right! You’re the kid who refused to go camping with all of us because you hate the woods. You always wanted to do something on the beach.”
He rolls his eyes. “Finally.”
“I’m sorry,” I say sheepishly. “You’ve changed a lot.”
“You haven’t.” His eyes warm. He definitely means that as a compliment. Oh boy.
“I’ll be right back,” I say, bolting up the stairs before the silence can get any more fraught.
I strip down and rinse off, holding my long brown hair out of the shower spray as I turn a few times under it, and then I quickly towel off. It’s warm out, so I opt for one of my old sundresses. It’s a little tight around the bust and a little short along the hemline, but not egregiously so. I slip into flat sandals before I run out of my room. As I’m going downstairs, I feel a long-forgotten tube of lipstick in the pocket of my dress. On a whim, I swipe a bit of it over my lips. It’s the first time I’ve worn any kind of makeup in months.