When I open my eyes, they’re smiling. Meredith looks at her watch and stands. Except for her blond hair, I realize she’s not at all like my stepmom up close. Meredith seems effortlessly understated, and more striking as a result, like a model in a magazine. Maybe focusing on inner things radiates outward over time. Patti loves to primp, yet there’s always something “off” in the end, like a too-bright lip color, or clumpy eyelashes from absentminded swipes of mascara. People used to say Patti was the opposite of my mother—never to me, of course, but I heard things. Since I lost my mom when I was so young it’s hard for me to remember much about her myself, so I filed those things away like notations for a scrapbook.
“Well,” Meredith says. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Emily.” Her hand gently pats my shoulder. “I hope to see you again very soon. Until then, my biggest hope is that you’ll continue praying on your own. The secret of prayer is that it actually works, sometimes in the most unimaginable ways.”
* * *
“Wow,” Heather says, looking out my dorm-room window. After the symposium, she was unusually quiet, so I suggested we come back here to hang out.
“Yeah,” I say. “It’s a crazy view.”
“Well, forget the view,” Heather says, casually pointing to my neck. “I couldn’t stop staring at that amazing necklace at the symposium. It’s absolutely beautiful. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Thanks.” I touch the irregular bumps of my mother’s charms hanging around my neck. My hand hovers there instinctively, as if protecting the single thing that’s most valuable to me.
Before moving to Boston, I wore it to my high school Senior Day. I’d had it forever, but never had an occasion where it felt appropriate to wear. When Dad noticed it, he struggled to swallow as his eyes glazed over into a faraway stare. I knew why. She isn’t here to see me graduate. What he didn’t understand is that wearing it somehow made me feel like part of her was with me. So I brought it to college, where I could wear it freely. The thought of being without it outweighed the possibility of losing it. When Sadie and Christina started getting high a lot, I never took it off—even slept in it—for fear that one of them would swipe it to sell for drug money in a moment of desperation.
As I watch Heather cheerfully exploring my room, I can’t even fathom her doing something like that. She stops at my desk, picking up photos and putting them back down. She lifts the picture of Dad and Patti. “Awww. Are you close to your parents?”
“I guess,” I say. I don’t love talking about my family, especially with new people, but I’m relieved things feel normal with Heather, especially since it got a little awkward after our time with Meredith at the Castle. Meredith took my marked-up study guide with her on her way out and I could tell this bothered Heather a little.
“You must really miss them, being so far away,” Heather says.
I think about Dad. Even though I was little, I could tell he’d changed the day we lost my mother. It’s as if, in that moment, who he was had been completely swept away. Suddenly his life was full of new things—work, clubs, community events, boards of directors—things that would take up time but never pierce deep enough to get through the wall protecting his heart. I always suspected no one would ever know the weight of what he had lost. Not even me. Then once he married Patti a year and a half later, everyone said what I already knew: He became a brand-new man.
“Yeah,” I say to Heather. “I mean, I guess. My dad stays busy, even when I’m at home, so I’m kind of used to not seeing him very much.”
Heather gives me a sympathetic smile as if she understands. Her eyes fall back to the photo. “Your mom is gorgeous,” she says. “What’s she like?”
Shocked by her question, I notice with relief she’s still holding the same photo. “Oh. That’s Patti, my stepmom. I have no idea what my mom was like.”
Heather looks at it again in confusion. Her expression softens as an awkward silence expands between us.
“My mother died when I was little,” I explain without even thinking. It’s surreal to say it. Everyone at home already knew, so there was never a need to say it out loud. I suddenly feel exposed.
Heather leans forward and gently places her hand on my arm. Her eyes are glossed with concern. “Emily, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”
I can tell she actually means it, but an unfamiliar anxiety creeps up my throat.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
I look down, and I’m surprised when a tear drops on the carpet below me. I’ve never talked about my mom, not really. Not even with Summer. It’s not like I avoided it, it just never needed to be said. I was the girl with no mom. What else was there to say? Now the prospect of talking about her with a practical stranger—with anyone—overwhelms me. “I mean, I don’t, I can’t remember …” Why can’t I remember? My throat tightens.
“Em.” Heather squeezes my arm and I look up at her earnest expression. “She’s in heaven. And it’s a real thing, just like prayer. You know that, right?” Her smile beams with the confidence of a person who truly believes it—who actually cares enough to want me to believe it.
“You’ll get to see her again,” she says.
Her words hit me with a physical ache: I’ve never wanted anything more than this promise.
STEP 5: What does your disciple want more than anything? Show how the Kingdom’s steps to salvation are the only way to attain that exact thing.
My Mother Is a Fish
They say I was too young to remember my mother’s death, but the truth is, I remember exactly what happened that day.
People believe what’s most convenient when they’re trying to cope with a tragedy themselves. When you’re little, the adults try to sugarcoat anything too horrible to explain. They’ll even make it up as they go along with an eager smile that’s meant to be reassuring. Once I was able to register the conflicting expression as pity, I knew I would always be known as the girl who lost her mother.
Back then, no one wanted to talk about what happened. But specific details have haunted me all these years, like clips from a movie, those peaceful flashes of mundane imagery to throw off viewers before the unthinkable happens. A fishing boat sliding behind the sharp rocky jetty. The tall concrete building behind us, towels draped over railings. A flock of brown pelicans. The shore littered with boogie boards and colorful beach toys.
We were at Orange Beach, all the way over near the Pass. We used to go there every summer. My mother would always swim in the ocean, just behind the breaking waves—the kind that surprise you with their force in the shallows, then recede so fast you have to wait it out before trudging back to dry sand. I still remember the thrill of being knocked down by the wall of water. The stinging blur of the saltwater in my eyes after each assault.
Back at the shore, battered and out of breath, I turned back to wave at my mother. She smiled and waved back. I watched her vanish into a swell. She resurfaced farther out each time until she finally became a distant bobbing dot in the vast ocean. Daddy was reading a book under a blue umbrella. His eyes crinkled into a smile, first at me and then periodically at the distant horizon where my mother was still swimming.