Gina Linko: Indigo

Was it because New Orleans had so many mysteries? Ties to American voodoo? A link to the macabre?

Well, New Orleans felt different than Chicago. It felt more . Real. Not real. Crazy. Not crazy. Such a thin, thin line.

Sometimes when I would lie awake at night, watching the pear tree branch sway in the wind from my bedroom window, feeling the Gulf breeze on my skin, I felt so close, so very close to something. I felt open. That was the only way I could put it. Open .

I had never felt that way in Chicago. Well, maybe when I had played a certain piece of music and interpreted it in just the right way, I felt it. But it was rare. Here, though, I often felt open . Like I was very close to something. Had it right on the tip of my tongue. But what was it?

The telephone woke me late that night, but I didn’t answer it. Instead I tiptoed to my doorway and listened to my mother’s end of the conversation. The concern in her voice freaked me a little, but I reminded myself that she was a minister. She often got phone calls in the middle of the night. I stood in the doorway, watching the concern in the knit of my mother’s brow.

“Oh, honey,” Mom said to the person on the other end of the phone. Something in her voice struck me as more personal this time.

I waited until she hung up, then walked across the hall to her room. “Who is it?” I asked.

“Mia-Joy’s grandmother.”

“Granny Lucy?” I whispered.

She nodded, and my stomach dropped. I reminded myself that Granny Lucy was ninety years old. She was actually Mia-Joy’s great-grandmother. She’d had a stroke last fall, and she had not been in the best health for months now. But Granny Lucy had just been in the kitchen with me today. With Mia-Joy and her mom. Today. You’re scratching your palm , chérie.

Mom sat on her bed, already pulling on a pair of jeans. Her paperback was open on the quilt, a box of Triscuits and spray cheese on her nightstand, her bedroom TV muted on the home and garden channel. Mom always was a night owl, like me. Sophie had been too.

Mom sighed. “Sarah doesn’t know where Mia-Joy is. And they really think this might be it for Granny Lucy.” She shook her head.

I averted my eyes. It was Saturday night. I knew Mia-Joy was at the cemetary.

“You’re going to Sarah’s?” I asked.

Mom sat for a moment like she was in a trance, thinking. “I am,” she said. She got up, quickly changed into a clean shirt. “You don’t mind, do you, honey?”

I shook my head, watching her find her purse, locate one shoe under her bed, all the while trying to decide. Should I tell her where Mia-Joy is?

Mia-Joy will get in trouble. But she’ll be so sad if she doesn’t get to say goodbye. But she’s prepared for this. She’s known goodbye was coming. But I could give her this last chance .

I followed Mom downstairs and latched the dead bolt behind her, then sat down at the kitchen table, still waffling.

I got up and took my phone off the counter. I thought briefly of my other teenage life in Chicago, before everything, when I had carried my cell everywhere, texted constantly, a state of never-ending interaction.

I called Mia-Joy. This in itself was something I rarely did, but it seemed safer than going to get her myself.

“This is Mia-Joy. Leave me a message.”

“Call me if you get this,” I said, my voice shaking. I hung up, put the phone back on the counter. I stared at it, willing her to call me right back. I waited, listening to my own shallow breaths. It didn’t buzz.

If I went for Mia-Joy, would it somehow circle back and harm her? Or someone else, because I got too involved?

Then something hit me. Granny Lucy had been there today in the Rawlingses’ kitchen. Had she touched me when I passed out?

I ran my hands through my hair, feeling my breath catch in my throat. “Oh Jesus,” I said under my breath. Had I done this? Had I caused this to happen to Granny Lucy? I tried to remember back to before I passed out, back to the tarot cards. Had I noticed it in my chest? Had it been there at that moment? Alive? Swirling?

I swallowed hard. I listened for the phone to buzz, for Mia-Joy to call me right back. But she didn’t. I concentrated on the sound of my breathing in the still kitchen for what seemed like a long time, thinking of Granny Lucy, of Mia-Joy, their quick retorts to one another, their easy relationship. I thought of the finality of death. How it snuck up on us, like we somehow believed that death and loss were things that other people had to deal with.

I thought of Sophie, of my guilt. I pictured Granny Lucy’s hand on my shoulder or touching my cheek when I was passed out. Could she have possibly touched my hand? Held mine in hers, palm to palm?

Oh God. No, that couldn’t be. No. But maybe . Just like Sophie.

Love. Death. Water.

I thought about Sophie, that gap between her teeth. She had begged me to take her to see that air show. I remembered exactly how the air smelled that morning on the shore of Lake Michigan, crisp and earthy. I didn’t want to remember.

I pushed against it. I didn’t want to go there. But the proverbial door had been opened, really, ever since Mrs. Rawlings had done my cards. I sank into my kitchen chair, my head in my hands.

Every moment, I spent so much energy pushing away the memory of that day.

But it was always there. Hovering. Owning me. Defining my every action and inaction.

Part of me felt like I was falling, plunging back into that memory.

It had been windy.

Sophie loved airplanes, and I smiled when I thought about her goggles. She had bought this old green-tinged pair of lab goggles at a garage sale. They were way too big for her, fastened onto her head with an old shoelace. She was trying to look like a pilot, I guessed. I pictured us that day, that final day, and I could see myself making peanut butter sandwiches at the counter to take with us for a picnic afterward, and she was bouncing around the kitchen wearing those goggles. They pushed her nose up in a funny way, made it look kind of piggish.

I laughed out loud, put my head in my hands, and then the first tears came. I rubbed them with the back of my hand, and I shook my head against them. I had to remember.

Sissy, she called me. “Sissy.” I said it out loud, and my voice broke, and I sobbed. “Sissy,” I said again, and it was like we were there, on the beach after the air show.

The wind blows through my hair, wraps it around my face, some goes in my mouth. She laughs that silly belly chuckle that she has when something is really tickling her funny bone. She crouches down, her feet in a tidal pool. She pokes at something with a stick, a reed she has found on our walk .

“This mudpuppy just cannot get up the side of this hole, no matter how many times it tries.” She laughs some more and I watch her. I am not always the patient, indulgent big sister that can appreciate Sophie like this, but I can today. I do now .

Her goggles slip farther down her nose, but she doesn’t notice. I see now that she has the salamander dangling from the stick. The sky darkens over and the wind picks up .

A storm is coming .

“Let’s go see ’em, Corrine.”

I lead the way to the rocky north shore, to the place I heard has all the good rocks, the Petoskey stones, fossilized coral that Sophie is dying to see. When we get there, I realize that the terrain of this beach will be hard for Sophie; it is tough even for me. The sky has blown into a pewter-gray cloud, and I consider telling Sophie we need to turn around .

I don’t .

We hold hands for a while. I help her with her footing. The beach is at a steep angle, covered in sharp, jutting rocks. Large rocks. Each step is treacherous, a possible twisted ankle, skinned knee, but after ten minutes or so Sophie is confident. She lets go of my hand and begins to crouch down between rocks, moving on all fours .