It’s Monday, and Stephen is back at school. I sleep late again, and when Mother takes out the vacuum after my breakfast, I sneak back upstairs to explore my room more thoroughly. I refuse to become a lost cause.
I turn on the Girl’s cell phone again and dig deeper, to older texts. They are mostly from Megan, with some from the other Pink Posse girls and, occasionally, from Mother.
Don’t forget 2 bring those earrings
Can I get a ride home from Cybil’s?
Did u hear about Kaylie & Brendan? They broke up!!!! OMG!
A lot of everyday stuff and lots of things I can’t fully decipher. I didn’t exactly expect there to be texts detailing the Girl’s thoughts on life, love and happiness. But I can’t stop the sinking feeling that I’m getting nowhere.
Next I try Facebook, going more slowly through the posts I skimmed earlier: first the quote about the bud, then a video of a dog imitating a siren, then a surreal photo of a blond model in a flowing white dress and a red scarf, lying across the back of a tiger. From a few weeks of posts, I conclude that the Girl liked motivational sayings, funny little kids and animals, and artsy photos. She put occasional posts on her wall, like Yumalicious, Mom’s making cream puffs and What’s with zombies? Don’t they know they’re not cool anymore?
I sigh and click off the phone. I grab one of the photo albums off the shelf above the desk and flip through the pages, but all I get is Mother, Father and Stephen doing ordinary things and pics of friends at school. One page of the album holds shots of the bison being loaded out of a truck into chutes. The next few pages display my birthday party: Kerry, Cybil and Megan wear silly party hats, sticking their tongues out.
In one shot, Megan’s face is covered in icing, and I’m holding a smashed cupcake. Our mouths are wide-open in laughter. I don’t feel the tiniest flicker of connection to any of these moments, only festering irritation. When I reach the last page, I slam the book down on the desk.
These pointless snapshots give me no sense of who Jessie was, of the way she saw life. It’s not the Girl’s fault that her photos are so meaningless. But anger is building in my chest, and it needs to go somewhere.
I don’t always have to be good, do I?
I kick my closet door, hard. Pain shoots from my foot to my knee, and I bite my finger to keep from yelling. I must be demented, because despite the throbbing, booting something that way felt strangely satisfying.
“Jessica?” Mother’s voice carries from behind the door. “You all right in there?”
I shake my leg to soften the pain. “Fine,” I call. “Just whacked my knee.”
“I have something for you,” she says. The door pops open, and I glance over at the closet. The dent is too small to notice.
A plastic bag dangles from Mother’s hand. “I’ve been debating whether to give you this for weeks. Since you woke up. I think it’s time.”
She takes a breath and reaches into the bag, pulling out a Nike shoebox. She cradles it close to her, like she doesn’t want to let it go, but finally plunks it down on the desk and places her two hands firmly on the cover.
“I found this after the accident,” she says, “when you were still in a coma. I was hanging out in here, because I missed you, I guess, and saw it poking out from under the bed.”
A few images pop into my head: a homemade bomb, wrapped in green and red wires, ticking away; a sandwich bag full of white powder. But the Girl seemed too goody-two-shoes to be hiding any terrible secrets.
“There are some papers in there, some notebooks too. I want you to know that I didn’t read any of it, not one line.” She looks straight into my eyes, and her voice softens. “Even though I was tempted, I have to admit. When you were in the coma and I didn’t know if we’d ever get you back.” It’s the first time Mother’s admitted out loud that I nearly died, like maybe now that I’m home and the danger is past, she can say it. And the way she’s looking at me, so intensely, the need she has for me, her daughter, pulls at me.
“I don’t mind if you did,” I say.
She shakes her head. “That wouldn’t have been right. And I’m so happy to be able to give it to you now.”
She leaves me standing there, eyeing the box. I’m pretty sure the Girl was squeaky clean. The more I dig into her life, though, another worry more plausible than a dark secret is building. What if I discover I don’t like this Girl very much? Then what?
I’m nervous, but I grab the box, sit on the bed and, before I can chicken out, slowly lift off the lid. At the top of the box are loose pieces of paper: two ticket stubs for concerts I don’t remember going to, two fortune-cookie papers (Keep your face to the sunshine and you will never see shadows and Help! I’m being held prisoner in a Chinese bakery!) and a note with the words I am not afraid of tomorrow, for I have seen yesterday and I love today. —William Allen White printed neatly on it. I read the words again and again, trying to let their meaning sink in, and then I place the papers on the bedside table.
There are a couple of photos, too, of the Girl with Megan and some guys in baseball caps, sitting on some bleachers. The photos go on the table, and then I pull out a green velvet book with a gold clasp. Diary is written in gold-embossed script on the front.
Now we’re talking. A deep breath, and I open the cover. The first entry is written in the awkward printing of a young kid, probably grade one or two.
Dear Diary,
I got this from Grandma for Chrissmas. I love it.
I love my family. Chrissmas is funn.
Yers Truly,
Jessica
Well, that was insightful.
There are only three more pages of entries after that, in the same childish handwriting. They’re only a few sentences each, about having a nice day at school and helping Father feed the bison and having a picnic with Stephen on the front lawn. I flip through the rest of the diary, hoping to find some later entries, when she was older and, I hope, less sickeningly sweet, but the pages are empty. I toss the diary onto the desk, and it sends the little papers and photos flying off the edge and onto the floor. I ignore them and reach back into the box.
Near the bottom, there are trinkets that I pull out one by one: a beaded First Nations-style bracelet; a smooth stone with a perfect round hole in the center; golden wire twisted to spell Jessica and then formed into a pin; a plastic toy bison; a peacock feather.
These are childhood treasures, things that must have meant something to little Jessica at some point. I wish I could care about them, wish they took me back to happy times, but they are the trinkets of a stranger. At the bottom of the box is one more thing: a floral spiral notebook with Journal on the cover.
I reach into the box, intending to open the cover of the notebook. But I can’t do it. Not yet. I toss everything back into the box, wedge the lid on and shove it under my bed.
I have had enough disappointment for one day.