| |
This time, Mae didn’t try to stop when the tunnel took her again. The new vision opened in a hotel ballroom, empty of furniture and full of people. Barefoot or in socks, they shuffled to a monotonous beat, moving in concentric circles around Jill, who stood with her eyes half-closed, cradling a drum and thumping it with a leather-headed drumstick. She wore what seemed to be her trademark look—tight jeans, a fitted Western shirt, and an abundance of Indian jewelry.
“Let the drum transport you,” she intoned with a trace of a New England accent. “Let yourselves lose the mask of civilization.”
A few participants began jogging rather than shuffling. Some looked toward Jill as if waiting for a cue. Others watched their feet. Kandy faced the center, moving in a delicate side-step, meditative rather than awkward and self-conscious like the others. Jamie walked, ignoring the beat and wearing an exasperated grimace. His fingers wriggled in restless fists, occasionally tapping against his thighs. Jill urged the group again with the same words, and her steady drumming grew louder.
After a hesitant glance at the contemplative Kandy, Jamie let out a high-pitched ow-whoo and began to dance and spin. Emitting a variety of ear-splitting animal sounds, he wove in and out among the startled shufflers. One by one, they lit up and began to leap and hop when he passed. Soon they all joined him in howling like wolves, yipping like coyotes, cawing like crows and croaking like ravens. All but Kandy.
Still in what looked like a trance, Jill sped up the beat. Jamie dodged out of the circle and paced silently around it, watching the madness he’d begun. If his expression could be read as something he’d typically say, it might be, Fuck me dead, will you look at this crap?
When the drum stopped, everyone sat on the floor in a congested circle and Jill chose a place between Jamie and Kandy. Jamie squirmed like a ten-year-old stuck in school on a nice day. Kandy gave him a scolding look and then gave her full attention to Jill.
“It’s good to see that the wild lives in us.” Jill cast a beatific gaze around the group. They beamed back at her, glowing and sweating. “This promises to be an eventful weekend. Based on what I just heard, I hardly need remind you to welcome the divine madness.” She turned off her smile. “Remember that we have two paths. One: the path of the artist. Create your way to the upper and the lower worlds, find your guides, and come back to your starting place. Two: the path of crisis and emergence. If you feel its power coming, let go and allow the spirit world to take you.” She nodded toward Kandy and Jamie. “If your culture and your roots lead you to the emergence path, trust it.”
Jamie’s eyes narrowed, and his upper lip drew back, but his recoil went unnoticed. Jill had already turned her regard back to her circle of students.
“We’ll break for lunch now,” she said. “See you here in an hour.” They began to disperse. She spoke to Jamie as he hurried Kandy away. “Rainbow’s friend?” He stopped and did a dramatized slow-motion pivot. Jill extended her hand. “We haven’t been introduced. I’m sure you’re new. I’d remember that face and that energy. Welcome.”
Jamie shook Jill’s hand briefly, nodded, and started to leave again, his hand on Kandy’s upper back. “Want to eat here, then? They have good tucker?”
Jill called after him. “Australian?”
Once more, he stopped and made the reluctant turn. “Yeah.”
“Any chance you’re Stan Ellerbee’s son?”
“Jesus. You think every half-caste Aussie blackfella is his kid? Come on, there’s at least fifty of us running around. Kandy, you ready?”
Kandy stood on tiptoe and whispered to Jamie. He turned to Jill one more time. “She says I was rude. Sorry. Parents raised me better. Yeah, Jamie Ellerbee. Gotta run. I’m so hungry I could eat the arse end out of a low-flying duck. Catcha.”
He steered Kandy out of the ballroom, throwing an arm around her shoulders. “Sorry, sorry, sorry. Really. But that bloody racial crap, sitting with us and talking about your culture and your roots, y’know? Like she’s so fucking in with the indigenous. It got to me.”
Mae’s vision faded quickly in and out, returning to the ballroom. Participants sat in a crammed circle, several people deep in places. Jamie lay on his back. Kandy tapped his shoulder. “Sit up. Jill’s coming.”
“Fuck. Why’d you let me eat all that? I fucking sprained my guts.”
“You eat too fast. Come on, you were supposed to feel better after that walk.”
“Nah. Just refried the beans.” He snort-laughed. “You may not want to sit near me.”
Jill walked through the center of the circle, took a place between Kandy and Jamie again, and picked up her drum. Jamie sat up, stretched uncomfortably, let out a small belch, and reclined again, propped on his elbows. Kandy gave him a stern look. He flashed his charm smile and made an attempt at respectful and alert posture.
“This afternoon,” said Jill, “we’ll seek our power animals. Most of you will find yours in the lower world, but some will be in the upper world. Be careful of middle-world spirits, they can deceive you. Go to your known place of entry, and as the drum speeds up, you will either climb or crawl, fly or fall, to meet your animal. Remember, you can travel as a poet and an artist. Create. Or, you may find the spirits take you. If they do, don’t fight them.”
Jill looked around the circle. “Newcomers, we have a custom you should be prepared for. If anyone starts having a shamanic emergence, I will change the drumming to this beat and we will form the circle around that person to hold them in the heart of our community.” She demonstrated a shift from rapid pounding to light fluttering. “The emergence of the spirit can take many forms, such as loss of control in crying, laughter, voices, dancing, or animal calls. If it claims you, let it through. The crisis needs to burn through the veils of the ordinary. Don’t interrupt it. We will dance you through it in safety.”
She instructed the participants to do as they felt moved—sit, lie, or stand—and she would begin to guide the journey. Jamie lay back and closed his eyes, all too clearly intending to take a nap after a big lunch. A few others lay down, but most chose to sit against the wall, or to stand swaying, eyes closed, as Jill drummed slowly.
“Call ... in your mind ...” She spoke in a sing-song voice. “Call your animal. Call your animal.”
She kept the beat steady, occasionally repeating the incantation. Gradually, she accelerated the drumming. “It is coming,” she intoned. “See it coming. Feel it coming.”
Jamie twisted and began to giggle. Jill looked at him and walked to the center of the group. He curled up on his side and struggled, one fist to his mouth, the other thumping the rug, but laughter escaped. Jill beat her drum faster and he laughed harder. When he let out a raucous hah-snort-hah, a few people near him began to chuckle. Out of control, flipped to his back, thrashing in the type of fit that inspired the phrase “rolling in the aisles.” The majority of the group still swayed, sat with intensely concentrated faces, or lay still. Jill accelerated her drumming again, and brought it to the flutter beat, cuing her participants to surround Jamie. They came like flocking birds.
He half-sat, stared at the shuffle-dancing feet around him, and flopped back in a new explosion of hilarity, fizzing with failed attempts to stop. When his laughter subsided at last, Jill slowed the drum, and the group dispersed to resume sitting, lying, or swaying. Kandy returned to her seat against a wall, eyes closed.
The drumming slowed until Jill struck one loud thump to end it. The scattered men and women opened their eyes and obediently formed one large circle.
“Beautiful.” Jill smiled at them. “Extraordinary. The spirits come to us in many ways. Including the tricksters.” She held up her drumstick in a powerful ceremonial gesture that swept all eyes to it. “The spirit world is here. We are in it. It is in us.” She lowered the drumstick. “We’ll start the talking circle now. After Jamie shares, break up into four circles so all can share. Pass any object for the talking stick in your own circles. Its meaning matters, not its form.”
She handed Jamie her drumstick. “Tell us about your experience.”
He looked back and forth between Jill and the drumstick. “Like, what happened to me?”
“Yes. When the spirits took you. While you have the stick, you speak. When you’re done, you pass it.”
He swallowed a laugh. “Right.”
After sitting a while, silent, frowning, and twirling the drumstick, Jamie smiled at some private thought. He stood, and a snaky, liquid grace flowed through him, transforming him. With a voice big enough for the stage, he declared, “I was Old Man Coyote.” He crouched, snarled, and then grinned. “I lifted my tail.” His movements controlled yet overblown, he swung his hips, aiming his buttocks at Jill. “And I farted out the stars.”
The group laughed, all but Kandy.
Jamie lifted one leg to the side, cocked like a canine’s. “Then I pissed the great rivers.” He set his foot down and squatted, speaking in a low, growly voice. “I sat and I shat out the rocks of the earth.”
The group chuckled, but less than they had at his first gesture and line. Their rapt gazes suggested they might take him seriously.
“Then—” He stood, flung his head back, grasped an invisible partner and made pelvic thrusts, his pace and volume building to a crescendo. “I whipped out my donger and fucked my wife ’til the heat made the sun and we sweated the rain and she shook and made thunder as I shot out my lightning.”
He shuddered orgasmically, yipped like a coyote, swung the drumstick to thump himself on the chest and the backside, and finished by flourishing the stick in the same pose Jill had struck earlier.
Jill’s expression was inscrutable. Impressed, insulted, cynical, intrigued, or a little of each? Most members of the circle had wide eyes and open jaws, exhilaration and awe on their faces. Kandy stared at the floor. Jamie seemed not to see her. From his triumphant, theatrical stance, he dropped to sitting and handed the stick to the man beside him as if inviting someone to take a turn in a pub game of darts. “Your go, mate.”
The man took the stick, shook his head and mouthed, “Wow.”
“Four circles,” Jill said. The participants dispersed to the four corners and the room soon buzzed with stories of animal spirits—coyote, wolf, horse, and eagle. Jill prowled from group to group, nodding and listening.
She stopped and knelt beside Kandy, who held someone’s ballpoint pen as the talking stick. “I didn’t see a power animal,” Kandy said, subdued and barely audible. “I saw a beetle walking on the dirt. One of those shiny black ones you get in the summer. Like I was home in Cochiti watching bugs outside my house.”
She passed the pen to the woman beside her, who described an encounter with a wild stallion that mounted a mare. The storyteller’s style echoed, in a modified and untrained way, Jamie’s performance. Jill nodded approvingly, keeping a hand on Kandy’s shoulder.
Mae’s vision darkened and shifted. When she refocused, she saw the ballroom again. The workshop appeared to be coming to an end. Jamie drew Kandy apart from the crowd, his energy intense and urgent. “I’ve had enough. Let’s get out of here before they circle me again. I’m ready to blow, and I don’t mean another fart.”
“No.” She took a step back from him. “You shouldn’t make fun, Jamie.”
“I didn’t laugh on purpose—Jeezus.”
“I meant after. You treated Jill’s work like a joke. It’s serious.”
“It’s theater. So I did theater. Don’t you get it? I had a spiritual experience from the wrong fucking culture and no one even noticed. Jesus. The only thing that’s serious is the fuck-load of money she’s taking from you. You could save that to buy silver and stones and tools. You could put a deposit on an apartment. She’s robbing you blind.”
“She’s not. Something happens. I hear the drum and I get quiet. And I saw this bug—”
“It’s the drum, love. Not Jill.”
Kandy looked at her feet, hands in her jeans pockets. “I wanted you to understand this. It’s important to me.”
“I’m sorry. I really am.” Jamie pulled her head in against his chest and mussed her hair. “I’m a stupid, loud, ill-mannered, inconsiderate—”
“Stop it.” Kandy pulled away. “You’re not.” She looked up into his eyes. “But you could be nicer. You could try to understand. Please, stay for the rest.”
“Can’t. One day is enough.” He jammed the straw fedora he’d been carrying onto his unruly hair and clasped Kandy in a hug that brought her up on her toes. “Wish you’d see what I see. Save your money. Go back to AA. You were doing all right with that. And it was free.”
She pushed out of the hug and stepped back. “I thought I explained what Jill said about that.”
He shook his head. “Don’t buy it.”
Head down, arms folded, Kandy started to walk away.
Jamie jogged around in front of her and put his hands on her shoulders. “Jesus, love, I’m trying to help you.” He exhaled noisily as she wormed her way out of his hold. “Fuck. Let’s have a better goodbye than this. Come on.”
Kandy kicked at the carpet. He lifted her chin, but she jerked away. Sadness crept into his voice. “I’ll see you then. Hooroo, love.”
He opened his arms to her but she didn’t respond. With a groan and a gesture of air-clutching frustration, he headed for the exit, cussing under his breath. Kandy bit her lip as she watched him stride away.
Jill stepped apart from a cluster of admirers and held up a finger, indicating they should wait. She followed Jamie and caught him near the door, placing a hand on his arm.
“Leaving? You’ll be back tomorrow, won’t you?”
“Nah. Other plans.”
“You should reconsider. I think you have a calling.”
“Pig’s arse. To do what?” He locked eyes with her. “What you do?”
“You could work with me and do very well.”
Jamie turned away, rubbing his hands against the seams of his jeans. When he faced Jill again, he eyed her up and down as if newly interested,
“Nice clothes.” He put on the charm smile and earned her smile in return. “Emperor.”
He walked out, leaving her glaring at his back.
She spun on her heel and hurried over to Kandy, who had drifted alone toward another exit from the ballroom. Jill fell in step with her and caressed her upper arm.
“Rainbow, dear, you had such an interesting experience today. So unusual. Colorful as your friend is, I think your work may be deeper. I’m having dinner in my room, room service. Why don’t you join me? My treat.”
Kandy’s round face lit up. She brushed away tears. “Thank you. Thank you. That means so much.”
They walked to the elevator and Jill pressed the button. “So,” she said, resettling her heavy necklace and smoothing out her collar, “how in the world did you meet Jamie Ellerbee? Stan wasn’t studying you, was he?”
“Oh, no. It was ...” Kandy looked up at Jill with childlike openness. “It was in college. We were in a therapy group.”
The elevator doors slid apart. Jill touched Kandy’s back, guiding her in. “How interesting. Tell me more.” The doors closed.
The vision shifted, moving Mae through the tunnel into a darkened hotel room with its door propped open. Kandy, in a different T-shirt and old, loose jeans, sat at the desk, writing on hotel stationery by the light from the hallway. Doors to several other rooms also stood open, and women circulated from room to room, laughing and chatting, carrying various alcoholic beverages. Mae recognized faces from the ballroom, but everyone had changed clothes. It looked like another night of the same workshop. Two women stopped in the hallway, calling to Kandy to come out and join them. She hesitated, then declined, saying that watching was party enough for her.
Jill, in a short denim skirt instead of the usual tight jeans, stepped out of an elevator. “Embracing the Divine Madness, are we?”
“Omigod, it’s Jill,” came a voice from one of the rooms.
“Yes, it’s Jill.” The shamanic teacher sounded pleased and amused. She passed the women in the hall to stand in the doorway of the room across from Kandy’s. “Is everyone ecstatic?”
One of the women raised a glass. “Not quite.”
“Then you know the ways to get there.” Jill swaggered into the party. “There are men on the next floor if you don’t find each other adequate to the job.” Her eyes flashed, and the women giggled and whooped. “Well,” she said, leaning her buttocks on the edge of a dresser, “don’t just stand there, someone get me a drink.”
“What do you like?” asked a thin woman in clothes and jewelry like Jill’s.
“Scotch on the rocks, if I might be so lucky.”
“Got it!” The woman ducked out to return with the whole bottle as well as a drink for Jill.
Jill blessed her with a gap-toothed smile that stayed flat at the top. “Don’t let me stop the party. Carry on.”
More women crowded into the room, but they became less festive, less talkative, in their workshop leader’s presence. She excused herself and crossed to the opposite room where Kandy was still writing.
“Whatever is the matter with you, sitting in the dark by yourself?” Jill turned on the desk lamp, closed the door, and sat on the foot of the bed. “You’re missing the party, dear.”
Kandy looked up. “I’m listening to it. That’s ... That’s enough.”
“You should join it.”
She glanced toward the door, bit her lip, and shook her head. “I need to finish this.”
“What are you writing?” Jill walked to the desk, sipping her Scotch. She set it down in front of Kandy. “Let me see.”
“Not yet.”
Kandy tried to cover the letter. Jill snatched it, held it out at arm’s length and read it aloud, eyes bulging with emotion.
“ Dear Jill. I’m sorry. I really tried. I tried all last night and all day today. But Jamie’s right. I’m not emerging as a shaman.” Jill slapped the letter. “And what else does Jamie say?”
“It’s not real. It’s not helping. I wish he was wrong, but it’s true. I’m the one that was wrong. I thought I’d get better here, but I’m not. ”
“Better than what? Don’t be ridiculous. There’s nothing wrong with you other than giving up on the process. Do you think you’re going to reach spiritual enlightenment without a struggle? You have to go through it, dear. Jamie doesn’t have the courage. You do. Show him how strong you are.”
“I don’t feel strong at all. I’m so hungry I’m shaking, I’ve been crying all day ...” Kandy pushed the drink toward Jill. “I’m really struggling. Could you take this, please?”
Jill tilted her head, half-smiling, took a tiny sip, and set the drink back down. She resumed reading the letter. Her jaw dropped. “How dare you?”
“I haven’t done it—yet. But I should. If I talk to Dr. Ellerbee about what we do here, he could—”
“Rainbow. He could do absolutely nothing to help you.”
“Yes, he could.” Kandy stood suddenly, banging the desk. Her voice shook. “He has to. He could help me show everybody what you really do. How you made me fast all day and made me cry in front of everybody and nothing happened, how you said I’d be special and that I had gifts, and it’s all bullshit. Really expensive bullshit. People will listen to him.”
“My god, Rainbow. Do you want your money back because you didn’t see God yet? It takes time.” Jill crushed the letter. “Stan Ellerbee has no more concept of a spiritual experience than he does of how to be a father. Look at Jamie.” Jill paused, looking into Kandy’s eyes. When she spoke again, her tone softened. “What kind of friend tries to undermine you in your spiritual search? If you’re unhappy now, I think you should take a look at this so-called friend. He’s taken too much out of you. Don’t let him drag you down.”
“He doesn’t drag me—”
“Of course he does. You told me all about it. You can’t take that back. You gave up a lot for him. Are you going to give up more?” Jill sat on the desk and cupped Kandy’s cheek, turning her face to her. “You’re a woman. You can stop bowing to men. Jamie’s no friend to you. He uses you and then cuts you down. Stand up for yourself and see the light, be the light, on your own. If you don’t quit on me.”
Silence hung between them. Jill didn’t let go until Kandy sank into her chair and wept.
“Take my drink, dear. Pull yourself together. Let’s join the party.”
Still crying, Kandy stared at the Scotch. “I’m trying not to drink.” She sniffed and rubbed at her eyes and nose. “Remember? I’m an alcoholic.”
Jill flattened the letter and put it in her jeans pocket. “If you believe that powerlessness message from AA, you’ll feel that way. Weak and powerless. But alcohol has a spirit. It is a spirit. You can claim and conquer it. Along with your choice of ‘friends,’ this fear may be your obstacle to the emergence.”
She caressed Kandy’s neck, running a finger around to her throat and down to her collarbone. Kandy jerked, her eyes like a scared animal’s. Jill drew back and studied the young woman. “And that fear, too. My dear, dear Rainbow. Will you trust me one more night?”
Kandy hid her face in her hands. Jill patted her shoulder and spoke softly. “We have many breakthroughs to seek. If you’ll only dare.” She stroked Kandy’s hair and left.
Kandy stared at the drink. She picked up the pen, clenched it, stabbed it at the stack of stationery, and dropped it. Her eyes filled again with tears. Slowly, she drew her ring off her finger. Her hands trembled. She took an envelope from the desk drawer, sealed the ring in it, and wrote on it Goodbye Big Buddy. With a loud sob, she tore the envelope and took the ring back and gazed at it. After a long hard cry, holding the ring to her heart, she put it in another envelope and sealed it. This time she wrote Jamie Ellerbee.
She picked up the drink and gulped it down.
Mae’s vision blurred and spun through the party. Kandy began the evening trying to talk with the other women but soon dropped into the background, sullen and quiet, drinking shot after shot. Jill drank little but joked and teased with the more boisterous partiers, appearing to have forgotten Kandy. Then Kandy, sitting on the edge of a bed, lost her balance and slipped to the floor as she reached for a bottle to refill her glass. The vision slowed down.
“Rainbow’s falling out on us.” A woman in a broomstick skirt gave a tipsy laugh. “Falling rain.”
“I’ve got her.” Jill poured herself a fresh drink and carried it along as she helped Kandy to her room. She closed the door and sat Kandy on the bed. The intoxicated young woman reached for the drink. Jill helped her take it. Kandy swallowed the liquor and fell back with a gasping sigh.
Jill leaned down to kiss her full on the mouth. Kandy’s weak flutter of a hand might have been meant to push Jill away, but was too feeble to reach her. The vision went to black.
Mae didn’t want to see more. This journey had to be over—but it didn’t let her go. The tunnel took her again.
Mae’s perception was odd this time, both sharp and remote. She could see better, yet scarcely hear. Jamie and Lisa were curled together on a sofa amid pink and blue floral cushions, watching TV. They looked toward the door, and Lisa rose to open it. She met a tall, bearded, silver-haired man with gray eyes behind wire-framed glasses. He spoke to her in the doorway. Jamie looked up with a start. The tall man entered, and Lisa left the room. From the way he sat close beside Jamie and looked into his eyes as he spoke, Mae sensed the visitor was Jamie’s father. Stan took a folded envelope from his pocket and shook it gently, displaying on its open flap the ring that matched the one on Jamie’s hand.
As he listened, Jamie’s expression changed from shock to grief, then to wild despair. His father tried to stop him as he rushed from the room and into the kitchen, where Lisa stood in front of an empty drawer. Like a cornered animal, Jamie turned back toward the door. This time, his father managed to grasp his arms. Jamie fought to get away. Lisa held him from behind, helping restrain him until Jamie stopped struggling and collapsed on his knees. He tore off his bracelet and ring and curled up in a fetal position, arms wrapped around his belly, sobbing and rocking. Stan stroked his son’s hair. Lisa rubbed Jamie’s back until he sat up enough that she could wrap him in her arms.
Gasser began to mew plaintively from the kitchen, and Mae’s trance finally broke. She pushed up to a sitting position and let the ring rest in her palm. It felt heavy and almost alive.
Jamie’s grief haunted her. He and Kandy had had the opposite of a suicide pact: a promise to each other that they would live. The goodbye note Kandy had discarded—did it mean she’d intended to break the promise, or to end the friendship? Writing Jamie’s name instead of Big Buddy said something had shifted. Had she been trying to make sure he got it when she was gone? Or could she simply not bear to call him that pet name anymore?
Mae tried to imagine being Kandy at that moment, weak with fasting and emotionally overwhelmed. Jamie had undermined her faith in Jill. And then Jill had undermined her faith in Jamie. With a mother who didn’t protect her and a father who’d sent her away, Kandy must have felt she had no one to turn to. Only alcohol. Whether she’d been trying to get up the courage to kill herself, or drinking to escape so much pain and disappointment, maybe she herself hadn’t known.
Gasser cried and then yowled, alternating between pitiful begging and forceful demands. Mae called to him to hush up and wait, but he didn’t stop. She closed the door to the kitchen, still needing to think.
How could Jamie never once have mentioned Kandy? It wasn’t healthy to hide a story like that. Was he angry with her? When The Urban Shaman came out, it must have looked like his best friend, whose death had already torn him to pieces, had betrayed him.
Mae stroked the rim of the ring. She could almost feel Kandy’s hand through it. The vision had been unstoppable when Mae wanted to pull out. Could Kandy’s ghost have driven it? Even the part that happened after she died?
The mewing took on a new urgency. Mae pocketed the ring and crystals and got up. Gasser might be stuck in some small space, his soft bulk wedged between appliances.
She found him pacing around his food bowl. “I don’t think Jamie would leave you to starve. I bet you ate everything he put out for you.”
Gasser continued to pace and meow.
Exercise helped Jamie’s anxiety. It should work for his cat. Mae got the leash and harness from the closet. Gasser hissed and fuzzed, resisting her attempt to buckle him up. As soon as she gave up on the harness, he resumed begging. Mae stuck her hand in the cat food bag and dropped three bits in the bowl. The cat wailed. It was like having a stepchild. Except her stepchildren loved her.
She rinsed the crystals in salt water and put them away. Upstairs, she placed the ring beside the roses and the rest of the jewelry on the upturned box, and sat and gazed at it. Jamie had felt that he would dig up a body if he unpacked. Mae had done it instead.
Gasser raised his volume. If he didn’t shut up soon, she would have to leave, go read her books somewhere else. She wasn’t caving in on feeding a cat the size of a Thanksgiving turkey. She could come back later and flatten the cardboard after Gasser lost his voice or gave up crying.
There was one thing left in the box where she’d found the jewelry. She took it out. The last of Jamie’s unpacking was that cheap metal frame she’d noticed earlier. Bits of paper stuck out of the cardboard backing. Mae turned it over. The picture showed Kandy and Jamie as college students, his arm draped over her shoulders and hers snugged around his thick waist. They stood in front of an institutional-looking building, their free hands giving thumbs-up. So loving, so hopeful. The best of friends.
Kandy’s picture should go in the spare room’s closet with Lisa’s, but Mae couldn’t bring herself to hide it, or the jewelry. Not yet. The force behind her visions made her feel these objects wanted to see the light.
Mae opened the stand on the back of the frame to set the picture beside the roses, and the cardboard popped loose. The sketches fell out: Kandy’s future Jamie and his candy rainbow heart. Touched almost to tears, Mae tucked them back in, pulled the tabs in place, and studied the picture. Perhaps they’d had it taken the day they made that promise. It was inscribed in round upright script: Stay strong, Big Buddy. Always with you, Kandy.