It was awful.
Nora could understand why they’d done it. Hell, if Nora had known someone diagnosed with a bitch of a disease like EOAD—if it hadn’t been her—she would have attempted the same kind of gift. But this, all the letters for her, addressed to her specifically, each one written in a different hand: it was too much.
She opened the first one. “I can’t believe . . . these are from . . . everyone. How did you . . . ?”
Ellie bounced harder in her chair. On another day, Nora would have told her to sit still so that she didn’t knock anything over. At this point, though, Nora realized she didn’t mind if Ellie accidentally punched a hole in the wall. Since they were below water level, the frigid bay would stream in, rising first to their ankles, then to their waists, their necks . . . And they would all sit there, politely, watching Nora open sodden envelopes, one by one.
“What does it say?” Harrison’s voice was low at her ear. She caught his eye, and she saw it then: such a look of love. It was so warm he glowed with it. “Go on,” he encouraged her.
“Come on, Mom, read it out loud.”
“Maybe just a few lines . . .”
You wrote in pen, never pencil, always sure your answers were right. (Mrs. Fisker, third grade, Oceania Elementary)
The way you so beautifully organized your home. Your pantry alone! The way you designed your spice rack made me so determined to make my house prettier that I went back to school and got that interior design degree. (Jan Heinhold, mother of Aubrey, Ellie’s sixth-grade best friend)
My girl. When I told you off at that stitch-n-bitch, I had no idea how many times I’d have to rely on you to prop me up. The almost-divorce, the time Johnny rolled his car and we thought he wouldn’t make it . . . I remember the day you picked me up when my car died in the Maze. Do you remember how fast the traffic whizzed past us? Do you remember how unafraid you were, while I shook like a dang leaf? If you forget, I’ll keep telling you. That’s what friends are for. Buck up. Fight. And try to remember the only thing that matters: We, your friends, so many of them, are here for you. (Lily, darling, treasured Lily)
Nora read a few snippets out loud. She was proud of how even she kept her tone. In pen, that was how she read it. No trepidation. She let no fear weasel into her voice, even when she read from Lily’s note, which made her want to put her head under the table and howl. Mrs. Fisker’s letter, though—it felt good, to be reminded that she’d been that headstrong girl, so sure of herself. So cocky. She’d take a little of that right now. That would be just fine. There was no way in hell she was going to read any of the other letters, though.
“How many of them are there?” She lifted one pile. There had to be fifty or sixty, just in that one stack.
“Over a hundred, and more are coming in every day,” said Mariana proudly. “Written letters, for their favorite writer. I had them sent to my office so you wouldn’t know.”
Nora slid down in her chair. “I don’t even know that many people. How did you possibly . . . ?”
Ellie, in her pleased voice, said, “Facebook. You don’t want to know about everything else I found out about you while I was prying into your computer.”
Nora felt ice slip down her back. “What did you find out?” She couldn’t remember what was in her hard drive, what she’d left open. Which essay had she been most recently working on? What could Ellie have found?
“Mom. I’m kidding.”
A light laugh. “I know.” She hadn’t known. She flipped through some more of the envelopes. More teachers. Friends she hadn’t seen for years. More than one boss. Two of Paul’s sisters. Many, many coworkers, all of whom, she knew, would have something good and embarrassing to say about her. There were probably some nice memories in the stack, too.
It really was a lovely thought. A gorgeous, generous gift.
And she hated it so much she wanted to claw her way out through one of the upper portholes. She’d pull herself through and land on the surface of the oil-skimmed water and splash as fast as she could to one of the small floating docks. She’d push away the sea lion in residence and she’d strip off her clothes. She’d bark like mad—she’d make all the same rude old-man throat-clearing noises that the sea lions did, and after a while, she’d get dark from thin sunshine radiating through fog, and then after long months, she’d become the tourist attraction, not them. Since the Bushman had died, no one had been jumping out from behind carefully arranged twigs at the passing Chinese tour groups. Where was the fun for the random San Francisco tourist? Really, she’d be doing the city a favor.
“Nora?”
“Mom?”
Harrison placed his warm hand on the back of her neck, something she normally loved the feel of. But she shrugged it off—too heavy, too confining. “You know what’s funny?” she said.
“What?”
“I’ve always spaced out.”
Mariana squinted at her as if trying to pull her into focus, but it had always been Nora with the weak eyes, not her sister. “Yeah . . .”
“I’ve always gone off in my own head, flights of imagination. I think it’s part of why I’m a writer. I like to sit and think about things before I do them. Remember, Mariana, Mom always said I’d practice in my head what I was going to try until I was good at it, and then I’d do it. I whispered words to myself as I learned them until I pronounced them correctly.”
Mariana nodded.
“But now, when I do it, when I rest and think, you all panic.” Nora laughed. “You should see your faces right now. So concerned for me. God, take a breath, would you? I’m not dead.”
Dylan, bless his heart, was the only one who followed her instructions and took a loud, deep breath.
She wasn’t dead. Even if they’d just staged her own funeral.
Nora excused herself to go to the bathroom again, this time using the one downstairs that was attached to a small room that had a tiny bed, still made up with sheets. Someone, the chef, or the manager, or maybe Mr. Forbes himself, probably still slept in that bed sometimes, watching the lights of the harbor out the thickly paned window. Someone got laid in that bed. Or she sure hoped someone did.
In front of the mirror, she looked at herself. She’d forgotten to do that recently, content to wash her hair, drag a comb through it once, and slide on some lipstick every once in a while. She hadn’t really looked at herself in a long time. Not in memory, actually.
Well. That was a laugh.
Nora had always compared herself to Mariana. She was used to looking at Mariana, so used to it that when she saw herself in the mirror, the differences were so plain as to be startling. Mariana was beautiful. She had great hair. Perfect skin. Lips that never chapped unless she had a cold, and then her nose got sweetly pink to match. Nora, on the other hand, turned beet red with every cold, sweating from every pore, her nose running like a hose.
She pulled her hair back, lifting it. She had crow’s-feet at the corners of her eyes. Had she ever noticed that before? She’d seen them at the sides of Mariana’s eyes, she knew that. She’d noticed them with some satisfaction, actually, meaning to check her own skin when she got home to the lighted mirror. She’d never remembered to look before now. Strangely, even in the watery green flicker of the fluorescent lightbulb, even looking like the older not-Mariana, she looked pretty. She could probably pass for forty, maybe younger.
Leaning forward with her palms on the cracked countertop, she looked in her mouth as if she were a horse. She still had a young person’s teeth. Only one filling and one very expensive cap.
They’d thrown her a funeral.
She bet they didn’t even know that’s what they’d done. They thought the gift of handwritten memory was clever, and it was. They thought it was kind, and it was that, also.
But they were eulogies. She’d seen on the envelopes the names of moms she used to carpool with, and the name of the woman who used to live next door, the one who sold Avon products much too aggressively. Oh, how tragic, they must have all said when they got the request. They’d told other mothers, women who didn’t know her, about how honored they were to comply with the family’s request. Well, at least this way she’ll know how I feel before she passes.
There was a peace to not knowing how someone remembered you. If the one single thing Mrs. Fisker really remembered about Nora was her propensity to do her math homework in pen, that was sweet, but limiting. Nora was someone who loved pencils, too, loved their soft scritch and how impermanent they were.
She loved how, if you were careful, when you erased no one knew anything was missing. And, conversely, if you pressed just hard enough, the indentation could never be ironed flat again.