The Cure for Dreaming(77)

He didn’t answer. His hand trembled against my face.

“Henry?”

“I’ll count forward,” he said, a quaver in his voice, “slowly, so you can come up gently. One . . . two . . . three . . .”

“Were you listening to me, Henry?”

“Yes.”

“Will you put yourself back together?”

“Yes.”

“Promise?”

“Mon Dieu, Olivia”—he emitted a weak flutter of a laugh— “are you hypnotizing me while under hypnosis?”

“We’re partners, remember?”

“Yes, I definitely remember.”

“Then let my words persuade you to become the type of person you’re not afraid of looking at in the mirror. If you think your life is a farce, Henry, then change it.”

“All right. I’ll fix myself up.”

“Promise?”

“Yes. If it means that much to you, then . . . yes.” A self-relaxing breath loosened his voice. “Um . . . where was I?”

“Four,” I said. “And I want you to open up your eyes, too, when we get to ten. Five . . .”

“All right.” He took another breath. “Six . . .”

“Seven,” I said.

“Eight . . .”

“Nine . . .”

He removed his hand from my face. “Ten.”

We awoke, and I took a long look around me. Passengers and porters hurried about, and a train’s black smokestack hissed with impatience. In front of me, a boy blinked to keep his eyes dry before letting me go.

“They have to remove her whole breast,” he said. “It’s a fairly new procedure, but it’s the only thing that will save her. She’ll have a better chance than our mother did.”

I cast my eyes down to Genevieve waiting on a bench with her leather bag. “She looks brave.” I peeked back up at him. “And so do you. You’ll both be strong for each other.”

He nodded without breathing.

I reached up and kissed his lips, which faltered beneath mine. We clasped our arms around each other and hugged instead, and Henry whispered in my ear, “Un jour, lorsque tu es prête, on se reverra encore.”

“What does that mean?” I asked with the left side of my face pressed against his shoulder.

“One day, when you are ready, we will meet again.”

No words found their way to my mouth. My eyes welled with tears and turned Genevieve’s brown coat and gray skirt, down the way, into blurs.

A blue-capped conductor checked his pocket watch and called out, “All aboard,” and a crowd of people clamored forward to the passenger cars.

Genevieve shot off her bench and jogged past them all to reach me.

“Thank you.” She grabbed my face and kissed my wet cheek. “Thank you for your help. Please send me Frannie’s address so I may write to her.”

“Oh, that reminds me”—I pulled a piece of paper out of my coat pocket—“here’s my mother’s address.” I slipped the paper into Henry’s hands. “Please promise to send me a postcard when Genevieve has recovered.”

Everyone bustled past us as if they couldn’t get on board quickly enough. Time shoved against me.

Henry grabbed hold of my hand, and I kissed him again—a proper good-bye kiss, just in case we were about to turn into mere memories for each other. He pulled me against him by my waist, and we stayed together until the conductor shouted his last boarding call.

I broke loose and climbed aboard the train without looking back at either of them.

A young black Pullman porter in a white coat greeted me at the head of the aisle. “May I help you with your luggage, miss?”

“Yes, thank you.” I handed him my bag, and for a moment I saw straight through him to the green floral rug running down the aisle.

No, I told myself, and I rubbed at my eyes. No—you see the world the way it has always been.

I followed the porter, and four seats in we passed a man with engorged lips and his dissolving wife, whose neck bled in a bright red bloom.

“No! Oh, no.” I turned to leave.

Two young ladies in wide-brimmed hats maneuvered their bags up the aisle and blocked my exit.

“Oh, dear, are you trying to get off?” asked the woman in front, turning sideways.

“I just . . .” I cupped my hand over my forehead and heard the rustle of paper in the left sleeve of my blouse.

“Personally, I think you’re traveling in the right direction,” said the second woman, who had a distinctive glow in her cheeks. “This train passes through Idaho, where women voted yesterday. That’s where we’re headed.”

“I don’t know where I’m going.”

I swiveled back around and grabbed hold of the wooden backs of seats to navigate my way down the aisle behind the porter. The floor swayed and bobbed below my feet, as if in a dream. I reached under my left sleeve and drew out a folded piece of paper that had been stuffed up there like the tickets Henry had snuck into my glove while we were in the restaurant with Percy.

Another message, written in the same hand as that previous note, met my eyes.

I believe you have always seen the vampires and the fading souls in the world, Olivia. You just never paid close attention to them before. As I’ve learned through my own ordeals, once you start viewing the world the way it truly is, it is impossible to ignore both its beauty and its ugliness. Look around you.