Lost and Wanted(105)

I watched him slice a kiwi, wash the knife, and then cut smoked tofu into neat squares. The veins on the back of his hands stood out prominently, and there were dry patches on the skin of his knuckles.

“Addie said you sent them something.”

“Of course.” He looked up. “But not to prove anything—I don’t care what they think.”

“I think they think—”

“I’m a pusher—a monster. Yeah, I know. Who got her the drugs so she could die without her parents there. That’s why I’m here in Boston, three thousand miles from my family, five hours from the only passable surf break on the East Coast, packing a lunch box.”

“That’s not what I was going to say. I think they’re just worried about keeping up their relationship with Simmi.”

“Why wouldn’t Simmi have a relationship with them?”

“I think Addie thinks you might meet someone, eventually.”

Terrence looked up sharply. “You didn’t tell her about seeing Nicki here?”

“No,” I said. “Of course not.”

He seemed to relax.

“She thinks you’re grieving, and it’s hard to be alone.”

“Yeah, well…”

“And she’s going to miss Simmi so much if—when you guys go back to L.A. I think she wants to keep you guys close as long as possible. I think the letter helped.”

“Did she show it to you?”

“She just said it was unfinished.”

Terrence looked frustrated. “Nothing satisfies that woman!”

    “Maybe nothing could, in this case?”

He looked at me. “They were all unfinished.”

“Were there—a lot of them?” How many friends had Charlie written to, to say goodbye? There could be a kind of jockeying for position around a tragedy, and I didn’t want Terrence to think I was doing that. I tried to keep the hurt out of my voice, but he could see it on my face.

Terrence was watching me steadily. “You didn’t smell gas,” he said.

“No,” I admitted. I felt my neck getting hot.

“Did you look for it?”

“For what?”

“A letter, for you.”

“No.” I met Terrence’s eyes. “Yes,” I admitted. “But there wasn’t anything.”

He latched the lunch box, then bent down to rearrange something in the fridge to make room for it overnight. Then he stood up. “You have to search in Sent. I sent it to myself.”

“You mean, she did write to me?”

Terrence indicated his computer, which was sitting on the counter next to a roll of paper towels and his keys.

“Not to you,” he said. “But she mentions you, in her note to them.”

“To Carl and Addie?”

Instead of answering, Terrence opened the laptop and tapped a few keys. Then he turned it to face me.

“Read it if you want,” he said.

“Are you sure?”

“I wouldn’t be,” Terrence said. “If you weren’t in it.”

“But Addie didn’t say anything.”

“Addie doesn’t know who Iphigenia is.” Terrence’s face came close to a smile, without actually arriving there. “She asked me, after I sent them the letter, and I said I didn’t know. But the other day I remembered Charlie referring to you that way, near the end. There were a couple of other things like that, words and names that she’d mix up, especially to do with the past. I wouldn’t point it out—I didn’t want to make her self-conscious.”

Then he half turned away, giving both of us our privacy.

Dear Mama and Daddy:

I know you’re not going to be able to forgive me for this. And I’m so sorry. There’s so much I want to say to you, and I know you wanted to be here. It’s just—if you’re here, I can’t do it the way I want to do it. I have to wait to have it done to me. And I can’t stand that.

They called them “ruby slippers” in the ’70s—maybe you remember? That’s because Judy Garland is supposed to have used them, but so did Dinah Washington. Did you know the first song she ever sang in public was Billie Holliday’s “I Can’t Face the Music”? Isn’t that amazing? It’s like she knew what would happen to her from the beginning.

I think this way is better for Simmi. I do it after we’ve had a good night, so she can remember that later. I choose.

One request. I didn’t want to ask this of Terrence—I don’t want to make things any sadder than they already are. But I’d like there to be a photo of me at her graduation. A real one on paper, if possible. If it seems like you might not be around at that point either, could you pass this request on to Iphigenia? I have her in mind specifically, not just because I trust her to carry it out (even if she won’t approve) but because I’d like her to be there that day, if I can’t.

I say “if” because Terrence and I have been reading this book. The author thinks that our consciousness must live on after we die, because all we are is consciousness anyway. And so the photo is my own take on it. I have this crackpot notion that it could be a kind of window, that I could look out and see her.

I’ve started and stopped this note so many times. Today I’m going to finish it. I love you. I am terrified of