The Remedy (The Program 0.5)(33)

That’s one of the toughest things about this job: Seeing the heartbreak is never easy, but watching them accept me is almost worse. Seeing how they miss their child so much that they’ll love a stranger in her place just to feel close to her a minute longer. They don’t care if it’s real. They’re too broken to care.

“Where’d you go?” my mother asks softly, reaching out to touch my arm. I blink rapidly and focus on her, seeing that she’s concerned.

“Sorry,” I say. “I was just . . . thinking about Isaac,” I lie. My mother nods knowingly.

“I’m guessing he wasn’t happy to see you today?” she asks.

Would she understand how Isaac’s rejection made me feel? Is it improper to ask her advice?

“It’s okay,” my mother says, reading my hesitance. “You can tell me.” Around us the temperature in the car has risen now that the engine is off. Beads of sweat form in my hairline, under my bra strap. At the same time, the warmth is comforting. Suffocating my doubts. “We used to talk about him a lot,” my mother adds. “Especially in the beginning.”

“He’s suffering,” I say, letting down my guard. “I see it and I’m frustrated because he won’t let me help him. How can I get through to him?”

My mother tilts her head from side to side as if saying there isn’t an easy answer. “Isaac doesn’t put himself out there. He never has. He’s a reserved boy, kind of like your father. That’s why it feels so special when people like them give you their love. Like you’re the only person in the world who matters.”

I think again about the picture of me and Isaac, wondering if that’s how it felt for him to love me. Like I was the only thing that mattered, inhabiting a place that was just ours. I know Deacon cares about me, but our relationship is too hard. Too painful. With Isaac it’d be different.

I reach to run my hand across my forehead, wiping away a bead of sweat. My mind has spun out, and I quickly try to reel it back in. “I’m just so confused,” I admit. My mother laughs softly.

“It was like that in the beginning, too. You weren’t sure how you felt about Isaac. Then suddenly you loved him like crazy. Couldn’t be without him. But then . . .” Her expression falters slightly.

“Then what?” I ask, my heart rate picking up. “Did things change?”

My mother’s face settles into a calm, resigned expression. All at once, I don’t feel like her daughter anymore. I feel like a stranger.

“Yes,” she says sadly. “Yes, everything changed.” She turns to look at the house. “Everything good, at least.” Without a backward glance at me, she grabs her purse and climbs out of the car. I’m stunned, rooted in place until I see her nearly at the front door. I quickly get out and grab the bags from the backseat. My mother doesn’t wait for me before she goes inside.

I scold myself for pushing too hard, pushing for selfish reasons. I’d promised to be better—this was not the way. I think I need to talk to Marie, find out what exactly was going on in Catalina’s life. These pieces are not adding up to what I’ve seen online and in her journal. They’re not matching the information provided—but do I have all the information? Or is someone purposely hiding facts? If so, why would they hide them from me? I’m here to help, not judge.

I stop on the front porch, the shopping bags hanging on either side of me, heavy in my hands. I stare into the house at my mother, watching as she drops her keys into the bowl on the entry table. The false world fades around me. This assignment required more research; I have no idea who I was before I died. My job may not include solving mysteries the deceased left behind, but if my parents and the grief department want me to fix this, to cure this, I need the information.

I walk inside the house and shut the door behind me.

* * *

My mother decides to lie down for a while before starting dinner. I offer to help with the meal, and she agrees, although I can see her mind is elsewhere. As she disappears down the hall, I go to the kitchen to grab a drink. I fish out my phone and check for any messages from Aaron about Virginia. I meant to casually ask my mother about her, but there never seemed to be the right moment. Prying into my past would only pull my mother out of the role play. I’ll have to try old-fashioned research first. Besides, parent information is sometimes unreliable.

I hear a hollow crack from outside, and I spin quickly to the sliding glass doors. I’m surprised when I find my father in the yard, a metal bat in his hand. He tosses up another baseball and swings, smacking it through the air and beyond our back fence into the woods. At his feet there are at least a dozen more balls, and I wonder how long he’s been at this. I watch for a moment, taking a sip from my soda as I debate what to do. I slide my phone into my pocket.

My father doesn’t want to talk; he’s been avoiding me. From my journal, I know we were close. I was Daddy’s little girl while my sister was my mother’s protégé, at least until recently. My sympathy peaks as I watch this huge man roll his shoulders, obviously tired. Overwhelmed with pain he has nowhere to place. No way to work out the kinks in his heart. I have a muddy sense of homesickness, reminded of a time with my own father. We had been mini-golfing when he got the call that one of his patients had died. He didn’t react at first; we finished the game and he let me win. But at home that night, after I’d gone to bed, I heard him crying in the living room. I snuck downstairs and found him with files spread all over the coffee table, a bottle of rum on the carpet near to where he sat. I didn’t interrupt him. It was his grief to process.