The Girl He Used to Know(57)

I remembered that day. The phone ringing and Janice taking it out into the hall. Asking me to walk to the union for lemonade. Finding the chess club.

“And before you start thinking she was only your friend because I asked her to be, I want you to know that Janice loves you like the sister she never had. I remember the end of your freshman year when I called to see if she might consider rooming with you again. She said, ‘Linda, I can’t imagine living with anyone else. Annika is a true friend.’ She has told me multiple times how much she cares about you and how much your friendship means to her.”

Now my mother and I were both wiping our eyes. The amount of gratitude I felt toward Janice and what she’d done to get me through college was immeasurable.

“You have wonderful gifts to offer people, Annika. You are honest and loyal. Not everyone will appreciate that, and there are people who will dislike you anyway. Life isn’t easy for anyone. We all have challenges. We all face adversity. It’s how we overcome it that makes us who we are.”

I was still too young back then, too self-centered, too overwhelmed by the trauma of losing the baby and the daily battle to fight my way back toward the light, to understand that my mother had given me the greatest gift a parent could give a child. But years later I would recognize and appreciate that everything my mother had hoped for me had come to fruition only because she’d kicked me out of the nest, and it had mostly worked, despite a few bumps along the way.

“You will always have to do things you don’t want to do, and they’ll be harder for you than they are for your brother, or Janice, or Jonathan, or me. But I truly believe there will always be people in your life who will help you. Who will love you just the way you are.”

It was only after she left the room that I realized she hadn’t included my father in that list.





31


Annika


THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

1992



I returned to the University of Illinois campus for the fall semester, in August of 1992. I rented a one-bedroom apartment in the same complex Janice and I had lived in. Jonathan was the first person to leave a message on my new answering machine.

“Hey, it’s me. I hope you’re all settled in. I have some good news. I finally found an apartment for us. It’s a dump, Annika. I’m not gonna lie. But I told you it probably would be. Hey, at least we won’t have to share my buddy’s couch, so there’s that. When you get out here we can fix it up together. I don’t have a lot of time to do it now anyway. It’s like a competition to see who can be the first one here in the morning and the last one out the door at night. Weekends, too. I’m sure it won’t always be like this. Call me when you can. I miss you so much. I love you.”

I glanced at the clock and called him back even though I knew he probably wouldn’t be home. “Hi, it’s Annika. I’m all moved in. The apartment’s nice. It looks a lot like my old one. I’m glad you found a place and don’t have to sleep on the couch anymore. I miss you, too. I love you, Jonathan.”

He was still planning for the day when I would join him, but I couldn’t think about the future. Getting back on my feet in the present took everything I had, and moving to New York would mean starting over yet again. Even though Jonathan would be by my side to help, the very thought of it exhausted me. I could only address the here and now and would have to worry about the rest later.



* * *



I was walking out of a lecture hall a few weeks later when I spotted Tim, a member of the chess club. It was too late to turn around or pretend I hadn’t seen him, which was my go-to maneuver for avoiding people I didn’t want to talk to.

“Hey, Annika,” he said. “I thought you graduated.”

“I have a few classes I still need to finish.”

“It’s like you dropped off the face of the earth last spring.”

“I had some health issues,” I said, hoping he wouldn’t ask for details. “I’m fine now.”

“Good. I’m happy to hear that.” He hoisted his backpack higher on his shoulder. “Well, hey, I’m late for class but hopefully I’ll see you at the union on Sunday for chess club. You missed the first couple of meetings. We need you.”

“Okay,” I said. “See you then.”

But I did not rejoin the chess club, and this time there was no one around to talk me into it.



* * *



One day in October, I came back from the library and discovered there was something wrong with the lock on my apartment door. When I inserted my key, the lock didn’t make the same sound it had made previously. Or did it? I stood in the hallway turning the question over and over in my mind as I locked and then unlocked the door, listen ing for the click that never came. No matter which way I turned the key, the door always opened with ease.

When the sun went down that night, the darkness that filled my apartment settled on me like an inky black film of anxiety. I shoved a chair under the doorknob of the front door and also the one leading into my bedroom. I dozed fitfully with the lights on, burrowed under the covers like an animal in its nest. Every noise sounded like an intruder slowly letting themselves in to my apartment.

Every day that week when I left the apartment, I fiddled with the lock, hoping to hear the sound of it thumping into place. And every day that I didn’t, my fear increased. I stopped opening the curtains in the morning because the setting sun and the fretfulness that accompanied it unnerved me to the point that it was better to keep them closed all the time.