I laugh under my breath at the frilly bedspread and the smell of powdery, girlish perfume that still emanates from a neon bottle left on top of the vanity. I was so determined to make it my signature scent back then that even the walls soaked it in.
All the furniture is white. The wallpaper is thick, alternating pink and white stripes. It’s not a tacky room. My grandparents would never allow me to choose tacky furniture. But how strange that this used to be me. Or the me I wanted to be, I suppose.
‘There are still some clothes in the dresser,’ my grandmother says quietly. ‘And a lot of pretty sundresses in the closet that you could still wear.’
I open the closet at Grandma’s urging and notice that, yes, it is stocked with very pretty sundresses. They’re young-looking, but they’d still fit. I grew up not out as I got older, and most of that length was in my legs.
‘Everything is perfect,’ I say. ‘Thank you for keeping it just as I left it.’
Her eyes shoot over to the writing desk, tucked snugly into the dormer window, betraying her misgivings about leaving it.
‘Did they give you a schedule for your medication?’ she asks quietly.
I smile reassuringly. ‘I take all of them once in the morning. It’s not like it was when Mom was my age.’
She looks relieved, but still troubled. ‘She had to take so many . . .’ Grandma breaks off and smiles back at me suddenly. ‘Come down when you’re ready, Magdalena. We’ll play cards tonight after dinner.’
‘Great.’
Grandma finally leaves me. I take my phone out of my bag and plug it into the wall, but I don’t bother to turn it on.
Nothing to check, anyway. I deleted my social media accounts months ago, and I have no friends any more.
I sit on the bed and think about being thirteen. I’m not going to change anything about this room, I decide. I’ll let it stay frozen on the inside. Like me.
15 JULY
I sleep a lot.
It’s the pills. They knock me out. That is what they’re designed to do, I guess. I’m also getting more exercise than I’ve ever had before, so I need the rest. I garden in the late morning with Grandma, and after lunch I usually go for long hikes in the woods.
I’m not super outdoorsy or anything, but it’s hard not to get swept up in the magic of this place. Every day, I pack up one of those picnic blankets with the water-repellent bottoms, some books and a canteen, and I hike up into the hilly rainforest. My grandparents’ property is right next to the edge of a lovely trail. Of course. Why buy a summer home that’s so far away from the trail, you’re too exhausted to hike it once you’ve got there?
I’ve got a few set paths I usually take, but today I go left instead of right, thinking about that Robert Frost poem.
And I find it.
A stream cuts its way downhill. A small, flat bank fans out to the side of the tiny waterfall, creating a shelf of green oxalis among the moss-covered Sitka spruces. Perfect for a picnic blanket. I wade through the little stream and spread out my blanket on the soft bank. The hill raises sheer behind me to nearly a seven-foot drop, and the waterfall sluices down the rocky face of it pleasantly. I nestle into this little cove of green and listen to the water.
I take out Walden by Henry David Thoreau and think about what it means to ‘live deliberately’, as he’d intended when he moved into the woods. I’m not really reading. I don’t know if it’s because I don’t like transcendental philosophy or because Thoreau is boring as hell, but I wish I liked this book better. I wish I had the sort of mind that could slog through the dull bits and follow along with the navel-gazing of a philosopher.
But I don’t. I need plot. So I’m just letting my eyes pick out phrases here and there to mull over. Things like ‘to suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life’. I like how high-minded Thoreau is. How deeply he believes in the innate goodness of conscious individuals. I like to pretend I agree with him.
I try to read, but it’s page after page of this guy obsessing about the beans he’s growing in his garden. I skim for a pithy quote to think about, but I’ve lost the thread.
There’s always my notebook. I take it with me wherever I go out of habit, but I haven’t written in it since it served its final purpose. I have to admit, it scares me. It scares everyone around me. But that’s so silly. They’re words, not bullets. I could just jot down a few lines about this place. I only want to see if I can describe it accurately. I pick up my pen and hold it over the page.
The dappled sunlight and the sound of falling water overtake me. I sleep.
When I wake, all I can remember of my dream is a sense of fellowship. I’m smiling while I pack up my things and head back to my grandparents’ house.
I see an unfamiliar car parked in the drive. I don’t know a lot about cars, but I know it’s a Porsche. I have no idea what year it is or anything like that. I saw it in an eighties movie once, I think. Top Gun.
‘You’re finally back,’ my grandma calls. I take off my hiking sandals and join her in the living room. A young man stands and turns to face me. ‘Do you remember Robert Claybolt?’ Grandma asks. ‘His family has summered down on the beach for years.’
I smile at him as I enter the room and join my grandmother. ‘Hi. Wow. Robert.’
He laughs, rolling his eyes. ‘You don’t remember me,’ he teases.