There is the mud, and there is the lotus that grows out of the mud.
~Thich Nhat Hanh
Prologue
Rebirth
Lakin
I remember the way the water rippled from above. The silver light of the moon cast the waves in shimmering motion, as if staring at a theater screen, the movie reel jammed. The projection lamp melting the film.
A life paused, halted. The fabric of time rippling around the seams.
Later, a neurologist would tell me my nervous system was shutting down. My mind, deprived of oxygen, caused bursts of light to flicker across my vision, like one experiences right at the moment of death.
There was no moon that night.
There was only the lake, the vegetation, and my body.
And him.
Through rapidly firing synapses, as the Grim Reaper gripped my soul, I glimpsed his dark silhouette amid the shimmering waves. He drove a hand through the water surface and pulled me from the murky depth.
A phantom. A figment of my imagination.
There was no man.
Only the lotus flowers floating above, their stalks tangling my hair and limbs at the bottom of the lake.
There was only my death.
1
Book of Chelsea
Lakin: Then
I dreamed of my death before it happened.
Between cramming for final exams and packing for spring break, I’d get momentary glimpses. Fleeting wisps, broken fragments of the dream that felt so surreal. I’d shove the abstract images away just as quickly as they came.
It was only a dream.
Then one day, when our Louis Vuitton bags were parked near the mahogany door, my passport in hand—because I just knew I’d forget it otherwise—it happened.
I died.
Right there in the entryway of the beautiful Spanish colonial.
I still remember the sickening acid roiling my stomach. The noxious taste in my mouth as oily vomit clawed up my throat.
I couldn’t stop looking at her hair. Like an angel’s, her platinum-blond locks were spun like white gold, wrapping her tan shoulders in a sun-kissed halo around her perfect figure.
“I’m pregnant.”
Two words imploded my world. Two little words that, when strung together, changed the course of my life.
I could only stare at her. I’d dreamt this…
“I just thought you should know.” She crossed her arms, pushing her ample cleavage near her slim throat.
That night, during the fight that would lead to my meltdown, I would unleash every venomous slur and purge every question from my mouth that I should’ve raised there, but right then, I could only stare vacantly, the earth beneath my Guess wedges shifting me off kilter.
I watched her walk away, down the driveway, her hips swaying.
A sense of déjà vu snatched me. The edges of the dream bleeding in through my stupor.
I knew this was going to happen.
It wasn’t a prophecy, of course. Maybe a self-fulfilling one in a sense. The subconscious tickling the conscious, planting hints. Trying its damndest to reveal the truth that our waking minds are too stubborn to accept.
Drew, my psych professor, the only man I had ever loved, had gotten one of his students pregnant.
I crumpled to the marble foyer.
I’d never felt so close to death as I did in that moment. Wanting the world to open up and swallow me—to end my humiliation and misery.
I should’ve known. I heard it all the time…
Be careful what you wish for.
2
In Her Wake