As I walked in, I turned the key that had locked my heart up tight those last few days so I wouldn’t fall to pieces. I felt too much; that was my problem. I experienced everything with an intensity that knocked me over. I had always been that way. I could hardly manage my own emotions. I sank into them, analyzed them without ever managing to understand them, let them drag me around, feeling strong at one moment, vulnerable at another, sometimes resolute, most of the time timid and insecure.
A heart like mine has cracks in it, and they’re impossible to seal shut, so whatever I try not to feel still seeps in like water between your fingers.
I opened the closet. Part of it was empty; part of it still had mygrandmother’s things hanging inside. Sorrow overtook me as I smelled her perfume. I touched the dresses, shirts, and jackets, sank my face into a wool sweater. I took it out and put it on, wrapped my arms around myself and tried to imagine she was hugging me.
Frances had already chosen which things of my grandmother’s she wanted to keep. I had to figure out what to do with the rest. The best option was some charity. That’s what she would have preferred, but it hurt me to think of getting rid of all that forever. When these things were gone, her scent, her memory would be gone. It would mingle with the air and disappear forever, because a day would come when I wouldn’t remember what her hair smelled like anymore, or her skin…
I spent that Sunday shut up in the house, eating chocolate and popcorn and watching old movies. At night I took a hot bath that lasted an hour. I liked the water covering me up, ducking my head under, and holding my breath with my eyes closed, as though I were surrounded by a magic crystal that isolated me from the rest of the world. A slight pressure in my ears, a rushing of blood pumping over the silence.
Later, I got in bed and took my copy ofAnne of Green Gablesout from underneath my pillow. When I was a girl, I always kept it with me wherever I slept. Other people hugged their stuffed animals to feel less alone. I cuddled up with books. It was my most valuable possession, not because it was a first edition from 1908, but because my mother had given it to me as a present on my fifth birthday. It had belonged to her before that, and to my grandmother before that, and a long, long time before, it had been my great-grandmother’s. She’d found it at a secondhand shop in Quebec.
I reread it when I was down, and it always brought out the most positive side of me, the side I hadn’t managed to find for days.
My mother used to tell me I was like Anne, because I felt everything and I lived as if it were my last day on earth. And I was chatty like her, and full of imagination, and I believed in myself.
Personally, I didn’t remember ever being that way.
On Monday, I woke as the first rays of sun were brightening the sky, and the darkness of my room receded into shadows. I made myself a coffee and turned on the computer.
My email inbox was bursting. Ryan, the editor I worked with, had written me every day since I was gone. There was also a message from the department head with information about classes that might be of interest to me and a possible candidate for my thesis advisor. I decided to call him later and thank him personally. It was rare for those classes to have an opening, so I really should sign up and then…
And then…
Nothing.
The thought of going back depressed me.
The thought of staying made me feel guilty.
Because I didn’t know what to do with my life.
I shut my laptop. I felt an uncomfortable pricking in my chest. Anxiety.
I grabbed my purse and went outside, trying to dodge the thoughts piling up in my head. I liked walking when I felt unhappy or ill at ease. That alone—walking nonstop—would cool my head, ward off despair, help me to actually think things over.
My steps took me to La Fontaine Park. I loved getting lost on its tree-lined paths, riding a bike on its trails, sunning myself by the lake there. But that morning, I couldn’t find the peace I needed.
My phone rang and startled me. After a glance, I put it away. It was Dustin. Ugh. He called back ten minutes later, then two moretimes over the next half hour. The next time I looked at my phone, I had three voicemails and five text messages. I had to admit he was tenacious, but I was getting sick of him.
I took a winding route home. I was hungry and in the mood for a bagel with butter and marmalade. I loved that. The sweet flavor, the scent of freshly baked bread, all that took me back to those winter afternoons when I’d have hot chocolate at my grandmother’s house with my brother and sister. Fairmount was the place with the best bagels, and I was the first in line when they opened.
My phone rang again while I was waiting for the light to change at a crosswalk. I ignored it and took a deep breath when it went silent.Leave me alone!was all I could think.
My steps sped up. I was anxious to get home and hide away in a corner. The city I’d always loved was starting to stress me out, and I was surprised to find myself missing my little place in Toronto. I was so absorbed as I walked the last block that I didn’t notice Dustin there waiting for me by the door. He came toward me.
Instead of stopping, I sidestepped him, reaching into my bag for my keys as if he weren’t even there.
“Harper, we need to talk. This is ridiculous. Your father called me in a rage because he says you won’t pick up the phone.”
I opened up, went inside, and shut the door in his face.
“What the hell? You’re acting like a baby.” The wooden door didn’t muffle his voice. “Harper? I promised him I’d take you to see him.”
I felt myself sinking to the floor and had to catch myself against the wall.
Frances was back, I realized. She looked over at me from the kitchen door.
“What happened to your forehead?”
