Linda held out her palms, shared a conciliatory look. “I know what I know. My gift, what I can offer… is to reveal parts of your soul that have been forgotten. Abandoned. Show you elements of yourself that hold lessons. You’re going to feel different for a few days, as you integrate what you’ll experience tonight into your day-to-day. I encourage you not to run away from those feelings, from what’s been brought forth. After a while, what you’ve experienced here, what you’ve felt, it all might feel like a dream. You might forget… you probablywillforget, but what’s brought forth will remain if you choose to hold on.”
“Okay,” Evelyn said, her voice small. Linda’s words were terse, crisp, just like their first meeting. The modulated tone Evelyn had come to associate with big-idea professionals who never suffered fools. She thought it best to remain calm and still, though she felt the urge to getup and move. Why was she trusting this person? “Not sure I understand… but okay.”
“You can stay here long as you like, if you don’t feel like being by yourself after your journey,” Linda continued. “I’ll be with you for as long as you like.”
Linda sat in her seat, straight, rigid. An unmoving statue in gray blazer and navy jeans. Evelyn straightened up and tried to mirror her host.
“Are you ready?”
Evelyn took a deep breath.
She nodded.
And then it hit her, the sensation from when she’d first visited the town house. The world around her became bright, distorted, almost more than she could bear. As if hundreds of light bulbs had been switched on at the same time. Linda became a blurry figure, still seated and unmoving. Evelyn closed her eyes to block the brilliance.
Her world was suddenly, soothingly consumed by black.
A heaviness pressed against her eyelids. Something sparkled in the distance, luminescence with curves and form. A woman’s silhouette, a magnificent turquoise blue. Her features were hard to discern but Evelyn could see her lips and nose were full, as were her hips. Her hair untamed, flowing free. The figure sashayed. Her arms stretched forth as small glimmers of light streamed from her eyes and mouth and fingertips.
She grew closer.
Evelyn opened her eyes and yet the darkness remained, broken only by light from the silhouette. Something was stuck in Evelyn’s throat. Her breathing became labored, difficult.
The silhouette grew near, soon an arm’s length away.
Evelyn realized…
It was her. The dancing blue was her.
The silhouette grew still.
Then it rushed forward, unbidden.
Evelyn was consumed.
She remembered…
… the first time she took to the sky, flying all the way out to Honolulu on a senior trip with Deirdre. She looked from the plane, the Pacific Ocean transformed into the brightest, most vivid turquoise green she’d ever seen. A hue she didn’t think was possible. She imagined slipping from the plane and gently gliding through the air until she touched water.
She remembered…
… the first time she was able to save enough money from her part-time work at Founders Library to get a seashell Nordstrom dress. Deirdre said the dress wasn’t flattering unless Evelyn bought shapewear. Evelyn didn’t care, loved the design and how the fabric settled on her breasts and round belly. To look at herself and prance around in the mirror, to see herself in something she loved.
She remembered…
… the last time she saw her grandfather, his body a waxy husk lying in a coffin in the front of the pastoral room at Morrison-Butler’s funeral home. A crying woman held her hand. Evelyn didn’t know who the person was… an aunt?… cousin? Evelyn tuned out the woman, looked at Granddad’s waxy, drawn face, and felt more alive than ever as she thought,Thank God he’s gone.
She remembered…
… the last time she was with Grandmama, her seven-year-old self sitting with the old woman for hours as lung cancer ravaged her body. Evelyn didn’t mind the lingering scent of piss and shit as long as the old woman strokedher hair and warbled verse and chorus to “Let’s Stay Together” in her hoarse voice. As long as she could hear the woman murmur, “Baby, you gon’ be somebody…” one last time. Because she was right.
You gon’ be somebody…
The night ended with a vexing irony. After being so inundated with crisp memories she’d long forgotten, Evelyn’s remaining time with Linda became a blur. Still, she recalled crying uncontrollably, and Linda coming up to her and kneeling by her side as she placed her hand on her knee and offered her a tissue. And she recalled Linda getting more tissues to wrap around Evelyn’s finger since she’d held her daisy ring so tight that she’d pricked herself, and Linda uttering more incomprehensible words, something about Evelyn’s soul, which made her realize she was extremely tired, that she’d probably made a mistake in returning to the town house, that she yearned for her bed even though Linda repeated, “You can stay, you can rest here.” Evelyn summoned a rideshare and left the agency right after Linda implored her to take the folder she crammed into her hand. Evelyn ignored the driver’s gentle questions seeing if she was all right, made it home, and collapsed onto her bed. Her tears flowed with a life of their own.
She repeatedly wiped at her face and dozed off. The shadows of sleep came, a much-needed refuge, darkness limned with wisps of turquoise blue.
CHAPTER SIX
