“You have to be strong,” Auntie Mina says, her voice thick with emotion, squeezing my hand once more before releasing it. I’m not quite sure whether she’s talking to me or to both of us.
Later that night, lying in bed, I’m thinking again about what she said. About being strong. I assumed Cody was strong. Then I realized how easily cracked that icy shell really was. That isn’t real strength. Clinging to your own petty little wants at any cost, even when they’re impossible or hurtful.
Letting go, maybe, is what takes real strength.
Sometimes, though, you can’t just let go. Sometimes you have to learn to live with things.
I wonder if I can be strong enough to learn to live with my underhearing, to really figure out how to use it, and how not to. I don’t know if I’m capable of it. But I have more control over it now than I ever did. Nobody else can do it for me. I have to try.
I pull my knees in to my chest and huddle under the sheets. It seems so difficult. There are so many things I can’t do. I can’t go back in time and make Shiri not want to die. I can’t force Uncle Randall to be the person Auntie Mina wants him to be. I can’t help Cody, not the way he wants me to, because I’m not that kind of person.
It’s hard enough to live with my ability to underhear. If I did help Cody, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.
During my library period the next day, I check my school email. Click on the link that takes me to Voice of the Underground. I read it all again, this time in its entirety. I check for references to me, to my underhearing. I have to know for sure if Cody said anything about me. Not because I can do anything about it. I just need to know what kind of person he really is; no illusions. I scour it twice; three times.
All I find are vague references to the Psychic Friends Network. To “mysterious sources” and “secret information.” And that stupid JV swim hottie thing. My name isn’t anywhere. Not even my initials.
I’m surprised, and a little relieved. But I don’t really feel better. All it does is drive home the point that I never really mattered to him; didn’t really exist as a person in his eyes. Just a tool to be used.
At lunchtime, I go to my car to eat, sitting on the driver’s side with my food on the seat next to me. I put my earbuds in and blast the Beatles’ “Nowhere Man.” For the first time in a long time, I think about Shiri and don’t feel like I’m being stabbed in the gut. But I’m not happy.
The rest of the day passes uneventfully, and by some miracle, I pull a B+ on a history pop quiz despite being a chapter behind on reading. After school, I sit on my bed dangling a toy mouse in front of Pixie. Should I call Mikaela? I don’t know what I would say, but I want to make sure we’re okay at least. Maybe she’s not even mad at me. I should have called earlier. Yesterday, maybe.
I’m just digging my cell phone out of my backpack when the home phone rings. Auntie Mina comes out of the guest room and shouts down the stairs, “I’ll get it. Don’t pick it up! I’m on my way down.” Her muffled footsteps recede.
How could I have forgotten? It’s Uncle Randall. Right on schedule, and brought to you by the home phone. The only difference this time is that they’ve had their first marriage counseling appointment, but Auntie Mina refused to tell us how it went. All she told us was that they’re supposed to talk more about the trial separation.
The ringing stops abruptly as Auntie Mina picks up. My stomach flip-flops and I decide to head downstairs. When I get there, I notice that the study door is closed. I can’t hear anything. Mom’s not home from work but Dad is sitting stiffly at the kitchen table, so I sink into one of the empty chairs and nervously start fiddling with the salt shaker. My hands are trembling and I drop it, scattering grains of salt.
“Sorry.”
My dad glances up from the Sudoku puzzle he’s pretending to do. He’s sitting there with his pencil poised, but he’s not actually filling in numbers. The pencil is shaking ever so slightly. My heart twists.
I sweep the grains of spilled salt into my hand, get up, and dump them into the sink. On the way back to the table, I stop behind my dad’s chair and give him a hug, squeezing his neck the way I used to when I was little. His hair smells like tea-tree shampoo. “Love you, Dad.”
“I love you, too, Sun.” He sounds quiet, forlorn. He reaches up and squeezes my arm. “I’m glad you’re here.”
I sit back down. A few more minutes pass. My dad finally fills in a couple of numbers on his Sudoku puzzle.
I lean back in my chair and sigh loudly. “This is ridiculous. I’m sick of just waiting around like he’s the one in control. Can’t we—”
“Shh,” my dad says. “I want to be able to hear if she needs us.”
Hear. If she needs us. Now there’s an idea. There is something I can do.
Something only I can do.
After what happened with Cody, I’m not sure if I can. I don’t know if can stay calm enough, if I can bear to reach out again. But it’s Auntie Mina, it’s my family this time, so I have to try.
I sit back against the wooden slats of the chair and close my eyes. My dad is right across the table from me, but he might as well be in a different city. He’s lost in his own little world.
And I’m in mine. But I’m not lost.
In fact, it’s getting easier. This time I almost settle into it, like leaning back into space and trusting somebody is going to be there to catch me.
But I have to be focused. If something goes wrong, I might not be able to try again. Not in time to help; not with how depleted it makes me. I concentrate on letting go, on letting my attention leave the room and find Auntie Mina. I can hear my dad tapping his pencil point on the newspaper. He lets out a sigh, but the sound is far away.
And then I’m sort of spinning through my mind, my head aching like I’m being flung through space on a roller coaster. I take a slow breath; then another.
Gradually the spinning stops and I feel normal again. I tentatively reach out.
I find Auntie Mina. And I find something else. Someone else.
Something about this feels different. It feels like my consciousness is ping-ponging between two places, like I’m hearing a different voice in each ear. I don’t like it; it scares me. And what I realize about it scares me even more.
It’s not just Auntie Mina, but Uncle Randall, too. Somehow I’m hearing them both, as if he’s in the house with her. It makes me want to clap my hands over my ears. But I can’t move. There is a smell, almost a taste, of iron, of horseradish, and I suppress the urge to cough. I fight to hold on, and I—
—this is NOT what we agreed to when we got married
—counselor said she said I’m—
—know what the counselor said, and that counselor is
full of—
—she was right, he doesn’t listen to me he just—
I find myself thinking urgently, almost praying, Auntie Mina, just be strong, be strong like you told me, and I know it isn’t going to work but I can’t help thinking it, every fiber in me is straining toward her, and—
—always trying to tell you something’s wrong with you, nothing’s wrong with ME—
—how can I go back if he doesn’t listen
—you owe me—listen to me!
—face-to-face, at least give me the courtesy of—
—owe me
—don’t you dare tell me what to—
—talk face-to-face? why not now? yes, NOW—