The Empath
Dennis Donoghue
A year ago when Nina was still capable of working doubles at Green Manor, when her mother Barbara was even crazier (before Lamictal), when her ex Rusty had a cocaine habit and no job, when eighth grader Kiki was suspended for oppositional defiant behavior, and before she’d met Simon, she spent twenty straight hours in bed. The center of her forehead pulsed as if touched by a live probe. She did not eat or drink. She reassured Kiki she was not dying, to make sure Nana didn’t leave a cigarette on the arm of the couch, and not to let Dad in no matter how hard he begged. She’d never had a migraine and hadn’t had one since.
“That was a download,” diagnosed Cassandra, her reiki practitioner. “You were receiving instructions. As an empath you make the world healthier by absorbing negative energy. Have you read any Dolores Cannon?”
“My mother tried to strangle me. I thought maybe that was the reason.”
“You have more active mirror neurons than most people. While you are highly attuned to the emotions of others, you are also hypervigilant from buried trauma which makes you susceptible to those emotions.”
Nina was forty-six and had been a certified nursing assistant since high school. She was drawn to it despite endless hours on her feet, an aching back, a pack-a-day habit. She worked nights and alternate weekends. Sometimes she was the only CNA on the floor. She answered call buttons and did rounds, rolling a resident on his side to check the liner under the johnny for moisture. If it was wet she pulled it out and slipped a new one on. She might get someone a cup of ginger ale or peanut butter sandwich, switch off the TV that had been on since morning, or lean over the bedrail and chat for a minute. At Green Manor there was plenty of negative energy to absorb in the form of sadness, anger, despair, and complaining.
During the day while Nina tried to sleep Barbara would wander into the bedroom they shared. She opened dresser drawers and engaged in animated conversations with herself. Sometimes she sat on her bed smoking until she got her bearings. When Nina told her to get out, to change the outfit she’d had on for three days, Barbara would curse under her breath and turn up the volume on the TV in the living room louder than Nina’s white noise machine.
She’d broken it off with Simon after he said he loved her. When he’d mentioned a future together, she worried his needs–or rather his lack of them–would leave her with a chronic yearning. Trying to explain herself she’d ended up offending him, albeit unintentionally, saying people depended on her and that this reliance was the only life she’d known. He’d taken it as meaning he didn’t measure up.
“I can take care of myself,” he promised. “I’m a piece of cake really.”
She was uncomfortable with anyone who did not need saving. When Simon told her how beautiful she was, when he listened to what she had to say, no matter how tedious she thought she sounded, she wanted to get up and head for the door. With no moods to absorb, rotten or otherwise, and without consequential wants to address, she felt empty and unmoored. Every other man she’d been with–four in total–she’d kept around long after they should have been dismissed as irredeemable.
In The Empath’s Survival Guide by Judith Orloff, M.D., Nina answered yes to most of the questions. Empaths absorbed people’s inner baggage which left them drained and overwhelmed. A change was coming, an increasing vibration Nina did not understand but could sense somehow. She imagined herself an overloaded washer machine spinning across the floor. As a result of their psychic burden, empaths had trouble simply getting through the day, never mind working nights in a nursing home, caring for a deranged mother, and raising an obnoxious fifteen year old as a single parent.
“You chose Earth,” Cassandra reminded her. “Our protectors want what’s best for us so they don’t recommend coming here. You have a stubborn streak a mile long.”
It turned out Earth was actually a school–the toughest, most inner city school with metal detectors stranded on the outer fringes of the cosmos, attended by eight billion lunatics who threw garbage everywhere and devoted much of their time and energy in finding efficient ways of killing one another. According to Dolores Cannon, protectors had acted after the two atomic bomb drops. They did not want the site where hardy souls came to erase bad karma obliterated by its leaders hellbent on doing the opposite. Protectors couldn’t intercede but instead sent compassionate beings to act on their behalf. Nina, noted Cassandra, happened to be one of those beings, arriving in the first of three waves for the sole purpose of setting Earth straight again. Though proud she’d taken up the challenge, she couldn’t understand why her present incarnation was such a shitshow.
“I must have drowned kittens in a previous life,” she told her. “Or run over homeless people pushing shopping carts in crosswalks.”
“Every interaction provides an opportunity for spiritual growth.”
“Why is Rusty in my life? I know he’s Kiki’s dad but I’m sick of his sob stories.”
“He’s your teacher. From him you learn patience.”
“Good Christ. I suppose the same goes for my mother.”
“She assumed that persona before she arrived. Groups of like souls switch up roles from lifetime to lifetime in order to advance spiritually. Each has its own blueprint.”
“She’s worse than ever and Rusty’s headed to jail for not paying child support.”
“Both are bound by a desire for ego gratification. They are deeply enmeshed in delusion.”
“And Simon?”
“You mistake his emotions for your own. When he says he loves you it is not out of dependence. He doesn’t need fixing. His boundaries are defined.”
“What now?”
“That’s up to you.”
When she was young, after Barbara passed out, Nina would lie in bed and look for signs. Vague forms and faces materialized in the dark and floated above her like parade balloons. They did not speak yet she felt comforted by their presence. She knew them by name (George, Margaret, Dulce, Frank) and looked forward to seeing them. Their job was to keep her safe from the blitzed wackos living in the building she could hear shouting and cursing at 3 a.m. In daylight the foursome disappeared and left her to her own devices.
“Your spirit guides,” reminded Cassandra, “are always with you.”
And yet they could not intervene to change your actions. If you were about to step off a curb in front of a bus, too bad. That was the end you’d chosen for yourself. They might delay you, however, causing you to roll your ankle so you got to the stop a few seconds after the bus had passed. At least that was how Nina understood it.
In a moment of vulnerability she texted Simon.
Just wanted to say hi. How are you? Hope everything’s well.
Five minutes later she got a reply.
Nice to hear from you. Quite a surprise.
She read the text half a dozen times. She missed his attention, the straightforward thinking, the fact that what he saw in her she could not see in herself. Plus he was tall. She adored tall. Comfortable in his own skin, he harbored no illusions about saving anyone unless that person was drowning or cornered by fire. He left others’ emotions where they belonged, with the individuals experiencing them. He wasn’t particularly emotional himself, he’d admitted, as if this was a kind of strength. He liked himself well enough, he supposed, and might even love himself if that meant working on being a decent person and trying to do the right thing. Nina had no idea what loving yourself meant or how to achieve it. She pictured a knight in armor, a volley of Cupid’s arrows bouncing harmlessly away. She imagined kissing a mirror and repeating affirmations such as I love the person I am looking at. Wasn’t the idea to love others and put yourself last?
Not wanting to appear desperate, she waited an hour before responding.
Thinking about you. Probably shouldn’t say this. Can we meet?
Not sure what’s happening, he replied. Would appreciate some clarity. Coffee?
Her mother had to go, teacher or not. Barbara, with her barely passable hygiene, unpredictable volatility, lashing accusations and paranoid flare-ups, was not the grandmotherly role model Kiki deserved. When Nina was her daughter’s age she was essentially on her own, surviving on cans of chicken noodle soup and frozen pizzas, missing school a week at a time, dragging her mother into the shower, lying to social workers who came to the door, and self-medicating with Barbara’s pot. She’d gotten through somehow, making the best of the worst which was what she’d drilled into Kiki. Always make the best of the worst, honey.
After Nina was appointed proxy she located a bed in a group home in Danvers, ten miles south on Route 1. Despite prompting from her doctor, Barbara could not recall the name of Nina’s father (I’ve erased that bastard’s name from my memory. Put down ‘Gengis Khan’ for all I care.) The home featured a ping pong table, large airy bedrooms, a bright kitchen with quartz countertops, a flower garden with multiple bird feeders, and an assortment of yard games, as if the placement was some kind of summer camp. Smoking was permitted on the patio. When Nina sought her opinion, Barbara informed her she’d never been loved in her entire life. So this piece of trash is finally getting a change of scenery. No one could be happier.
Nina felt inept and ashamed giving up on her mother. If she loved her enough there ought to be a way to make it work. She felt Barbara’s anger and resentment as a physical ailment. Her heart cramped and her temples throbbed. A lead weight of despair settled in the pit of her stomach. To distract herself she ran to Walmart to get poster board, glitter glue, markers and stencils for Kiki’s project. She’d likely end up doing it herself because of Kiki’s anxiety and ADHD. If she didn’t, she’d fail science and not get promoted. She hoped her daughter might become a nurse, or open a hairdressing salon, though she hated school and never wanted to go. Her trouble was par for the course–Nina had been just as unmotivated, graduating only because her alternative high school handed her a diploma as a thank you for leaving.
The morning of admission Barbara locked herself in the bathroom until she realized Nina had her cigarettes.
It’s just a trial run, Mom,” Nina called through the door. “One month to see how it goes.”
“A real daughter would never do this to her mother.”
Once the intake coordinator collected the necessary information, someone with a name tag led Barbara down a hallway, lugging the suitcase and backpack. Nina could hear her mother in an animated tone cataloging the various injustices she’d perpetrated on her. She waited nervously in the small office as the intake coordinator, no doubt assessing Nina’s role, finished the paperwork.
“We shared a bedroom,” she said by way of explaining her mother’s slant. “None of that actually happened. She has anger issues.”
“Don’t we all now?”
“She should thrive here by the looks of things,” she added, more to herself than the woman, desperate for validation she’d made the right move.
“Some do, others don’t,” the woman said. “Only time will tell.”
It was supposed to happen the other way around, the spurned lover requesting a sit down. He bought them coffee at Starbucks. They sat across from one another. He waited, on guard, sensing he might be being played. She cleared her throat. She’d rehearsed.
“You must think I’m crazy.”
“Maybe a little.”
She came out with it. She wanted to be fair, to get to the point.
“I’ve never been loved in my entire life. This, what we have here, or had, scares me.”
He didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t meant to scare her. He wasn’t a psychiatrist. He sold appliances.
“I’m an empath,” she continued. “I take on people’s negative energies and feel compelled to help them. I’m attracted to those with needs.”
“Is that like some kind of alien?”
She laughed. She wondered how all this must sound. Maybe she was crazy. She pushed on anyway, mimicking Cassandra.
“Earth is actually a school. We come here to grow, to evolve spiritually.”
“A school of rock?”
She loved his wit. There was no drama, no demands, no leaning on her. He was trying to understand because he loved her. He looked at her and listened. He waited his turn. She was embarrassed, queasy. She’d never gotten that kind of attention from a man. She needed reassurance, an explanation for his desire.
“Why bother with me in the first place? I have a crazy mother, a rebellious tenager, an ex behind in child support. I work nights in a nursing home. I don’t have two nickels to rub together.”
He laughed.
“I guess I’m slow on the uptake. I feel something with you. Your looks, definitely, your personality, your compassion. There’s a lot there from what I’ve seen.”
“You’d make a great politician.”
“Well, that’s how I feel. I don’t know how else to put it.”
“No one has ever said those things to me.”
Four years ago Simon’s wife of many years fell off her bike and hit her head. She’d swerved around a runaway toddler on a rail trail. She’d been wearing a helmet. It was a freak accident. Before he mentioned it to Nina, she’d been telling him about Dolores Cannon, how we choose our exits, deciding before we arrive how we’ll depart. It was all done ahead of time as some kind of psychic lesson we needed to learn, a resolution of old karma. It sounded absurd but in an odd way he found it comforting, as if Terri somehow knew and wasn’t afraid and wanted to die quickly just as she’d arranged.
“I’m sorry,” he added, “that you’ve never heard anything like that before. That no one has said they love you.”
“My mother used to call me My Little Anchor. She planned to write a children’s book with that title but of course she never did.”
She would flounder under his devotion. It would be like being thrown into a pool where she wouldn’t have the strength to make it to the side. But wasn’t selfless love a kind of floundering?
“I don’t know if I have what it takes. For us, I mean.”
“Baby steps.”
She hadn’t touched her coffee.
“Even baby steps.”
“That’s all there is. Tiny weeny baby steps. I’d like to see you again.”
Cassandra suggested meditation as an avenue towards self-love.
“Ten minutes a day and work up from there,” she said. “Empaths need time to recharge.”
“I don’t have ten minutes.”
“You are too busy being led around by your overactive mind. You have to pause and let love come to you.”
“Come to me?”
“Allow yourself to become a vessel. Open your heart and sit in silence. Love will come.”
Cassandra gave Nina a break because she paid in cash. She loved the oddball music, the chimes, flutes and rattles, as she stretched out on the massage table on her stomach, her face plugged into the horse collar. Cassandra was one of the few people Nina felt comfortable closing her eyes around. Some clients cried, even sobbed, as energy passed along by the practitioner released raw emotions. Nina wanted to cry, had every reason, but not a single tear fell. Being vulnerable meant you felt safe, that you had stable people around you, that you weren’t on alert constantly, which had never been the case in her life.
As Cassandra’s hands moved slowly over her body, cupping her shoulders, pressing the center of her back and grasping the heels and ankles, fingers brushing calves and forearms, startling visuals flashed through her mind which made her twitch self-consciously. They were similar to images she saw just as she was about to slip off to sleep–bright, unconnected, lasting a second or two, perhaps providing a message she might at some point decipher. Later, lying on her back, she felt Cassandra’s touch on her hip bones. When she moved down to her knees the pressure and heat on her hips did not abate, as if her hands were still there, like some form of magic. There was a soothing palm pressing her diaphragm, interlaced hands bracing the base of her skull, massaging thumbs pressing the veins of her temples. Nina did not understand the dynamics of reiki, despite Cassandra’s explanations, but felt buoyant and at peace well into the next day. After the session she would sit up on the table and listen to what had been revealed to Cassandra.
“Your guilt about your mother is understandable. The decision was the correct one for you and your daughter. You will come to understand this as she moves into this new phase.”
“I’ve abandoned her. Payback, I guess.”
“Simon also came through. His love is transparent. He has no agenda. Empaths mistake their emotional connection to others as a duty to take care of them. That’s enabling.”
Nina felt angry and misunderstood. She’d cared for the people she loved, could feel their need for her as a palpable tug, an ache demanding a response. Now she was being told it had all been a mistake.
“I’ve wasted my time. Is that what you’re saying?”
“Hardly. Remember, it was your decision to come to Earth in the first place, to resolve past trauma, but your fourth chakra, anakata, is blocked. Without contemplation and a sense of gratitude, you will struggle to receive the guidance you need. My role is to offer suggestions.”
“It feels like an insult frankly.”
Cassandra nodded that she understood. As always her face bore a placid look that said Take it or leave it.
Kiki’s guidance counselor left a message on Nina’s phone. Was she available for a conference or a phone conversation? Kiki’s issues, explained the counselor, ranged beyond what Gardner Tech could accommodate–irritability, speed talking, arguing with peers, thinking she knew more than her teachers. Did that indicate, Nina wondered, whether she was bipolar like her grandmother or just another sulky teenager? When she returned the call she neglected to inform the counselor Kiki was now alone at night. There were no day shifts available and they were for less money anyway. She promised the counselor she’d look into getting Kiki help. She wouldn’t, terrified a therapist might pry out the truth and child welfare would pound on the door while Nina was trying to sleep. She would deal with Kiki’s issues herself.
At Simon’s suggestion, they rented a canoe and spent the day on the Ipswich River.
“It’ll be easier to talk if we don’t have to face one another.”
“I’ve never been in a canoe.”
“I’ll paddle. You enjoy the scenery.”
He’d packed lunch–cheese and crackers, chocolate–dipped strawberries, a bottle of pinot grigio. The morning they’d met two months ago he’d found her on the side of the road with a flat tire. Her shift had just ended and she didn’t have AAA. Before he’d driven past and turned around, she’d called Rusty who’d just punched in at Lowe’s.
“Are you trying to get me fired?” he shouted when she’d asked for help, as if she’d run over the nail on purpose. “You want me in jail, right? You’ve already ruined my life more than once.”
Simon fixed the flat in fifteen minutes. Nina bought him lunch two days later.
They paddled and exchanged small talk. Trees overhanging the banks slid by on both sides. Each bend surprised her. Around one a line of painted turtles tucked into their olive green shells sunned themselves on a partly submerged log, the tips of their noses just visible. Around another a gray heron with hints of blue stood in shallow water, one leg tucked under its preened feathers. She’d never seen a creature that beautiful this close. As they squeezed under the arch of a stone bridge, they listened to their echoes. A breeze cooled by the forest brushed her skin. Through leafy gaps bands of silver sunlight reminded her of an abstract painting. The canoe moved silently while Simon pointed out a certain flower or type of vegetation with his dripping paddle. She felt like a child enthralled by the moving stillness, the fragrance of new blossoms, the remarkable shades of greenery, all of it seeming to have come together without effort. On the shoreline they found a sunny strip of grass. Simon hopped out in knee deep water as the bow of the canoe slipped up onto the sand. He grabbed the backpack and moved to the front to take her hand.
“There’s something on your calf.”
He turned, bent his knee and calmly tugged a leech from his skin. He pressed a napkin on the wound. It would bleed for a bit, he told her, as it injected an anticoagulant to get the blood flowing, to get what it needed to survive. He wasn’t the least bit concerned.
“It belongs here too,” he said. “It has a purpose just like every other organism on this river.”
“What purpose is that?” she asked. “What in God’s name is it supposed to do?”
“A food source, I guess. Honestly, I have no clue.”
She laughed.
“Mr. Scientist.”
“I just pretend to know what I’m talking about.”
“Don’t we all?”
He spread a blanket and placed round river stones on the corners. Out of a backpack he produced a small wooden cutting board, a Swiss army knife, the wine and food. Nina thought of the Hallmark movies popular at Green Manor, the formulaic themes of women meeting their Prince Charmings. Sometimes while feeding a resident she would watch, imagining herself starry-eyed and longing. The men were handsome and kind and confident, though a bit obtuse in a little boy way, the women lonely and beautiful and surprised by their good fortune. She couldn’t help but be captivated by scenes so removed from real life.
She was dying for a cigarette. She asked his permission.
“I don’t care if you smoke. Most of my co-workers do.”
“I want to quit,” she said. “I’ve said that more than any other statement in my life.”
Just that morning she’d told Kiki about the canoe trip, how Simon was just a friend.
“What kind of friend?” Kiki asked.
“I’m still trying to figure that out.”
“I could use a father figure, preferably someone sane.”
She inhaled and extinguished the cigarette. She’d be fine without it.
“How are your kids doing?’
There was a daughter in Pittsburgh, a son in Albany. No grandchildren yet though he was hoping.
“They worry about me so they call a lot, as if I can’t keep myself safe. After what happened to their mother, they have a lot of anxiety. I didn’t tell them about this. They’d expect me to be swept overboard.”
She felt his strong longing for them, the deep grief still fresh for his wife, and yet more powerfully she felt his need to forge ahead without Terri, to remake his life and have his children where their careers took them, to build their own satisfying lives without him.
“My mother calls constantly,” she said. “She hates me for what I did to her.”
“What choice does a person have in your situation? She needs a professional setting where she can get help.”
“She had her routine with me. She was with her granddaughter too.”
“Living with a mentally ill person doesn’t work, unless he’s on the right dosage and respects limits. My nephew Zeke is thirty-seven, has a girlfriend and a job. He lives in one of those places. It wasn’t working having him at home. My sister was on more medication than he was.”
“I’ve abandoned her. She never fails to remind me.”
“She’s only twenty minutes away.”
“It isn’t the same.”
They ate and sipped wine while canoes drifted downstream–reds, greens, silvers. Couples paddled, dogs wearing bandannas barked at floating twigs, teenage boys baled on a listing rubber raft.
“So what are your plans?” he asked, “About us I mean?”
He wanted to lean over and kiss her. She sensed it and drew herself upright.
“Any woman would be crazy not to want you,” she said. “Maybe I don’t have what it takes. You’ll figure out something’s wrong with me even before we even begin.”
She held the cards. He felt lucky to be here.
“You’re not missing anything as far as I can tell.”
He leaned over and kissed her. They hadn’t had sex, had kissed just one time, briefly, awkwardly, after their third date, in his car in daylight in the parking lot of her apartment building. Now she felt a sudden shifting. It had been ages. Maybe it was the setting, the fresh air, the wine. An attractive attentive guy loved her and here she was resisting. Had she planned this before she arrived here too, leading him on before breaking his heart for no good reason? That was hardly how one erased bad karma.
They finished the bottle. Nina ducked into the woods to pee behind a wide oak while Simon kept lookout. He shielded his eyes with the flat of his hand and turned his head side to side.
“All clear,” he called. “Release the flood waters!”
“I can’t even pee now. Stop making me laugh.”
In a moment of giddy lightheadedness, she understood she’d relied on the desperate needs of others to sustain her, like the bloodsucker Simon had pulled off his leg. What was happening right now must be a form of self-love, this simple act of allowing oneself to be cherished without feeling obligated to do anything in return. She took a deep breath to steady herself as she returned to the blanket. She considered Cassandra’s advice.
What now?
That’s up to you.
She sat close to him. He held her. He was relaxed, enjoying himself, looking out on the water. She updated him on her mother. She ran ideas by him. He listened and offered his take. Starting Monday she would drag Kiki by the ear to school. She’d warn Rusty he could no longer waltz into the apartment any time he felt like it. She’d sit in a chair and meditate for five minutes and build from there.
“Maybe I’m not a lost cause.”
“Never entered my mind,” he said. “Sometimes we’re our own worst enemies.”
He kissed her again. She pulled him into her. They lay down on the blanket. She could feel in her bones how he wanted her, but it was not the need she’d experienced with others, a need based on greed and selfishness. What Simon expected from her was nothing other than an open heart.
“I think so,” she whispered. “I think maybe.”
Barbara tore off her Wanderguard anklet after breakfast. The police issued a silver alert. That afternoon she was found sitting on a bench by a duck pond half a mile from the group home, returned, given Klonopin, plunked in front of a TV in the day room where staff could keep an eye on her. When Nini and Kiki got there, Barbara had drool on her chin, a cup of pink liquid with a straw in front of her. Kiki pulled out a tissue.
“What the fuck Mom? Nana’s a vegetable.”
“Let me talk to someone.”
There was no one around.
“Please can we take her home? Sign the forms,” pleaded Kiki.
“I’m not sure that’s for the best.”
“Just look at her. Nana, it’s me, Kiki.”
Barbara shrugged, barely. Nina had seen those shrugs at Green Manor when residents did not understand, when they couldn’t see through the fog. A shrug was better than nothing, they seemed to be saying.
“I don’t like being alone at night,” said Kiki. “I hear all the weirdos coming and going. I miss watching Wives with Knives with Nana.”
She put an arm around her grandmother.
“Right, Nana?”
Barbara did not shrug this time.
Nina glanced in the side mirror for oncoming traffic before pulling out of the space. Barbara slept beside her, slouched against the door. Kiki vaped and watched Tiktok videos in the back seat. Rusty called to complain about his court date.
“I won’t be here much longer,” he said. “I’ve had all I can take.”
“It’s called tough love,” said Kiki.
Rusty lived in his car, a 2007 Odyssey with 280,000 miles on the odometer. The judge did not care that he lived in a van with four bald tires, a broken radio and air conditioner, a rear hatch that did not stay up on its own.
“Just so you know,” Rusty continued. “I’ve stopped eating. I can’t afford it.”
Kiki blew a raspberry.
“Right back at you.”
“I’ve had a long day,” said Nina. “Are you about finished?”
“This is the last time you’ll hear from me. I bet I just made your day.”
“Please don’t talk like that.”
“He’d have to Google it,” said Kiki. “He doesn’t have a clue.”
“Do you need me to come over? Where are you parked? Don’t do anything rash.”
“Mom, he’s full of shit.”
“Let’s talk later. I’ll call you in one hour.”
“If I’m still here, that is.”
Nina could feel his desperation. She saw the filthy van, an overflowing ashtray, empty coffee cups and crumbled fast food bags, a grimy sleeping bag and leaky cooler. Perspiration dripped from his chin even with the windows down. His labored breathing alarmed her.
“Mom, don’t you dare. He’s a grown man who can take care of himself.”
Simon texted.
You’re a natural in a canoe. Thought maybe we could do it again before summer’s out. Dinner this week?
It was fun, she replied. Thank you.
Well?
She didn’t respond.
Bouts of vertigo grew more frequent. She had no appetite and began dropping things. Gaps in awareness were out of character–in the grocery checkout she discovered she’d left her wallet in the car, at intersections she was startled awake by an angry horn as the light turned green, in the middle of her shift she realized the rent was a week overdue. Even in small crowds emotions swept over her, forcing her to find a place to sit down and gather herself. Half the time she felt she didn’t belong on this planet she’d chosen to spend a lifetime. A density produced by cosmic realignment involving leylines, crystals and solar flares made even moving a chore. Cassandra had warned of these symptoms but Nina hadn’t expected them to be so debilitating.
Barbara, back at home, didn’t help matters. Belligerent as ever, she snapped at Nina for taking her out of the group home she’d escaped from.
“That makes zero sense,” Nina said, attempting to reason with her. “I did it because I love you.”
“You certainly fooled me,” replied Barbara. “Love has nothing to do with it.”
Kiki, out all hours, skipped summer school she had to pass to get promoted. Rusty, struggling to stay sober during the third heat wave of summer, spent listless nights on the couch. Barbara and Kiki objected but Nina held firm. Was she the only one who sensed the razor’s edge he walked on?
She continued to work nights and alternate weekends, a bottle of Aleve and a pack of Marlboros in her handbag. From time to time she would think of Simon, could feel the love he’d held for her ebbing, together with the sadness he carried over losing her. As she was no longer part of his life he’d moved on without regret or rancor. He wanted the best for her, she understood, but in the end he desired a partner who could love him in return. Eventually he would find that person, someone like himself who did not need fixing.
Dennis Donoghue
A year ago when Nina was still capable of working doubles at Green Manor, when her mother Barbara was even crazier (before Lamictal), when her ex Rusty had a cocaine habit and no job, when eighth grader Kiki was suspended for oppositional defiant behavior, and before she’d met Simon, she spent twenty straight hours in bed. The center of her forehead pulsed as if touched by a live probe. She did not eat or drink. She reassured Kiki she was not dying, to make sure Nana didn’t leave a cigarette on the arm of the couch, and not to let Dad in no matter how hard he begged. She’d never had a migraine and hadn’t had one since.
“That was a download,” diagnosed Cassandra, her reiki practitioner. “You were receiving instructions. As an empath you make the world healthier by absorbing negative energy. Have you read any Dolores Cannon?”
“My mother tried to strangle me. I thought maybe that was the reason.”
“You have more active mirror neurons than most people. While you are highly attuned to the emotions of others, you are also hypervigilant from buried trauma which makes you susceptible to those emotions.”
Nina was forty-six and had been a certified nursing assistant since high school. She was drawn to it despite endless hours on her feet, an aching back, a pack-a-day habit. She worked nights and alternate weekends. Sometimes she was the only CNA on the floor. She answered call buttons and did rounds, rolling a resident on his side to check the liner under the johnny for moisture. If it was wet she pulled it out and slipped a new one on. She might get someone a cup of ginger ale or peanut butter sandwich, switch off the TV that had been on since morning, or lean over the bedrail and chat for a minute. At Green Manor there was plenty of negative energy to absorb in the form of sadness, anger, despair, and complaining.
During the day while Nina tried to sleep Barbara would wander into the bedroom they shared. She opened dresser drawers and engaged in animated conversations with herself. Sometimes she sat on her bed smoking until she got her bearings. When Nina told her to get out, to change the outfit she’d had on for three days, Barbara would curse under her breath and turn up the volume on the TV in the living room louder than Nina’s white noise machine.
She’d broken it off with Simon after he said he loved her. When he’d mentioned a future together, she worried his needs–or rather his lack of them–would leave her with a chronic yearning. Trying to explain herself she’d ended up offending him, albeit unintentionally, saying people depended on her and that this reliance was the only life she’d known. He’d taken it as meaning he didn’t measure up.
“I can take care of myself,” he promised. “I’m a piece of cake really.”
She was uncomfortable with anyone who did not need saving. When Simon told her how beautiful she was, when he listened to what she had to say, no matter how tedious she thought she sounded, she wanted to get up and head for the door. With no moods to absorb, rotten or otherwise, and without consequential wants to address, she felt empty and unmoored. Every other man she’d been with–four in total–she’d kept around long after they should have been dismissed as irredeemable.
In The Empath’s Survival Guide by Judith Orloff, M.D., Nina answered yes to most of the questions. Empaths absorbed people’s inner baggage which left them drained and overwhelmed. A change was coming, an increasing vibration Nina did not understand but could sense somehow. She imagined herself an overloaded washer machine spinning across the floor. As a result of their psychic burden, empaths had trouble simply getting through the day, never mind working nights in a nursing home, caring for a deranged mother, and raising an obnoxious fifteen year old as a single parent.
“You chose Earth,” Cassandra reminded her. “Our protectors want what’s best for us so they don’t recommend coming here. You have a stubborn streak a mile long.”
It turned out Earth was actually a school–the toughest, most inner city school with metal detectors stranded on the outer fringes of the cosmos, attended by eight billion lunatics who threw garbage everywhere and devoted much of their time and energy in finding efficient ways of killing one another. According to Dolores Cannon, protectors had acted after the two atomic bomb drops. They did not want the site where hardy souls came to erase bad karma obliterated by its leaders hellbent on doing the opposite. Protectors couldn’t intercede but instead sent compassionate beings to act on their behalf. Nina, noted Cassandra, happened to be one of those beings, arriving in the first of three waves for the sole purpose of setting Earth straight again. Though proud she’d taken up the challenge, she couldn’t understand why her present incarnation was such a shitshow.
“I must have drowned kittens in a previous life,” she told her. “Or run over homeless people pushing shopping carts in crosswalks.”
“Every interaction provides an opportunity for spiritual growth.”
“Why is Rusty in my life? I know he’s Kiki’s dad but I’m sick of his sob stories.”
“He’s your teacher. From him you learn patience.”
“Good Christ. I suppose the same goes for my mother.”
“She assumed that persona before she arrived. Groups of like souls switch up roles from lifetime to lifetime in order to advance spiritually. Each has its own blueprint.”
“She’s worse than ever and Rusty’s headed to jail for not paying child support.”
“Both are bound by a desire for ego gratification. They are deeply enmeshed in delusion.”
“And Simon?”
“You mistake his emotions for your own. When he says he loves you it is not out of dependence. He doesn’t need fixing. His boundaries are defined.”
“What now?”
“That’s up to you.”
When she was young, after Barbara passed out, Nina would lie in bed and look for signs. Vague forms and faces materialized in the dark and floated above her like parade balloons. They did not speak yet she felt comforted by their presence. She knew them by name (George, Margaret, Dulce, Frank) and looked forward to seeing them. Their job was to keep her safe from the blitzed wackos living in the building she could hear shouting and cursing at 3 a.m. In daylight the foursome disappeared and left her to her own devices.
“Your spirit guides,” reminded Cassandra, “are always with you.”
And yet they could not intervene to change your actions. If you were about to step off a curb in front of a bus, too bad. That was the end you’d chosen for yourself. They might delay you, however, causing you to roll your ankle so you got to the stop a few seconds after the bus had passed. At least that was how Nina understood it.
In a moment of vulnerability she texted Simon.
Just wanted to say hi. How are you? Hope everything’s well.
Five minutes later she got a reply.
Nice to hear from you. Quite a surprise.
She read the text half a dozen times. She missed his attention, the straightforward thinking, the fact that what he saw in her she could not see in herself. Plus he was tall. She adored tall. Comfortable in his own skin, he harbored no illusions about saving anyone unless that person was drowning or cornered by fire. He left others’ emotions where they belonged, with the individuals experiencing them. He wasn’t particularly emotional himself, he’d admitted, as if this was a kind of strength. He liked himself well enough, he supposed, and might even love himself if that meant working on being a decent person and trying to do the right thing. Nina had no idea what loving yourself meant or how to achieve it. She pictured a knight in armor, a volley of Cupid’s arrows bouncing harmlessly away. She imagined kissing a mirror and repeating affirmations such as I love the person I am looking at. Wasn’t the idea to love others and put yourself last?
Not wanting to appear desperate, she waited an hour before responding.
Thinking about you. Probably shouldn’t say this. Can we meet?
Not sure what’s happening, he replied. Would appreciate some clarity. Coffee?
Her mother had to go, teacher or not. Barbara, with her barely passable hygiene, unpredictable volatility, lashing accusations and paranoid flare-ups, was not the grandmotherly role model Kiki deserved. When Nina was her daughter’s age she was essentially on her own, surviving on cans of chicken noodle soup and frozen pizzas, missing school a week at a time, dragging her mother into the shower, lying to social workers who came to the door, and self-medicating with Barbara’s pot. She’d gotten through somehow, making the best of the worst which was what she’d drilled into Kiki. Always make the best of the worst, honey.
After Nina was appointed proxy she located a bed in a group home in Danvers, ten miles south on Route 1. Despite prompting from her doctor, Barbara could not recall the name of Nina’s father (I’ve erased that bastard’s name from my memory. Put down ‘Gengis Khan’ for all I care.) The home featured a ping pong table, large airy bedrooms, a bright kitchen with quartz countertops, a flower garden with multiple bird feeders, and an assortment of yard games, as if the placement was some kind of summer camp. Smoking was permitted on the patio. When Nina sought her opinion, Barbara informed her she’d never been loved in her entire life. So this piece of trash is finally getting a change of scenery. No one could be happier.
Nina felt inept and ashamed giving up on her mother. If she loved her enough there ought to be a way to make it work. She felt Barbara’s anger and resentment as a physical ailment. Her heart cramped and her temples throbbed. A lead weight of despair settled in the pit of her stomach. To distract herself she ran to Walmart to get poster board, glitter glue, markers and stencils for Kiki’s project. She’d likely end up doing it herself because of Kiki’s anxiety and ADHD. If she didn’t, she’d fail science and not get promoted. She hoped her daughter might become a nurse, or open a hairdressing salon, though she hated school and never wanted to go. Her trouble was par for the course–Nina had been just as unmotivated, graduating only because her alternative high school handed her a diploma as a thank you for leaving.
The morning of admission Barbara locked herself in the bathroom until she realized Nina had her cigarettes.
It’s just a trial run, Mom,” Nina called through the door. “One month to see how it goes.”
“A real daughter would never do this to her mother.”
Once the intake coordinator collected the necessary information, someone with a name tag led Barbara down a hallway, lugging the suitcase and backpack. Nina could hear her mother in an animated tone cataloging the various injustices she’d perpetrated on her. She waited nervously in the small office as the intake coordinator, no doubt assessing Nina’s role, finished the paperwork.
“We shared a bedroom,” she said by way of explaining her mother’s slant. “None of that actually happened. She has anger issues.”
“Don’t we all now?”
“She should thrive here by the looks of things,” she added, more to herself than the woman, desperate for validation she’d made the right move.
“Some do, others don’t,” the woman said. “Only time will tell.”
It was supposed to happen the other way around, the spurned lover requesting a sit down. He bought them coffee at Starbucks. They sat across from one another. He waited, on guard, sensing he might be being played. She cleared her throat. She’d rehearsed.
“You must think I’m crazy.”
“Maybe a little.”
She came out with it. She wanted to be fair, to get to the point.
“I’ve never been loved in my entire life. This, what we have here, or had, scares me.”
He didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t meant to scare her. He wasn’t a psychiatrist. He sold appliances.
“I’m an empath,” she continued. “I take on people’s negative energies and feel compelled to help them. I’m attracted to those with needs.”
“Is that like some kind of alien?”
She laughed. She wondered how all this must sound. Maybe she was crazy. She pushed on anyway, mimicking Cassandra.
“Earth is actually a school. We come here to grow, to evolve spiritually.”
“A school of rock?”
She loved his wit. There was no drama, no demands, no leaning on her. He was trying to understand because he loved her. He looked at her and listened. He waited his turn. She was embarrassed, queasy. She’d never gotten that kind of attention from a man. She needed reassurance, an explanation for his desire.
“Why bother with me in the first place? I have a crazy mother, a rebellious tenager, an ex behind in child support. I work nights in a nursing home. I don’t have two nickels to rub together.”
He laughed.
“I guess I’m slow on the uptake. I feel something with you. Your looks, definitely, your personality, your compassion. There’s a lot there from what I’ve seen.”
“You’d make a great politician.”
“Well, that’s how I feel. I don’t know how else to put it.”
“No one has ever said those things to me.”
Four years ago Simon’s wife of many years fell off her bike and hit her head. She’d swerved around a runaway toddler on a rail trail. She’d been wearing a helmet. It was a freak accident. Before he mentioned it to Nina, she’d been telling him about Dolores Cannon, how we choose our exits, deciding before we arrive how we’ll depart. It was all done ahead of time as some kind of psychic lesson we needed to learn, a resolution of old karma. It sounded absurd but in an odd way he found it comforting, as if Terri somehow knew and wasn’t afraid and wanted to die quickly just as she’d arranged.
“I’m sorry,” he added, “that you’ve never heard anything like that before. That no one has said they love you.”
“My mother used to call me My Little Anchor. She planned to write a children’s book with that title but of course she never did.”
She would flounder under his devotion. It would be like being thrown into a pool where she wouldn’t have the strength to make it to the side. But wasn’t selfless love a kind of floundering?
“I don’t know if I have what it takes. For us, I mean.”
“Baby steps.”
She hadn’t touched her coffee.
“Even baby steps.”
“That’s all there is. Tiny weeny baby steps. I’d like to see you again.”
Cassandra suggested meditation as an avenue towards self-love.
“Ten minutes a day and work up from there,” she said. “Empaths need time to recharge.”
“I don’t have ten minutes.”
“You are too busy being led around by your overactive mind. You have to pause and let love come to you.”
“Come to me?”
“Allow yourself to become a vessel. Open your heart and sit in silence. Love will come.”
Cassandra gave Nina a break because she paid in cash. She loved the oddball music, the chimes, flutes and rattles, as she stretched out on the massage table on her stomach, her face plugged into the horse collar. Cassandra was one of the few people Nina felt comfortable closing her eyes around. Some clients cried, even sobbed, as energy passed along by the practitioner released raw emotions. Nina wanted to cry, had every reason, but not a single tear fell. Being vulnerable meant you felt safe, that you had stable people around you, that you weren’t on alert constantly, which had never been the case in her life.
As Cassandra’s hands moved slowly over her body, cupping her shoulders, pressing the center of her back and grasping the heels and ankles, fingers brushing calves and forearms, startling visuals flashed through her mind which made her twitch self-consciously. They were similar to images she saw just as she was about to slip off to sleep–bright, unconnected, lasting a second or two, perhaps providing a message she might at some point decipher. Later, lying on her back, she felt Cassandra’s touch on her hip bones. When she moved down to her knees the pressure and heat on her hips did not abate, as if her hands were still there, like some form of magic. There was a soothing palm pressing her diaphragm, interlaced hands bracing the base of her skull, massaging thumbs pressing the veins of her temples. Nina did not understand the dynamics of reiki, despite Cassandra’s explanations, but felt buoyant and at peace well into the next day. After the session she would sit up on the table and listen to what had been revealed to Cassandra.
“Your guilt about your mother is understandable. The decision was the correct one for you and your daughter. You will come to understand this as she moves into this new phase.”
“I’ve abandoned her. Payback, I guess.”
“Simon also came through. His love is transparent. He has no agenda. Empaths mistake their emotional connection to others as a duty to take care of them. That’s enabling.”
Nina felt angry and misunderstood. She’d cared for the people she loved, could feel their need for her as a palpable tug, an ache demanding a response. Now she was being told it had all been a mistake.
“I’ve wasted my time. Is that what you’re saying?”
“Hardly. Remember, it was your decision to come to Earth in the first place, to resolve past trauma, but your fourth chakra, anakata, is blocked. Without contemplation and a sense of gratitude, you will struggle to receive the guidance you need. My role is to offer suggestions.”
“It feels like an insult frankly.”
Cassandra nodded that she understood. As always her face bore a placid look that said Take it or leave it.
Kiki’s guidance counselor left a message on Nina’s phone. Was she available for a conference or a phone conversation? Kiki’s issues, explained the counselor, ranged beyond what Gardner Tech could accommodate–irritability, speed talking, arguing with peers, thinking she knew more than her teachers. Did that indicate, Nina wondered, whether she was bipolar like her grandmother or just another sulky teenager? When she returned the call she neglected to inform the counselor Kiki was now alone at night. There were no day shifts available and they were for less money anyway. She promised the counselor she’d look into getting Kiki help. She wouldn’t, terrified a therapist might pry out the truth and child welfare would pound on the door while Nina was trying to sleep. She would deal with Kiki’s issues herself.
At Simon’s suggestion, they rented a canoe and spent the day on the Ipswich River.
“It’ll be easier to talk if we don’t have to face one another.”
“I’ve never been in a canoe.”
“I’ll paddle. You enjoy the scenery.”
He’d packed lunch–cheese and crackers, chocolate–dipped strawberries, a bottle of pinot grigio. The morning they’d met two months ago he’d found her on the side of the road with a flat tire. Her shift had just ended and she didn’t have AAA. Before he’d driven past and turned around, she’d called Rusty who’d just punched in at Lowe’s.
“Are you trying to get me fired?” he shouted when she’d asked for help, as if she’d run over the nail on purpose. “You want me in jail, right? You’ve already ruined my life more than once.”
Simon fixed the flat in fifteen minutes. Nina bought him lunch two days later.
They paddled and exchanged small talk. Trees overhanging the banks slid by on both sides. Each bend surprised her. Around one a line of painted turtles tucked into their olive green shells sunned themselves on a partly submerged log, the tips of their noses just visible. Around another a gray heron with hints of blue stood in shallow water, one leg tucked under its preened feathers. She’d never seen a creature that beautiful this close. As they squeezed under the arch of a stone bridge, they listened to their echoes. A breeze cooled by the forest brushed her skin. Through leafy gaps bands of silver sunlight reminded her of an abstract painting. The canoe moved silently while Simon pointed out a certain flower or type of vegetation with his dripping paddle. She felt like a child enthralled by the moving stillness, the fragrance of new blossoms, the remarkable shades of greenery, all of it seeming to have come together without effort. On the shoreline they found a sunny strip of grass. Simon hopped out in knee deep water as the bow of the canoe slipped up onto the sand. He grabbed the backpack and moved to the front to take her hand.
“There’s something on your calf.”
He turned, bent his knee and calmly tugged a leech from his skin. He pressed a napkin on the wound. It would bleed for a bit, he told her, as it injected an anticoagulant to get the blood flowing, to get what it needed to survive. He wasn’t the least bit concerned.
“It belongs here too,” he said. “It has a purpose just like every other organism on this river.”
“What purpose is that?” she asked. “What in God’s name is it supposed to do?”
“A food source, I guess. Honestly, I have no clue.”
She laughed.
“Mr. Scientist.”
“I just pretend to know what I’m talking about.”
“Don’t we all?”
He spread a blanket and placed round river stones on the corners. Out of a backpack he produced a small wooden cutting board, a Swiss army knife, the wine and food. Nina thought of the Hallmark movies popular at Green Manor, the formulaic themes of women meeting their Prince Charmings. Sometimes while feeding a resident she would watch, imagining herself starry-eyed and longing. The men were handsome and kind and confident, though a bit obtuse in a little boy way, the women lonely and beautiful and surprised by their good fortune. She couldn’t help but be captivated by scenes so removed from real life.
She was dying for a cigarette. She asked his permission.
“I don’t care if you smoke. Most of my co-workers do.”
“I want to quit,” she said. “I’ve said that more than any other statement in my life.”
Just that morning she’d told Kiki about the canoe trip, how Simon was just a friend.
“What kind of friend?” Kiki asked.
“I’m still trying to figure that out.”
“I could use a father figure, preferably someone sane.”
She inhaled and extinguished the cigarette. She’d be fine without it.
“How are your kids doing?’
There was a daughter in Pittsburgh, a son in Albany. No grandchildren yet though he was hoping.
“They worry about me so they call a lot, as if I can’t keep myself safe. After what happened to their mother, they have a lot of anxiety. I didn’t tell them about this. They’d expect me to be swept overboard.”
She felt his strong longing for them, the deep grief still fresh for his wife, and yet more powerfully she felt his need to forge ahead without Terri, to remake his life and have his children where their careers took them, to build their own satisfying lives without him.
“My mother calls constantly,” she said. “She hates me for what I did to her.”
“What choice does a person have in your situation? She needs a professional setting where she can get help.”
“She had her routine with me. She was with her granddaughter too.”
“Living with a mentally ill person doesn’t work, unless he’s on the right dosage and respects limits. My nephew Zeke is thirty-seven, has a girlfriend and a job. He lives in one of those places. It wasn’t working having him at home. My sister was on more medication than he was.”
“I’ve abandoned her. She never fails to remind me.”
“She’s only twenty minutes away.”
“It isn’t the same.”
They ate and sipped wine while canoes drifted downstream–reds, greens, silvers. Couples paddled, dogs wearing bandannas barked at floating twigs, teenage boys baled on a listing rubber raft.
“So what are your plans?” he asked, “About us I mean?”
He wanted to lean over and kiss her. She sensed it and drew herself upright.
“Any woman would be crazy not to want you,” she said. “Maybe I don’t have what it takes. You’ll figure out something’s wrong with me even before we even begin.”
She held the cards. He felt lucky to be here.
“You’re not missing anything as far as I can tell.”
He leaned over and kissed her. They hadn’t had sex, had kissed just one time, briefly, awkwardly, after their third date, in his car in daylight in the parking lot of her apartment building. Now she felt a sudden shifting. It had been ages. Maybe it was the setting, the fresh air, the wine. An attractive attentive guy loved her and here she was resisting. Had she planned this before she arrived here too, leading him on before breaking his heart for no good reason? That was hardly how one erased bad karma.
They finished the bottle. Nina ducked into the woods to pee behind a wide oak while Simon kept lookout. He shielded his eyes with the flat of his hand and turned his head side to side.
“All clear,” he called. “Release the flood waters!”
“I can’t even pee now. Stop making me laugh.”
In a moment of giddy lightheadedness, she understood she’d relied on the desperate needs of others to sustain her, like the bloodsucker Simon had pulled off his leg. What was happening right now must be a form of self-love, this simple act of allowing oneself to be cherished without feeling obligated to do anything in return. She took a deep breath to steady herself as she returned to the blanket. She considered Cassandra’s advice.
What now?
That’s up to you.
She sat close to him. He held her. He was relaxed, enjoying himself, looking out on the water. She updated him on her mother. She ran ideas by him. He listened and offered his take. Starting Monday she would drag Kiki by the ear to school. She’d warn Rusty he could no longer waltz into the apartment any time he felt like it. She’d sit in a chair and meditate for five minutes and build from there.
“Maybe I’m not a lost cause.”
“Never entered my mind,” he said. “Sometimes we’re our own worst enemies.”
He kissed her again. She pulled him into her. They lay down on the blanket. She could feel in her bones how he wanted her, but it was not the need she’d experienced with others, a need based on greed and selfishness. What Simon expected from her was nothing other than an open heart.
“I think so,” she whispered. “I think maybe.”
Barbara tore off her Wanderguard anklet after breakfast. The police issued a silver alert. That afternoon she was found sitting on a bench by a duck pond half a mile from the group home, returned, given Klonopin, plunked in front of a TV in the day room where staff could keep an eye on her. When Nini and Kiki got there, Barbara had drool on her chin, a cup of pink liquid with a straw in front of her. Kiki pulled out a tissue.
“What the fuck Mom? Nana’s a vegetable.”
“Let me talk to someone.”
There was no one around.
“Please can we take her home? Sign the forms,” pleaded Kiki.
“I’m not sure that’s for the best.”
“Just look at her. Nana, it’s me, Kiki.”
Barbara shrugged, barely. Nina had seen those shrugs at Green Manor when residents did not understand, when they couldn’t see through the fog. A shrug was better than nothing, they seemed to be saying.
“I don’t like being alone at night,” said Kiki. “I hear all the weirdos coming and going. I miss watching Wives with Knives with Nana.”
She put an arm around her grandmother.
“Right, Nana?”
Barbara did not shrug this time.
Nina glanced in the side mirror for oncoming traffic before pulling out of the space. Barbara slept beside her, slouched against the door. Kiki vaped and watched Tiktok videos in the back seat. Rusty called to complain about his court date.
“I won’t be here much longer,” he said. “I’ve had all I can take.”
“It’s called tough love,” said Kiki.
Rusty lived in his car, a 2007 Odyssey with 280,000 miles on the odometer. The judge did not care that he lived in a van with four bald tires, a broken radio and air conditioner, a rear hatch that did not stay up on its own.
“Just so you know,” Rusty continued. “I’ve stopped eating. I can’t afford it.”
Kiki blew a raspberry.
“Right back at you.”
“I’ve had a long day,” said Nina. “Are you about finished?”
“This is the last time you’ll hear from me. I bet I just made your day.”
“Please don’t talk like that.”
“He’d have to Google it,” said Kiki. “He doesn’t have a clue.”
“Do you need me to come over? Where are you parked? Don’t do anything rash.”
“Mom, he’s full of shit.”
“Let’s talk later. I’ll call you in one hour.”
“If I’m still here, that is.”
Nina could feel his desperation. She saw the filthy van, an overflowing ashtray, empty coffee cups and crumbled fast food bags, a grimy sleeping bag and leaky cooler. Perspiration dripped from his chin even with the windows down. His labored breathing alarmed her.
“Mom, don’t you dare. He’s a grown man who can take care of himself.”
Simon texted.
You’re a natural in a canoe. Thought maybe we could do it again before summer’s out. Dinner this week?
It was fun, she replied. Thank you.
Well?
She didn’t respond.
Bouts of vertigo grew more frequent. She had no appetite and began dropping things. Gaps in awareness were out of character–in the grocery checkout she discovered she’d left her wallet in the car, at intersections she was startled awake by an angry horn as the light turned green, in the middle of her shift she realized the rent was a week overdue. Even in small crowds emotions swept over her, forcing her to find a place to sit down and gather herself. Half the time she felt she didn’t belong on this planet she’d chosen to spend a lifetime. A density produced by cosmic realignment involving leylines, crystals and solar flares made even moving a chore. Cassandra had warned of these symptoms but Nina hadn’t expected them to be so debilitating.
Barbara, back at home, didn’t help matters. Belligerent as ever, she snapped at Nina for taking her out of the group home she’d escaped from.
“That makes zero sense,” Nina said, attempting to reason with her. “I did it because I love you.”
“You certainly fooled me,” replied Barbara. “Love has nothing to do with it.”
Kiki, out all hours, skipped summer school she had to pass to get promoted. Rusty, struggling to stay sober during the third heat wave of summer, spent listless nights on the couch. Barbara and Kiki objected but Nina held firm. Was she the only one who sensed the razor’s edge he walked on?
She continued to work nights and alternate weekends, a bottle of Aleve and a pack of Marlboros in her handbag. From time to time she would think of Simon, could feel the love he’d held for her ebbing, together with the sadness he carried over losing her. As she was no longer part of his life he’d moved on without regret or rancor. He wanted the best for her, she understood, but in the end he desired a partner who could love him in return. Eventually he would find that person, someone like himself who did not need fixing.
