Dusty wants to know where it is, and I show him, and then Mom finds a diagram of the brain. They all lean in, even Marcus, and Mom reads, “ ‘People with prosopagnosia have great difficulty recognizing faces, and may fail to recognize people that they have met many times and know well—even family.’ ” She glances up at me like Is this true? and I nod. “ ‘Prosopagnosia is caused by a problem with processing visual information in the brain, which can be present at birth or develop later due to brain injury.’ ”
Marcus says, “Like when you fell off the roof.”
I tell them I was tested, and they have a million questions. I answer them as best I can, and at some point my mom says, “I want you to remember that you can’t feel responsible for everything. We’re your parents, and we will figure us out. All you need to do, any of you”—she looks at my brothers—“is be a kid for now and let us be there for you.”
“All of us?” Dusty says. “Even those of us without neurological disorders?”
“All of you.”
I’ve always thought you should be able to freeze time. This way you could hit the Pause button at a really good point in your life so that nothing changes. Think about it. Loved ones don’t die. You don’t age. You go to bed and wake up the next morning to find everything just as you left it. No surprises.
If I could freeze time, this is the moment I would choose, falling asleep on my dad’s shoulder, George on my lap, like I’m eight years old again.
This is what I know about loss:
It doesn’t get better. You just get (somewhat) used to it.
You never stop missing the people who go away.
For something that isn’t there anymore, it weighs a ton.
By the time I started eating—really eating—the loss was already so big it felt like I was carrying around the world. So carrying around the weight wasn’t any heavier. It was trying to carry around both that got to be too much. Which is why sometimes you have to set some of it down. You can’t carry all of it forever.
It’s almost dawn by the time I get to bed. I lie on top of the blanket, wide awake, shoes on, clothes on, staring at the ceiling. I feel full, and also empty, but not in a bad way. Maybe empty’s not the right word. I feel light.
I may love Libby Strout.
Not just like like her.
Love.
As in I love her.
I love her rollicking, throaty laugh that makes her sound as if she’s got a cold. I love the way she struts like she’s on a catwalk. I love the hugeness of her, and I don’t mean her actual physical weight.
And then I start thinking about her eyes. If you asked me to tell you what Caroline’s eyes look like, I couldn’t tell you. Even though I can describe them when I’m looking directly into them, I can’t describe them when she’s not in front of me.
But I can tell you what Libby’s eyes look like.
They are like lying in the grass under the sky on a summer day. You’re blinded by the sun, but you can feel the ground beneath you, so as much as you think you could go flying off, you know you won’t. You’re warmed from the inside and from the outside, and you can still feel that warmth on your skin when you walk away.
I can tell you other things too.
She has a constellation of freckles on her face that remind me of Pegasus (left cheek) and Cygnus (right cheek).
Her eyelashes are as long as my arm, and when she’s flirting, she does this deliberate, slow blink that knocks me off my feet.
Also there’s her smile. Let me tell you, it’s amazing, like it comes from the deepest part of her, a part made of blue skies and sunshine.
And then I’m like, Wait a damn minute.
I sit up. Rub my head. Maybe it’s the booze, but …
When did I start being able to remember her face?
And suddenly I’m having this total Sixth Sense experience as my mind scrolls back over the weeks I’ve known her. I run through every single time I’ve seen her, every instance I’ve been able to pick her out of a crowd or find her out of context. I test myself.
Picture her eyebrows.
Slightly arched, as if she’s always amused.
Picture her nose.
The way it wrinkles when she laughs.
Picture her mouth.
Not just the red of her lips, but the way the corners turn up, as if she’s smiling even when she isn’t.
Picture all the pieces together.
The way her cheekbones curve out and her chin curves in, almost like a heart. The fierceness and softness and glow of her that make her look so ALIVE.
All this time, I thought it was her weight that made me see her.
But it’s not her weight at all.
It’s her.
I’m up early, even though it’s Sunday. I leave my dad a note and then I’m out of the house, bundled in a jacket and scarf. After a block, my hands are freezing, and I jam them deep into my coat pockets. I’m meeting Rachel in the park because I have something to tell her. I know why I punched Jack Masselin.
There’s a chill in the air that feels like winter, or at least the start of it. This is my least-favorite time of year because everything dies or goes to sleep, and there’s too much death and stillness, and the sky turns gray for so long, you think it will never be blue again. Right now the sky can’t quite make up its mind. It’s blue in patches, gray in patches, with spots of white, like a faded quilt.
Rachel has brought us hot cider from the coffee shop by her house. We sit looking at the golf course, blowing on our drinks to cool them down. I tell her a little about Mick from Copenhagen and Moses Hunt and taking Jack home.