Chapter 1
The sense of someone’s presence pulls me out of the nightmare, the same terrifying dream I’ve had every night for the past year. I can’t explain how I know someone is there; I just do. It’s only a feeling at first, something that presses in on me, something foreign taking up space in the familiar surroundings of my room. As I wake, the presence takes on more tangibles.
Sounds, for example. I know every rustle and creak in the house, the hum of the refrigerator compressor, the distant rumble of the furnace and hiss of the air through the vents, the squeak of a floorboard in the hall or on the stairs to the ground floor, rain on the roof and the rattle of water in the drainpipes, the chirps and warbles of birds outside, and the fluttering of leaves in a soft breeze. From all that background noise I can pick out the sounds of soft breathing, the barest rustle of fabric.
Scents, too. Without even wrinkling my nose, I can smell and taste the air around me. I gather in the faint aroma of lavender, the stronger smells of caramelized bread and roasted coffee, as if whoever stands there passed through the kitchen on the way upstairs. Something else reminds me of childhood—a buttery smell with a hint of lemon and vanilla like the sugar cookies I made with my mother. Behind all that I catch a whiff of something sour though not unpleasant. More like the smell of honest hard work. A little sweat and elbow grease.
I sit up and turn toward the closet. “Morning, Alice.”
“Ah, you’re awake,” Alice says. “Good morning. I thought you might sleep forever. Isn’t today your big day?”
“You know very well what day it is, Alice.”
She sighs. “I suppose I do. Just a day like any other. Anyway, I’ve laid some things out here on your chair. Breakfast is ready whenever you are.”
“I’ll be down in a minute.” I don’t hear sounds of movement. “I don’t need any help. I’ve been doing this since I was three.”
“And thank goodness for that,” Alice says. “I have enough to do around here without worrying about getting you in and out of your clothes.” Alice bustles toward the door, then pauses. I open my mouth, but before a word gets out, Alice says, “All right. I’m going. I’ll be downstairs in the kitchen.”
The bedroom door closes with a soft click. I’m glad that Alice made no reference to the nightmare, though she must have been in the room or close by when I thrashed in fear beneath the sheets. I resent the fact that Alice still treats me like a child sometimes.
I’m seventeen, for god’s sake. An adult.
I swing my legs out of bed, get to my feet, and mentally picture the room. With confident steps, I pace off the distance to the bathroom door, put out my hand, and touch the molding of the doorframe. I’ve gotten better and better at this the past several months, especially with all the wires and tubing, wheeled stands, IV poles, and beeping equipment out of the way. Now I think I could get ready in my sleep. It’s the rest of the day I’m not so sure about.
While I splash my face and brush my teeth and hair, I think about Alice. Short and slight, Alice is rather plain, though not unattractive. I have no idea how old she is, but since she’s been with us for practically forever—first as a nanny when we lived in California, and then as a full-fledged house manager after we moved here—she must be ancient. She never wears makeup and usually has her mousy brown hair wound up in a bun at the back of her head, making her look older than she probably is. She’s always been fair to me, if not kind, but her manner is as severe as her appearance.
Alice has never been the warm and cuddly type. Practical, maybe, or efficient describe her better. I’ve always gotten along with her, but she’s not exactly my best buddy. She’s perfectly capable of pitching in—taking me to gymnastics or piano lessons, helping with homework, that sort of thing, like when mom was too busy. But I’ve never confided in Alice. I have hazy recollections of snuggling up with my mom when I was very little. Before we moved here and everything changed. Before my mother turned into “Tiger Mom.” I can’t even imagine snuggling up to Alice. But if I’m ever in real trouble, Alice is probably the first person I’d call for help, not my family.
Family—as if I even have such a thing anymore.
However much a misnomer, I suppose Alice is my family now. And what an odd, untraditional family. Ironic, a housekeeper named Alice—like this is an episode of The Brady Bunch. The problem is that Alice isn’t real family, no matter how long she’s known me. She’s not my mother, even though she’s taken over my mom’s role. I can hardly stand it. Okay, so my mom and I aren’t on the best of terms. Alice can never take her place. No one can. I mean, if I’m going to fight with someone, I’d rather battle the real thing than a sparring partner, a shadow-boxer. Not that Alice isn’t tough. In some ways she’s tougher than Tiger Mom.
I count off the steps to the chair next to my dresser, reach out, and touch the clothes Alice picked out for me. I shimmy out of T-shirt and PJ shorts and dress carefully, minding where zippers and buttons and seams go. Normally, I’d throw on a pair of ripped skinny jeans or leggings, baggy T-shirt, fleece vest if it’s cool out, sneakers or Doc Martens, and a ball cap. Today’s different.
The skirt doesn’t button easily. It’s tight around the waist. A year ago, I wouldn’t be caught dead in it, but a baggy sweater will hide the fact it doesn’t fit me, the “new” me anyway. I make a mental note to have Alice take me to the mall to get some new clothes. I’ve spent much of the past six months, once I was no longer confined to bed, in loose sweats and old jeans, comfortable clothes conducive to the brutal regimen of rehab.
Reasonably certain I haven’t done anything stupid like put the skirt on backward or button the blouse unevenly, I find my way into the bathroom again, brush my hair one last time and gather it into a ponytail. Next time, I’ll talk Alice into going along with something simpler, something more “normal.” But she insisted on the goody-two-shoes look, and I agreed. For today at least. I’m not the same person I was a year ago.
The thought of what lies ahead makes me nervous. I clutch the edge of the sink for a moment, heart racing, breath coming in shallow gasps. The porcelain is cool under my hands, the smooth, rounded corners of the basin somehow reassuring, solid.
Easy. You’ve been there before. No big deal.
But it is a big deal. First day of school is always a big deal.
I straighten and carefully walk through the doorway, taking small, slow steps. I’m instantly aware of someone else’s presence in my room, this time accompanied by the strong, sweet smell of sarsaparilla, reminding me of root beer floats.
“Tiger lilies.” One of my favorites. “Good morning, Yoshi.”
“Good morning. Yes, tiger lilies. So sorry for not knocking, missy. I’m thinking you all ready for school today.”
I laugh. “You never knock, Yoshi.”
“But you always decent when I come in, hai? And you always glad to see me.”
“Yes, I’m always glad to see you.” Though I can’t remember the last time I actually laid eyes on him.
Yoshi, our gardener and handyman, is a more recent addition to the family. He came to work for us when we moved here. The house is enormous, and the grounds extensive enough that my parents wanted the extra help. My mom loved flowers, but didn’t have the time to tend the gardens and flowerbeds around the property, especially after she quit working and started spending all her time running the foundation she and my dad started. So, Yoshi took care of all of that.
Like the game Clue, the house actually has a conservatory with a greenhouse attached. Yoshi makes sure we have flowers year round, which mom loved. I hadn’t paid much attention until the past year. If not for Yoshi, I might have gone insane. Yoshi has brought me a fresh flower and greeted me cheerfully every day since I got home from the hospital after ten days in ICU. I arrived on a gurney with my pelvis broken in four places, three cracked ribs, a broken wrist, a broken jaw, a severe concussion, no eyesight—and my mother’s reminder to fasten my seatbelt still ringing in my ears.
A fat lot of good seatbelts did my parents.
Despite my injuries, at least I survived.
I rejected Yoshi’s kindness at first, rudely pushing him away—just as I did anyone else who came close after the accident. I felt monstrous, and didn’t want anyone to see me in that condition. I hated everyone, the pain and anger so consuming that there wasn’t room in mind or heart for gratitude or even manners. If my jaw hadn’t been wired shut, I would have screamed at all the people who cared for me, who fed, clothed, and bathed me. But the days and weeks of excruciating rehab were mind-numbingly boring. And Yoshi didn’t seem to care how rude I was; he still showed up each morning with flowers and sunny words.
I noticed the differences in floral scents, and asked Yoshi the name of each flower he brought me. Soon, I could name them by scent as soon as he entered the room. Not long after, Yoshi brought other things to smell. Objects with strong scents at first: cinnamon sticks, oranges, garlic cloves, spring onions from the garden, bacon strips, chocolate, and more. I especially liked the chocolate or mints he brought—any type of candy, really.
Most of what he gave me early on presented little challenge to either my sense of smell or memory. Names for the things he brought immediately popped into my head based on their scent. He quickly made a game of it, bringing me increasingly challenging items to sniff out and identify. Things that required a little more thought. To make it interesting, he might present me with two or three items that smelled similar and prod me to tell him what they were. Leather shoes smell different than a leather handbag, for example, and both smell different than a leather-bound book. Shoes have an overtone of sweat and dirt. Book leather includes scents of dust and paper. A new basketball also smells different than tennis balls. Both smell of rubber, but the felt on the tennis balls gives them an odor distinct from the basketball—knowledge I’ll probably never use, serving only to remind me I’ll never be able to play sports again.
Pretty soon, Yoshi showed up with components of scents—essential oils, esters, terpenes, and aromatics. A lot of them were just plain nasty, reminding me of rotten eggs, decaying garbage, dead animals, or rotting fish—and likely a never-ending source of humor for Yoshi. But most were pleasant—unless they reminded me of things that made me sad. Like hexanaldehyde, an alkyl aldehyde that smells like cut grass, which brings back memories of playing with my father in the backyard in California when I was tiny. He pretended to be a horse and let me ride on his back around the lawn after it was mowed. He even pretended to graze like a horse, the sight of him munching grass making me giggle like crazy. I’m too old for baby games, but I miss him so much sometimes, it hurts.
Yoshi combined many of the ingredients, the way a perfumer or fragrance expert might, pushing me to refine what he calls my excellent nose. After a great deal of practice, I could smell an odor and pick out most of its notes or overtones.
“I have something for you,” Yoshi says.
I lean forward and sniff, frown and sniff again. I get a strong scent of hand soap with a faint earthy undertone, so I know he’s holding his hand out in front of me. But that’s all.
“I don’t smell anything.”
Yoshi laughs. “That because they not have smell. Yoshi fool you.”
His calloused hand circles my wrist, turns my hand palm up, and presses something hard and smooth into it. I close my fingers over it, sense its coolness, and feel my heart slow. My thumb explores the surface of what I guess is some sort of stone and finds an indentation. I rub it slowly.
“What is it?”
“A worry stone,” he says. “Any time you feel life getting too hard, you rub. Feel better.”
He takes my other hand and presses another stone into my palm. I turn it over in my fingers.
“What’s this? You think I’m so worried I need two?”
“Two stones,” he says, “for two kinds of worries.”
“How am I supposed to tell them apart?”
“You will know. They will tell you.”
“How?”
“Be still. Just listen.”
I frowned, but quiet my thoughts. The second stone feels the same, but different. It isn’t just the shape—slightly thicker at one end than the first stone, with an extra little dimple on one side—but something else. I slow my breathing and shake the tension out of my shoulders.
“Good,” Yoshi murmurs.
I focus and pay attention to the sensations coming from the stones. The first one filled me with a sense of calm. But as soon as Yoshi pressed the second stone into my hand, I realize I felt almost a tingle, some sort of energy, radiate up my arm. Now it spreads into my shoulder, down my back and into my chest.
I open my fingers and hold out the first one. “What’s this?”
“Pink quartz. Very powerful healing for the heart.”
I think about that for a moment. I’m not sure there’s anything in the world powerful enough to repair the hole in my chest. Not unless the stone could turn back time. Okay, so sophomore year was a cipher, and I fought with my parents most of junior year. This wasn’t like when someone’s parents go away for the weekend, leaving an empty house and a full liquor cabinet. My parents were gone. For good. I push the thought away before it kindles all the anger and sadness that wants to fill that empty space.
“And the other one?”
“Blue obsidian. Protect you when you travel, and help you talk.”
I laugh. “Some people don’t think I need any help in that regard.”
“Help you with schoolwork, maybe. And help you learn more Japanese.”
“Oh, so like help learning languages?”
“And expressing what is in your mind. You feel it?”
I nod. “Thank you. Would you put these in my bag?”
I hold them out, and as soon as he takes them from my hands, I feel different, a change in energy, as though someone hit a dimmer switch, and suddenly doubts creep back into my mind.
For the first three months, the pain was so bad I barely moved. With my jaw wired shut, my food intake was limited to a liquid diet. I demanded a lot of milkshakes. The cold helped numb some of the pain, and the sweetness was small consolation for my situation. The drugs and steroids didn’t help, nor did the treats Yoshi brought me. To my horror, I realized one day that I’d plumped up like a blimp. Yoshi cut back the treats and worked me harder in my daily jiu-jitsu lessons once the physical therapists thought I was ready. A lot of the excess weight was gone, but my body had a new shape, and I had no way of seeing it to assess whether it was as gross and disgusting as I suspected.
Suddenly nervous, I ask Yoshi, “Do I look all right?”
“Very pretty, missy.”
“You wouldn’t just say that to be nice, right?”
“Why say it if it not true?”
He makes sense, but I’m not convinced. I raise my hand, my fingers unconsciously finding a ridge of scar tissue where I part my hair. My fingers don’t have to move to know that the scar disappears under my long hair and follows the curve of my skull back and down as far as the fusion of parietal and occipital bones. Nor do they need to explore the bumpy rope of flesh any further the other way to remind me that it splits my face, running through one eyebrow to the cheekbone and down to my chin. I let my hand fall to my waist.
“Could you walk me downstairs, Yoshi?”
“Hai. You do me great honor, missy.”
Yoshi takes my hand, places it on his arm, and guides me out. I count the steps down the hall, noting when Yoshi turns me gently and warns me that we’re at the top of the stairs. I know how many steps are on the curved staircase—twenty-five. I placed a hand on the banister to steady myself. I used to slide down when we first moved in. When I was still a kid.
At the bottom we turn to walk through the foyer and down a long hallway toward the kitchen. The closer we get, the more nervous I am. I hear voices from up ahead. Alice’s, and a male voice, vaguely familiar. I heard it recently. It dawn on me where, suddenly, and panic wells up inside. Thoughts raced through my head, and feelings churn in the pit of my stomach.
So many questions . . .
We reach the kitchen door, and Yoshi stops. The conversation stops, too.
“Ah, there you are,” Alice says. “Guess who’s here?”
I hear the scuff of chair legs on the floor before I can reply, and the male voice says, “Good morning.”
It’s all too much, too soon. More than I can handle. I whirl out of Yoshi’s grasp, put my hands out, and flee back the way we came.
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