“I auditioned for Matthew Bourne’s company when they came to Boston, and I got accepted.”
“So you’re going to London?” asks Katie, in total disbelief.
“I’m going to London!”
Here, Katie’s been agonizing over whether to move with Felix to Oregon, guilty and scared and worried over the prospect of leaving Charlestown and her family, her comfort zone, and there is Meghan, without any drama, who just, boom, decides to move alone to another country.
“I can’t believe you’re going to live in London.”
“I know. I’m totally psyched. The company is called New Adventures, and they’re amazing. Matthew’s choreography is more contemporary and edgy, and I love his storytelling, how he combines acting and dance. You have to see Edward Scissorhands. It’s mind-blowing. They tour all over the UK. Last year, they also performed in Paris and Moscow.”
“Holy shit, Meg. That sounds awesome. How long would you be there?”
“I dunno. At least three years.”
Katie studies her sister, and there’s not one ounce of guilt or hesitation in her. Of course Meghan should go. So why does Katie feel obligated to stay?
“Do you think Mom and Dad will be upset about you leaving?”
“Nope. They already know. Dad’s cool with it, and Mom’s trying to be. You know how she worries. And so, I kinda need to tell you something,” says Meghan, teeing up something big and bad with her tone.
“What?” asks Katie, bracing herself.
“I’m gonna move in with JJ and Colleen for the summer, rent-free, to save up money for London in exchange for some babysitting.”
“Okay,” says Katie, relieved. That’s not a big deal.
“And I hate to be the one to break it to you, but whether you go to Portland or not, you’re moving out, too.”
“What?”
“Mom and Dad need to rent out our unit for real. The going rate for a three-bedroom is like four times what we pay, and they need the money.”
Shit. That’s a big deal.
“When was someone going to tell me all this?”
“It just got decided like two days ago, after I told them about London. Mom’s afraid to tell you. She’s feels bad that Dad turned our old bedroom into a dining room, and they’d be kicking you out without giving you somewhere to go. I told her you’d probably go live with Felix, but she acted like she didn’t hear me.”
“Yeah, she’s practically forcing me to live in sin now.”
“Right.”
“It’s kinda like the universe is telling me to move to Portland.”
“Yup.”
Katie has the sudden, overwhelming urge to move off the stoop. She can’t sit still anymore.
“You wanna go for a run?” asks Katie.
“Me? Not unless someone’s chasing us.”
“A walk? I need to move.”
“Nah, you go. I need a nap before tonight.”
Meghan is dancing tonight in Lady of the Camellias. She finishes her cigarette and stubs it out on the step.
“Don’t tell Ma. See you tonight?”
“Yup.”
“You bringing Felix?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. And yoga in the morning, right?”
“Right.”
“Okay, see you later. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
A memory flashes through Katie as she hugs her sister. It’s Sunday-morning Mass, the priest’s homily, and Katie’s about ten years old. Father Michael is telling a story about a sick girl in a hospital. She needs a blood transfusion, and without one, she’ll die. Her younger brother, the only family member with the same blood type, volunteers to donate his blood to save her. When the nurse is done drawing his blood, the brother asks, “Now when will I die?” Of course, the boy misunderstood and he would live, but he believed that by giving his blood, he would be the one to die instead of his sister.
It’s a beautiful, inspiring story, but Katie hated it, and it haunted her for years. I’d NEVER do that for my brothers or Meghan. She felt physically sick every time she thought about that boy, overwhelmed with guilt and shame. Her heart must be the size of a raisin. If she were a good person, she’d be more like that little boy. She must be evil. She was too ashamed to confess her thoughts to the priests. She didn’t deserve absolution from this sin. She would have to go to hell.
She hadn’t thought about that homily in years. And now, embracing her sister on the stoop, heart to heart, the remembered story of the boy and his sick sister takes Katie to an entirely different place. She thinks about Eric and her blood draw from six months ago now and the test result awaiting her, and an amazing thought sits straight-spined and fearless at the bottom of her heart, radiating selfless love. If she could take away Meghan’s gene-positive result by being gene positive herself, she would. She really would.
Tears well in Katie’s eyes as she hugs Meghan a little tighter. Maybe she’s braver than she thinks.
KATIE BEGINS BY walking to the top of Cook Street, left onto Bunker Hill, then down Concord. She passes the triple-deckers, the flower boxes and oil lamps, the Irish and Boston Strong flags hanging in windows. She wonders what Portland looks like. It rains a lot there. Felix says the Columbia River is huge and beautiful, surrounded by mountains and waterfalls and hiking trails. He says it’s nothing like the Mystic River. What if everything about Portland is nothing like here?
She walks down Winthrop Street, stops at the curb, and looks down. Two red bricks side by side, inlaid in the center of the sidewalk, extending in a line across the street. The Freedom Trail.
She stops, considering the bricks beneath her shoes for a moment, and then follows her impulse. She’s always wanted to do this. She walks along the red line, sometimes brick, sometimes red paint, and follows it through City Square to the edge of Charlestown opposite Paul Revere Park. She pauses, looks back, and then keeps going.
Of course, she leaves Charlestown all the time. She and Felix go to dinner in Cambridge and the South End on a regular basis. She’s going to the Opera House tonight. But she’s never followed the actual Freedom Trail, her childhood Yellow Brick Road, with her own two feet, out of her neighborhood.
She steps onto the Charlestown Bridge and immediately hates it. The pedestrian walkway, lined in red paint, is a metal grid. Looking down, she can see the mouth of the Charles River below her feet, and her stomach feels as if it drops through her. She keeps walking, and she’s terrifyingly high above the black, reflectionless water. Cars and trucks whiz by her right shoulder only inches from where she stands, vibrating the metal floor under her shoes, assaulting her ears. She pauses, tempted to turn around. She feels danger beside and below her, and the comfort of everything she knows behind her, calling her back.
No. She’s doing this. She holds her eyes straight ahead and keeps going forward, one step at a time.
Soon and finally, she is over that horrible bridge. She crosses the street and, still on the Freedom Trail, stands on the corner of the North End, Boston’s Italian neighborhood. She did it! She’s not in Kansas anymore.
She looks back at Charlestown. She can still see the monument, the Navy Yard, the Tobin Bridge. She can practically see her house. She laughs. How pathetic.
She thinks about Meghan, living HD positive, not using it as an excuse to limit herself in any way. Meghan is moving to London. JJ had a baby. Her dad is practicing yoga.
Felix is moving to Portland.
Katie smiles to herself, continuing along the trail into the North End and away from home, wondering where the red line goes next, having no idea.
You’ve had the power all along, girl. Go live your dreams.