I turn away, blinking.
Frieda takes a breath. I force myself to swivel my head, to look at her again. “And I’m sorry I didn’t come to your parents’ funeral,” she goes on. “You were right. I should have been there.”
I rise. My knees feel wobbly. “Thank you,” I say. “It means a lot to me, hearing you say that.”
She nods. “Well. Take care of yourself, and that husband, and the children.”
“I will. You take care of yourself, too. Maybe . . .” I hesitate. “Maybe we can see each other again . . . sometime.”
“Maybe.” Her eyes turn again toward the window, then back to me. She wraps her arms around herself, tucking her hands under her sleeves. “My secretary will see you out. Good-bye, Kitty.”
Frieda swallows hard, and I can tell that she not only wants but needs me to leave.
I nod at her one last time before crossing the carpet and walking out the door.
Chapter 34
Outside, the snow is melting on the sidewalk. Cars whiz past on Eighteenth Street; a bus rumbles to the curb, then pulls away without dispensing any passengers. The sun gleams in the west, and I shade my eyes as I step through the revolving door of Frieda’s building.
And there, standing on the sidewalk in front of me, are my parents.
“Mother,” I breathe. “Daddy.”
They smile at me, and I want to go to them, hold them—but I know that my parents are not actually there. They are present only inside my head.
“I’m imagining you,” I say. “I’m making this up. Right?”
“Kitty.” My mother comes forward and puts her hand on my shoulder. I marvel at the way my mind has conjured her touch, exactly as if she were truly standing there with her fingers pressed to the fabric of my coat.
The imagination, it turns out, is a remarkably clever and hardworking creature.
“We just want to say good-bye, honey,” my dad says. “That’s all. Just good-bye.” He steps next to my mother, inches from me. “And that we love you.”
“I love you, too,” I whisper. I’m vaguely aware of a man in a dark topcoat and hat passing on my right, then turning back to look at me quizzically. To him, I must appear nothing more than a crazy lady on the sidewalk, a mildly insane person who is speaking to thin air.
“So I won’t see you anymore?” I ask my parents. “I won’t . . . I’m not going back there anymore?” I turn away, biting my lip. “Back to the other world, I mean. I’m not going back there again, am I?”
Even as I ask these questions, I already know the answers—because I am the one who is directing what my parents would say. If they were actually here speaking to me, that is.
“Kitty.” My mother puts her fingers on my forehead. “Take it out of here,” she says. “Put it here instead.” I watch as she taps my heart.
“I understand,” I say, nodding. “I’ll miss you.”
My father shakes his head. “You won’t need to,” he says. “You’ll always have us—just in a different form. Not in the way you thought you would.”
“You’ll help me . . . watch over my babies . . . won’t you?” I swallow hard. “I can’t take care of my children . . . Michael . . . without you.”
My mother laughs her beautiful laugh. “You can, Kitty. Don’t doubt yourself. Don’t doubt Lars. And especially”—her smile is generous—“don’t doubt Michael.”
I blink back tears, and then I close my eyes.
When I open them again, my parents have vanished.
Chapter 35
I sit in the station wagon outside Mitch and Missy’s school, my gloved hands on the wheel. I am thinking about the other world, about being Kitty. I remember my mother’s hand, how I could feel her touch. How I could hear her voice. I will always, I think, be able to hear my parents’ voices in my head.
I glance at my watch. Two forty-five. Mitch and Missy will come out that door soon, the one to my right, the double set with the snowman drawings taped to the windows. They will emerge with satchels flying behind them, jackets unbuttoned, mittens loose on their strings. Their blond curls will shimmer in the afternoon sunlight as they skim across the sidewalk, coming toward me as I wait.
By ten minutes after three, I will have returned to the house on Springfield Street with Mitch and Missy in tow. Michael will still be counting coins. Michael has probably counted and re-counted coins all afternoon. Michael may very well do little else besides eat, sleep, and count coins for as many days as we allow him to.
Alma will give everyone a snack: milk, an apple, a cookie. I will make a fresh pot of coffee and sit with the children while they eat, while Mitch and Missy tell us about their days. While Michael rhythmically counts nickels, pennies, quarters.
Afterward, we will leave him to his counting, and Mitch and Missy will begin their homework. They will have reading to do; their reading has improved tremendously this year, and I know that if I took the time to listen to them read aloud more often, it would get even better. After each of them has read to me for fifteen minutes, I will have them work on handwriting. Alma will put a cut-up chicken in the oven and start washing and snapping green beans.
At four thirty, I will allow the children one hour of The Mickey Mouse Club. Michael will bring the coin jar with him to the living room and will sit on the floor counting coins, occasionally glancing at the television when the other two laugh at something one of the Mouseketeers has said or done. This activity will get us to five thirty, when Lars will walk in the door and dinner will be placed on the table.
Michael will spill his milk, because Michael always spills his milk. And I will clean it up, because I don’t think it’s fair to expect Alma to do that.
In the evening, we will attempt a family game of Parcheesi. Either Lars or I will have to be on Michael’s team, because he won’t be able to sit still long enough to move his pieces properly. He will wander away, back to the coins. He will be tired after his long day, which I know from experience means he is more likely to retreat into babyish habits that he ought long ago to have given up. I will have to keep a watchful eye on him, to make sure he doesn’t put any coins in his mouth.
At seven fifteen, Missy will take a bath, and when she is done, the boys will be bathed. It will be Lars’s night with Missy, so after her hair is brushed—a job he leaves to me—he will tuck her in and tell her a story.