“They found her floating in the harbor this morning,” Bruce says. “She drowned.”
“She drowned?” Karen says. “She drowned last night?”
“Apparently so,” Bruce says. “I was with Tag and then I came to bed. You were asleep when I came in. That was pretty late, but it must have happened afterward.”
“Oh no,” Karen says. She is aghast, really and truly aghast. Merritt was so young, so beautiful and confident. “How… what…”
“She drank or took drugs, I guess,” Bruce says. “And then she went swimming. I mean, what other explanation is there?”
“Where’s Celeste?” Karen asks.
“The paramedics took her to the hospital,” Bruce says. His eyes fill with tears. “Celeste was the one who found her.”
“No! No, no, no!” Their poor, sweet daughter! Karen fears Celeste doesn’t have the strength to deal with this. She is too fragile, too gentle and kind. This had been true even in adolescence, especially in adolescence. Other people’s daughters had been drinking and smoking, secretly going on the pill or being fitted for diaphragms. Celeste had stayed home with Bruce and Karen watching Friday Night Lights. That had been their favorite show, so much so that Tim Riggins and Tami Taylor felt like friends of the family, and, often, Bruce, Karen, and Celeste would look at one another over their morning cereal and say, “Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose.” Celeste volunteered at the Lehigh Valley Zoo in Trexlertown on the weekends. Bruce would drop her off and Karen would pick her up. Karen would nearly always find Celeste with the lemurs or the otters, either feeding them or scolding them like naughty children. Karen used to have to yank her out of there. On Saturday nights, they would go to Diner 248 and then to the movies. Celeste would often see kids from school in groups or on dates and she would wave and smile, but she never seemed embarrassed to be seen with her parents. She was always even-keeled and content, as though she simply preferred to be with Bruce and Karen. Mac and Betty.
“And so now the wedding has been canceled,” Karen says.
“Yes,” Bruce says. “And the police are conducting an investigation.”
“Does the girl have family?” Karen asks.
“Not much, I guess,” Bruce says. “She hasn’t spoken to her parents in seven years.”
Seven years? Karen thinks. She’s nearly as upset about that as she is about Merritt’s passing. And yet, Karen could tell from the girl’s demeanor that no one had been looking out for her, not even from afar.
So now there will be no wedding. Karen understood this last night, but she had thought the reason would be different. She thought Celeste would call it off.
And then Karen’s visit to the psychic comes flooding back in vivid detail.
The psychic’s studio was in downtown Easton, half a block from the Crayola factory; Karen used to pass it all the time on her way to and from work. She had looked at the sign with only mild curiosity. KATHRYN RANDALL, PSYCHIC: INTUITIVE READINGS, ANGEL WHISPERER. Kathryn Randall was such a pretty name, such a normal, field-of-daisies name; this had been part of what triggered Karen’s interest. Her name wasn’t Veda or Krystal or Starshower. It was Kathryn Randall.
Karen visited Kathryn Randall two days after she received news of her metastases. She wasn’t looking for Kathryn to predict her future—she would live for weeks, months, a year, and then she would die—but she had to know what life held for Celeste.
Kathryn’s “studio” was just a normal living room. Karen sat on a gray tweed sofa and stared at Kathryn’s diploma from the University of Wisconsin. She handed Kathryn a photograph of Celeste and said, “I need to know if you have any intuitive thoughts about my daughter.”
Kathryn Randall was in her mid-thirties, as pretty as her name, with long light brown hair, flawless skin, a calming smile. She looked like a kindergarten teacher. Kathryn had studied the photograph for a long time, long enough for Karen to grow uncomfortable. She was thrown by the conventional surroundings. She had expected silk curtains, candles, maybe even a crystal ball, something that suggested a connection to the supernatural world.
Kathryn Randall closed her eyes, and she started to talk in a slow, hypnotic voice. Celeste was an old soul, she said. She had been to the earth before, more than once, which accounted for her serenity. She didn’t ever feel the need to impress. She was comfortable with who she was.
Kathryn stopped suddenly and opened her eyes. “Does that sound right?”
“It does,” Karen said, growing excited. “It really does.”
Kathryn nodded. “She’ll be happy. Eventually.”
“Eventually?” Karen said.
A concerned look passed across Kathryn’s face, like a breeze rippling the surface of a pond. “Her romantic life…” Kathryn said.
“Yes?” Karen said.
“I see chaos.”
“Chaos?” Karen said. Here she had thought Celeste’s love life was rock solid. She was engaged to Benjamin Winbury. It was a real-life fairy tale.
Kathryn offered a weak smile. “You were right to come to me,” she said. “But there’s nothing either one of us can do about it.”
Karen had paid the thirty-dollar fee and left. Chaos. Chaos?
After that, Karen had avoided walking by Kathryn Randall’s studio. She started parking in the lot on Ferry Street, even though it was farther away.
Now, Karen’s mind starts to grind. Kathryn Randall was correct about chaos. The wedding has been canceled. Merritt is dead. She drank or took pills, Bruce said, then drowned.
Pills, Karen thinks, and she suddenly feels as nauseated as she did after her first round of chemo. Karen had caught Merritt coming out of this very bedroom last night. Merritt had said she was looking for Celeste, but that sounded like a fabrication. She hadn’t been looking for Celeste; she had been looking for pills. Had she gotten as far as the third drawer in the bathroom? Had she found the bottle of oxy and the three pearlescent ovoids mixed in? Had she been curious about those pills and taken one to see what happened?
The notion is too appalling for tears. It is a dense, dark, soul-destroying thought: Not only is Merritt dead but it’s Karen’s fault.
She needs to check her pills.
She can’t check her pills.
If she checks her pills and finds one or more of the pearlescent ovoids missing, what will she tell Bruce? Celeste? The police?
Her thoughts are a soundless scream.
She can’t continue another second not knowing. Karen gets to her feet. Her pain is still at bay, which is impossible, she knows. She hasn’t taken an oxy in nearly twelve hours, so something else is at work in her body. The shock.
Bruce falls back on the bed, his eyes open. He is there but not there, which is just as well. Karen closes the bathroom door, locks it. She sits on the toilet and slides open the third drawer. She takes out the bottle of pills.