“You have to do what’s right for you,” Marsha tells me over the phone.
“Yeah, but what should I do?” I ask. “How am I supposed to know what’s right for me?”
“I think—”
“Yes,” I cut in. “Please tell me what you think. I don’t need your professional distance, Marsha.”
“I’m your friend and a professional,” she reminds me. “I think if you go, you need to know why you’re going and manage your expectations. What would you want from her? For her?”
“I don’t want anything for her,” I spit, shifting to bring my legs under me on Kenan’s couch. “She was basically dead to me anyway. We haven’t spoken since the day she gave me away.”
“Okay, that’s fair. Then what would you want from her? For yourself?”
I think about that for a moment and ask honestly what I’d want from her if we were in the same room.
“I’d want the words—for her to tell me,” I answer in a rush of indignation and long-corked rage. “Why’d she give me away? How could she choose him over me?”
My chest rises and falls with heaving breaths, like I’ve been running.
“But what could she say that would make it better, Lotus?” Marsha asks. “What could she possibly say that wouldn’t sound like a pitiful excuse?”
Nothing. There’s nothing she could say to make it right, and anything she came up with would feel like an insult.
“So why go?” I ask, shrugging, feeling helpless and furious, like something is boiling in my belly with a tight lid. Like I could blow at any moment.
“What if the words you need aren’t from her,” Masha says, “but to her?”
“You want me to forgive her?” I ask, choking on the concept.
“Not necessarily. If you can, great, but if you can’t, not forgiving someone else doesn’t mean you can’t heal. I don’t agree when people say a survivor can’t really move on until they forgive the people who hurt them. The key, from my perspective, is releasing the hurt. Moving on in your life without the hurt holding you back. Maybe it’s not words you need to hear from her, but words you need to say to her that will help you in this situation. If you think that could be the case, then that’s why you go. Not expecting anything she could ever say to make you feel better about the inexcusable thing she did.”
Her words land with the thud of truth in my belly where MiMi used to say your “knower” lives. Your gut.
For a long time after Marsha and I hang up, I sit there on Kenan’s couch and wonder what I would say to her. Marsha suggested I write it down, but I’m not sure I know where to start.
Kenan comes in from practice and drops his gym bag on the floor, watching me with a concerned frown. He walks over, flops onto the couch, and pulls me on his lap. I burrow into the clean smell of his neck.
“Aw man. You showered,” I say, affecting disappointment. “I was hoping to lick the sweat off your body.”
“I could go back and sweat again,” he offers hopefully.
“Maybe next time.” I kiss his jaw and twine our fingers, enjoying him, his silence for a few moments. “I’m going to New Orleans.”
He stiffens under me, pulling back to peer into my face. “You are?” he asks. “You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Damn the timing,” he grumbles. “If I didn’t have to go to China for this exhibition game, I’d go with you.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“And with the new baby, Iris can’t go,” he goes on, like he’s turning it over in his head, searching for a solution. “Maybe Billie or Yari?”
“I’ll be fine by myself. Really.”
“Call me.” He presses his lips into my hair. “I want to be there for you however I can.”
I nod against his chest and wrap my arms around the broad torso.