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Reaching
In August, I finally work up the nerve to call the Finch household. My heart thuds in my chest as I hold the phone to my ear and wait. Why am I doing this? What am I expecting to happen? Maybe I should just hang up and walk away from –
"Hello?"
"Kate. Hi, it's Violet. Um, how are you?"
It surprises me that somebody answered. The trend for the Finch household is that people try to call, but nobody picks up, so they leave voice messages that get ignored. I half-expected to be just another one who cannot reach the Finches.
"I'm fine," Kate replies automatically, but then after a moment's pause, she admits, "Well, no, I'm actually doing about as well as you'd expect."
"I know. There's no need to explain. I'm in that spot, too." It's been a few months since Theodore Finch left us, and both his sister and his ex-girlfriend are tentatively adjusting to a strange world without him.
We are both quiet on the phone for a while. I don't know what she's thinking about, but as for me, I'm thinking about the reason I called. Obviously, I know that Kate isn't Theo, that two siblings are not the same person. But over the last several weeks, the thought kept crossing my mind that Kate might be the closest I can get to him nowadays. Being roughly the same age, living in the same house, having the same blue-blue eyes . . . But I'm unsure if it's really possible for Kate and me to form a friendship. My feelings toward her have veered all over the place.
The last time I saw Kate was during the funeral on May 3. I didn't talk to her on that day. I just observed from a distance as she, along with the rest of the Finch family, shed tears and received sympathy for their loss. At that time, anger seized me. Seeing them, I felt an urge to walk up to the family and yell at them for their inaction. I wanted to shame them for their failure to save Theodore Finch.
But later that day, my anger cooled down. I remembered a conversation I had with Finch once. When I asked him if he ever talked to Kate about his "black moods", he replied with "not really". He brushed the topic aside rather quickly, as if he couldn't be bothered to think about it. But he did think about it. All the time. The fact is that he went to great lengths to hide his condition from others. How can I blame his family for being unobservant when Finch himself was trying as hard as he could to conceal his mind from them?
So, for a little bit, I was in a lenient mood toward his family. But not for long. A day after that, I recalled when Finch disappeared for the final time, and how his family members seemed astonishingly unconcerned about it. They said, oh, Finch takes off sometimes, but it's fine, because he always comes back. They were so sure he'd come back. With that memory in mind, my fury returned.
And then I thought: no, I shouldn't be like this, because Finch wouldn't want me to hate his family. He cared about them. But then I thought about another bad thing . . . And so it went, back and forth. Days passed, and I found reasons to forgive them, and I found reasons to hate them – how exhausting. My mind could never settle on a solid decision about how it felt.
Kate breaks the silence of our phone call. "You're going to college in the fall, right?"
"Yes." I hesitate, and then on pure impulse, I say the words that are flying into my mind. "It's pretty crazy, isn't it? Even after such huge and terrible things happen, normal life continues. Finch left us. And now I'm just going on with my life. To be honest, I feel bad, like I'm leaving him behind."
"Don't. He would want you to move on toward the future. He'd be happy to see you go to new places. But you don't really need me to tell you this, huh? You were closer to him than anyone."
A few people have said this. You were the one closest to him. But is that true? Doesn't something feel wrong about it? He and I dated for just a couple of months. It seems impossible that I could've been closer to him than his own family members, who lived with him during all the years of his life.
In the end, I suppose none of us knew him as well as we should've. In the end, he believed he was alone.
It's tempting to share this bitter thought aloud, but I suspect it's not what Finch would want me to say here.
"He cared about you, too," I say to his sister. "Remember his final messages to everyone? He wanted to give encouragement to all of you. To cheer you on into your next venture. During his life, some people called him a freak, but in the last of his days, he chose to show kindness to those he loved."
Suddenly, I feel choked up. I focus on my breathing, trying to remain calm, because even though Kate and I share the loss of the same person, we are still not siblings or friends, and it would be weird for me to fall to pieces crying to her.
"Violet," Kate says, "is there . . . is there anything I can do for you? I assume you called for a reason. I'd like to help. I don't know if I can, but I'd like to try."
"Well . . ."
What I desire most in the world is something that nobody on Earth has the power to give. But there are other, smaller things I could ask.
It seems like a lifetime ago that I was in my room, writing down my initial ideas for Germ. I listed a few names of girls I thought I might ask to contribute to the magazine. Kate Finch's name was on that list, but I still haven't mentioned the topic to her. With all these difficult emotions between us, I'm not sure if I ever will.
"Just talking is enough," I tell her. "You don't need to do anything more. I just wanted to talk about him a little bit. It was nice. I do feel slightly better now."
"Okay. If you say so."
"Sorry to interrupt your day like this. But thank you for chatting with me."
Not today. Maybe someday, the hurt and confusion will diminish enough that I can talk to Kate Finch with a clear head. I haven't totally given up hope that such a day could come. But for now, for today, there is still too much turmoil inside me.