Christmas card. But you, my darling. You knew me. You loved me. You saw my art. You were my art. I had made you, and you were perfection. And to keep you, I was willing to destroy you. Nicole?”
Nicole needed a second to find her voice. “Yes?”
“I’m so afraid to be alone, darling. I’m looking out there and seeing just absolutely
Nicole hesitated, and then she hugged her mother.
“My sweetheart. My Nicole, I’m sorry. I stole it from you to save you from letting them objectify you.”
Nicole broke from the hug and rushed out.
“Stole what?” I said to her mother.
“Her beauty.”
“You didn’t come close to touching it.” I hurried after Nicole.
We drove deep into the Meadowlands to a nature preserve and hiked to the river’s edge. We sat facing each other on a backless bench, straddling it. We locked hands and watched the cattails duck and weave against the cold clear afternoon sky. We were all alone.
“The hug,” I said. “Does that mean you’re in forgiveness territory?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’m on my way there. Maybe it was good-bye. Except, it’s too late for good-bye. She’s already gone. She doesn’t feel the same. Like her spirit evaporated, and the only way I can know her now is in my memories of her. Like when we were with Emma this one time. We took her to the beach. We were in the water, waist high. Mom was holding Emma. The waves were crazy that day. Each time one came in, Emma scream- laughed and Mom said, ‘I got you. Relax, Emma, I promise. Ready? Now hold your breath.’ The wave rolled over us, and we pushed up through it and floated out of the back of the wave. And Mom said, ‘See? Nothing bad happened. I kept my promise. I had you the whole time. We were flying, right? We were flying.’ That was my mother.” She took off her sunglasses and looked out past the cattails, to the psychiatric hospital in the near distance. It rose red and solitary from the swampland. “I want to go back, Jay. To school, I mean. I’m ready, I think. Yeah, I’m ready.” She turned so I couldn’t see the wounded side of her face. She peeled away the tape, balled up the bandage and tucked it into her pocket. Her hair hid the burn. She was breathing quickly, heavily. She turned to me. She brushed back her hair with her fingers.
I studied her naked face. I took it in, every bit of it. I held her hands and put them to my face, and then I put my hands to her face as I leaned in and kissed her. I kissed her cheeks, her eyes, her mouth. In time, we stopped trembling, and the cold was gone from us and the day and my world and maybe hers too, if only for a while. I tasted the sun in her lips, a warmth as gentle as it was strong. I’d always thought of surrender as a giving up. It wasn’t. To surrender deeply, truly, was to give in to an idea that hadn’t occurred to me until this kiss: that your admiration for somebody could be as great as your adoration of her. It moved me, her trust in me, her faith in herself, her belief in us.
I didn’t feel sorry for Nicole Castro. I felt hope for her. She wasn’t a victim or a snob, a pageant queen or an athlete, a scholar or a saint or any of the other things I’d labeled her over the past few months. She was Nicole, and she was beautiful.
