“It’s not the table that grew,” I realized as a new awareness of self settled over me. Alyce and I were together in her little girl body, giggling with impish delight. She was much younger, maybe four. This memory must have happened before we met.
“I see you!” a man’s voice rang out, laughing.
Then I heard a chair being moved and felt myself lifted into strong arms.
“Daddy! You cheated!” Alyce cried, pretending to be mad, but her giggles gave her away.
“You always hide under the table,” he said.
“Next time I’ll hide in my closet and you won’t find me.”
“It’s a deal,” the stocky man with sideburns and a nice smile told us. Our skinny arms reached around to hug this nice father.
He lifted us to his shoulders and piggy-backed us into the living room.
“Would you like me to read you a story, Ally-kitten?”
“Yes, yes!” we exclaimed, settling onto his lap and feeling comfortable and so happy.
“Which book do you want?”
“About the big sister,” we told him.
“That one again? Aren’t you tired of it yet?” He laughed as he reached for a green book.
“Again! Again!” we exclaimed, and I felt eager along with Alyce to hear this story that was her favorite.
It was a really nice story, too, about a little girl who was teaching her baby sister colors by blowing up a rainbow of balloons, then flying off for a magical balloon a ride in the sky. When the father finished, Alyce and I shouted out “Again!” So he closed the book, flipped back to the first page, and started over.
It was strange how while I became Alyce at this young age, a part of me knew I was still Amber, too, like a ghost of myself was hovering outside the memory. I wondered if this memory would show me how to me help the future Alyce.
I’d never met Alyce’s father, but I knew that’s who was reading to us. I liked how easily he laughed and his relaxed, playful manner. He seemed like the kind of loving dad who would always be there, so what had gone wrong? He sent Alyce gift cards packed with money and had set up a college trust fund for her, but he never visited. “He has a new family,” Alyce had once told me in a steel tone that slammed bars across any further questions.
The book was put aside, and we curled up on the couch with “Daddy” to watch an Animal Planet show about giraffes. We asked questions about spots and long necks until we could hardly keep our eyes open.
Time passed until sounds jarred us from a deep sleep.
Mommy was home, Alyce realized excitedly. She was ready to jump and race across the room for a big welcome-home hug … until the shouting. Together, we lay perfectly still, pretending to be asleep.
Peeking out, though, we saw Mommy and Daddy. But they looked all wrong. Mommy was crying and waving her hands as she begged Daddy not to be mad at her. But Daddy was mad, so angry that he shouted bad words and waved his fist like he wanted to hit Mommy.
“Where were you?” he shouted. “It’s been over two weeks!”
“Don’t know … don’t remember!” Mommy sobbed, her hands clutching her round belly.
“You can’t forget something like that and you’re not … oh my God! What happened?”
“I’m not feeling well … ”
He grabbed her arms. “Why didn’t you call me when you went to the hospital?”
“No hospital … all lost and gone.”
I thought she meant her memory was gone, but something darker lurked under her words and chilled me with a suspicion that the child body I visited couldn’t comprehend. But Alyce knew something was wrong … terribly wrong. Her fear shocked through us, and tears prickled down our cheeks.
“Don’t talk nonsense. Tell me what happened!” Daddy insisted, shaking his wife’s arms so she looked like a floppy doll. “Where have you been?”
Mommy shook her head back and forth, sobbing.
“Answer me! Where is she?”
But Mommy only cried and covered her face with her hands.
Pretend to be asleep, we told ourselves, wanting the bad dream to go away and everything to be happy again. But the yelling hurt our ears and we started to cry …
Daddy noticed and came over to scoop us up in strong arms.
“It’s all right,” he crooned. Then he looked at Mommy and shouted, “What kind of mother are you? How can you just abandon your daughter!”
This only made Mommy cry more and Alyce trembled with fear, understanding enough to know why her mother looked different and what was missing. But she didn’t understand why Mommy was alone.
“Where’s my baby sister?” Alyce cried, tasting salty tears on our lips.
“Gone, gone!” Mommy sobbed hysterically.
“Gone!” Daddy yelled. “That’s not possible — when you ran off you were ready to give birth. I reported you missing but they couldn’t find you. Where were you? Where is
Mommy shook her head frantically. “Don’t know … She’s lost!”
“Lost?” Daddy twisted her arm.
“She wanted to sleep with angels and I found the stairway to heaven. So dark, so alone … so still in my arms. I dug a soft bed and tucked her good-night. But everything hurt and all the blood … so confusing … people and places I didn’t know … and I couldn’t find her. I looked and looked but she was gone. Don’t tell anyone … can’t ever tell!” Mommy begged in a scary voice, like she wasn’t Mommy anymore.
Daddy pushed her away then covered his face with his hands. “What in God’s name have you done?”
“I don’t know … don’t know,” she cried over and over.
“But you have to!” Daddy exploded. “Where is she?”
“Lost … don’t remember.”
“How could you lose your own baby? Unless you … ” Daddy’s voice broke and he was crying, too. “Tell me the truth … is Samantha dead?”
Then the memory ended.
* * *
My connection ended, rocketing me in another direction as if I had been snapped from a rubber band. I floated in a surreal state of energy, leaving Alyce behind as I sailed on a wave of lightness and freedom. But I was not alone — Gabe moved beside me.
Although we weren’t defined by human bodies, I could see him clearly as he wanted me to see him: the authentic Gabe Deverau. His skin was rough from the wind and bronzed from the sun, and his night-black ponytail trailed down his muscled back. I had a mental flash of him standing proudly on the deck of a ship, the anchor on his blue cap seeming to bob as the ship tilted and surged forward into the vast ocean. This was how he saw himself: the passionate link of his soul to the ocean, separate from all the borrowed bodies. Only his eyes — sea-deep and mysterious — remained the same.
But it was Alyce’s face that haunted me. Stealing into her thoughts felt like a betrayal of our friendship. Had she known I was there? Would she hate me for it later? I’d found out shocking things that I did need to know … but at what cost? Would I ever be able to tell her the truth, or was I now the one destined to lie about secrets?
Worry was a fish hook yanking me backwards, and I returned to Alyce’s current body with a shock as soul smacked flesh. My breath caught. I felt stunned, unable to move, and only faintly aware of the electronic noise from aquariums bubbling around me.
Blinking, I stared into Gabe’s face — the borrowed face that had once frightened me but now comforted me with a reassuring smile. There was no curiosity in his gaze, only approval.
“You did it,” he said, with a nod of satisfaction.
But I couldn’t talk, only sag against a counter stacked with bags of fish food. I had no idea how disturbing sinking into Alyce’s memories would be, and worse yet was discovering that she carried this memory inside her yet had never told me. There had been hints, though, like when she got angry at the card I gave her on her eighth birthday. It had said, “You’re like a sister to me.” She’d ripped it up, saying that being best friends was better than
