do?”
“I read. Mostly. Listen to music. Patrick’s into all this outdoor stuff, like rock climbing and rafting and everything, but that’s not really my thing.”
“Those Bowers boys do like the outdoors.”
“Yeah.”
“So what do you like to read?” Amber sized her up. “I’m thinking fantasy, right?”
“More horror, actually. Gothic stuff. Poe, like that. Some of the French realists: Guy de Maupassant, Flaubert, Zola, you know. Poetry sometimes. I never got into fantasy. The authors just aren’t creative enough.”
A pause. “Fantasy writers aren’t creative enough?”
“Yeah, I’m like, I get it, but could you please come up with a better way of creating your character names? Just add ‘or,’ ‘en,’ or ‘ick’ to any name and you get a fantasy novel name. Choose whichever one you prefer. I’d be probably be Tessaor. You’d be Amberen.”
“Or Amberick. Hmm. Yeah. Or Amberor.”
“See?”
“Patrickick doesn’t quite flow,” she said, “but Patricken works. Patrickor’s not too bad. Nice.”
“Yeah. And your husband would be Seanor or Seanen.”
“Or Seanick.”
“It doesn’t quite work with everyone, though,” Tessa admitted. “Patrick has this guy at the Bureau that he’s friends with-Ralph Hawkins.”
“So Ralphor, Ralphen-”
“Or Ralphick.”
Amber grimaced. “Yeah, not as good as Patrick’s.”
“Or Sean’s.”
“Right.”
For a moment the conversation pooled into silence, but it was more friendly than awkward.
“So, you’re a pharmacist?” Tessa asked her, but it was one of those conversational pseudo-questions because she already knew the answer.
“Yes.”
“Cool.”
More silence.
Hmm. An idea.
“So then, if I had a prescription, you could fill it?” Another blatantly pseudo-question.
“You’re from out of state so I’d need a paper script, but sure. Is there one you need?”
“I take these pills to help me sleep. I forgot ’em in Minneapolis.”
“Well, do you have the prescription with you?”
“Uh-uh. It’s in Denver.”
“Well,” Amber said reflectively, “I guess I could call your doctor, he could fax me your prescription, but it’s a Saturday. Maybe your regular pharmacy would have a copy on file?”
Tessa wasn’t excited about the idea of telling her that her doctor was a psychiatrist or that Patrick didn’t know about the shrink or the pills. “Yeah, um, we’ll see. Maybe I’ll be okay without ’em.”
Silence again, longer this time.
Finally, Amber said, “Tessa, how are you doing since your dad’s death?”
Wow. That was a leap.
“Um…”
“I’m sorry if that’s too personal, I was just…”
“No. It’s okay,” Tessa replied. She tried to think of what to say. “It was hard, you know, but it seems like it’s getting better. With my mom it was worse. I was into this pretty intense self-inflicting stuff for a while. You know, cutting, that sort of thing.” She paused. “This friend of mine, Anisette, she started in with bulimia after her parents divorced. That was just harsh. I’m glad I never ended up going there.”
A brief pause. “I’ve been praying for you.”
Her comment about prayer and the previous exchange about meds made Tessa think of her last session with the shrink-when he’d asked her if she thought God wanted her to forgive herself.
“So you pray a lot, then?”
“Probably not as much as I should.”
“But you believe in God? Forgiveness? That sort of thing?”
“Yes.”
“So did my mom.”
Tessa remembered that after her mom was diagnosed with breast cancer, even though she seemed to take the news relatively well, Tessa had been devastated. Her mom had told her more than once that she needed to learn to believe in grace as much as she did in pain, in forgiveness as much as she did in shame.
Just ask her.
“So do you ever think about what it means to forgive yourself?”
“To forgive myself?”
“Yeah.”
Amber considered the question for a long time. “Honestly, that sounds kind of arrogant to me.”
“How is it arrogant?”
“Well, that someone could claim to have the power to cancel the debt that they owe God.”
Tessa tried to let that sink in. She remembered her little object lesson with the glass coffee table in the shrink’s office and understood where Amber was coming from with the debt idea but hadn’t exactly thought of it in any kind of religious terms before.
“When you ask someone to forgive you,” Amber said, “you’re really asking the other person to sacrifice for the benefit of the relationship.”
Duh. If you would’ve shattered the doctor’s end table and he forgave you, he would’ve been the one to pay for it, the one to sacrifice.
“But what if you wrong yourself?” Tessa retorted. “I mean, can’t you-oh, I get it. We’re accountable to someone else besides ourselves. To God.”
Amber said nothing, and it looked to Tessa like she was deep in thought.
Regardless of the theological ramifications, the idea that this whole forgiving yourself deal was an act of arrogance seemed kind of weird, and Tessa wasn’t sure she bought it.
She stood. “You know, I’m gonna go to Patrick’s room. Maybe lie down.”
“You’re welcome to stay in here.”
“That’s okay, I’ll see you in a little bit. Hey, it was cool, though. Thanks for hanging out.”
“Any time.”
Patrick’s motel room looked pretty much like Tessa expected-a clutter of papers on the desk, clothes strewn across the floor, sweaty workout stuff hanging up in the bathroom. Disgusting. A couple buckets of water on the floor-no idea what those were for. A brand-new camo jacket flung on the chair. Wow. How very Wisconsin of him.
She pulled the shades shut, grabbed the extra blanket from the closet, flopped onto the bed. Closed her eyes.
And thought of arrogance.
Was it really an act of arrogance to be haunted by guilt? Or was it an act of humility, admitting that you weren’t living up to the standards you’d set for yourself?
Two ways to look at it.
Guess the plot, huh?
Yeah, well, she really didn’t have any idea where this one was heading.
61
