The Transformation Of Amy Lunaro: Chapter Six. {fiction}
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Amy woke with the sun, but she kept her eyes closed, longing to sleep for as long as she could, even though her body itself wanted to wake.
Her spirit was like a buoy rising to the surface, but she kept fluttering her eyelashes closed, like blinds, against the glow of the light, she kept pushing herself back down into the dark below.
This was her habit, to only move when her flesh and bones ached from lying in the sheets too long. But she had no reason to wake. Her appointment with Leanne wasn’t until three.
She had nothing to do and nowhere to be until then, all she had to do was work through the chalky, sawing headache and the stomach that churned like the high seas. That was her only purpose these days. To recover from what she had done to herself.
Like with most commitments, Amy was now wondering how she could back out of going to Leanne’s.
She thought about whether she could just not show up, and then spend the rest of the winter avoiding the general store where the woman seemed to frequent. She thought about finding her number in the phone book and calling to say she was sick.
But being sick is why you went to healers. She thought about leaving the island, and going… where?
So at three p.m., having found no other choice, she plunked herself down on Leanne’s cottage steps. She squished herself between dozens of terra cotta potted plants and beach stones and sea shells, onto a door mat that said, “You have arrived.”
Chimes sang from the trees and a rabbit watched her nervously from the corner of its wet brown eyes, nibbling on grass beneath a rose bush. Amy saw that life was carrying on, joyfully. She just had no idea how to get into it. There was that illusive invisible door again, the one she could never find.
Just then, Leanne’s door creaked open behind her. Amy squinted up in the sun to see the woman looking down at her, her long white hair spilling over her breast, her white cotton dress billowing in the breath of the afternoon breeze.
“It’s so nice out here,” Amy said, stabbing at conversation. “So peaceful.”
“Peace is a choice,” Leanne said.
Amy’s face went blank.
“Stumped ya, huh?”
“You’re saying I could choose peace, instead of,” she looked around at the invisible black cloud that seemed to move with her, then her hand rose over the wasteland of her heart, she heard its pained and hungry howl. “This?”
“You fuckin’ betcha,” said Leanne, eyeing Amy’s hair. “Didn’t get the brush, did ya?”
“I forgot,” said Amy.
“You’re not helping yaself, kid.” Leanne just stood there in the threshold of the cottage looking down at Amy, who hovered outside like a vampire waiting for an invite.
“You have any idea, how to care for yourself? You ever done it?”
Amy’s eyes watered, she trembled, like someone shivering against the cold, despite the Indian Summer day. She hadn’t had anything to eat that day, just buckets of coffee and four Advils. She shook her head, “I don’t think so.”
“I shouldn’t have asked. We humans are always asking questions when we already fucking know the answer. Gotta deprogram that shit.” Amy had no idea what language this woman was speaking.
“Listen,” Leanne said, “Walking in this door is making a choice. I know those ain’t ya strong point. But you’re making a promise to care about yourself. To have some self-worth. A little dignity. You’re making a promise to try to love this beautiful life you’ve been given that you keep shitting all over. Can you do that?”
Again Amy hesitated. That sounded like a tall order, one she would have already carried out if she had any idea how.
“I don’t know,” she said.
Leanne sighed, “Well, what do you know? Why are you here?”
Now Amy was angry. She didn’t need this. She didn’t need anyone. She would go home and open a bottle of wine and turn on the television. Maybe there was a Law&Order marathon on. Fuck this woman. Her nostrils flared like a bull in a pen, but she was silent.
“Where ya gonna go?” the woman asked, as if she had read Amy’s mind, and wasn’t impressed.
“Home,” Amy said.
“Some fancy rental? How long is that money going to last?”
“A few more months,” Amy shrugged, not that it was any of this woman’s business.
“And then what?” Leanne asked.
“I. don’t. know,” Amy said shortly.
“That’s what I thought,” she sighed. “You just gonna run from yourself for the rest of your life.” Then the woman had the audacity to laugh. A deep belly roar. She tossed her head back. Amy saw all the way down to the dark tunnel of her throat.
“You let me know how that turns out,” she said, wiping a tear from the wrinkled corner of her eye.
“Well, look,” Amy said, fumbling for her keys in the bottom of the Kate Spade purse James had given her the previous Christmas. “I’m…”
“Okay, listen. I don’t know what it is about you, kid. I’m super fucking busy. I don’t like to get in the ring anymore. It’s way fucking easier to just lie back and watch people get pummeled. They rarely listen anyway. But I’m gonna take a chance and get in the ring with you.
But my time is precious. Me, I actually love this life and am a choosy cunt with how I spend it. And I got a million people in here all fucking day for healing. Everyone’s fucking dying. It’s Grand Fucking Central. I really can’t be taking in any more strays.”
Just then, a cat appeared from beneath Leanne’s dress and mewed, loudly and proudly, like he was playing a miniature trumpet, announcing his own presence.
“See?” Leanne said, looking down at the black silken sphinx-y creature sitting on her tan bare feet. Amy noticed a toe ring and an ankle bracelet. She’d never actually seen anyone wear a toe ring, let alone a sixty-something-year-old woman. How… Goddessy.
“One second, Norman,” Leanne said to the cat.
Amy took a step backwards. “I understand. Maybe… maybe some other time.”
“Oh yeah? You got a better time to save your fucking life? Look, I don’t know who the fuck you are, or were, and I don’t care who he — Mr. Big Shot Leather Pants Rock Star — is either. Don’t make no fucking difference to me.
You may have noticed no one around here gives a fuck either. We’re used to people falling from the sky onto this island to die or change. Which one is it gonna be for you?”
If Amy opened her mouth, she would cry. So she didn’t. This woman was terrifying her.
“Live or die, honey. You gotta choose. Say ‘Yes,’ or Say ‘No.’ ‘Yes’ is life. ‘No’ is death. Which is it? If you walk into this house, you’re gonna have to fucking try to save your own life. I can’t do it for you. I can guide you to where you gotta go, but you gotta go into those caves alone.
Don’t waste my time.”
Norman cried out for food.
“Or Norman’s. He’s very busy being fabulous.”
Norman looked up at Amy, peeved.
“You never know in life,” said the woman, “if this moment could be your last chance. You gotta treat everything like it is. Every day like it is. And you look, well you look like you’re on Death’s Door. I mean that’s not breaking news is it? You look like shit.” Amy took a shallow breath.
“Here’s your chance,” Leanne said. “I’m not offering it again.”
“Take it.”
Amy stood there, the chimes singing, the seagulls calling overhead, the ocean air playing with the tangles of her hair. Norman and Leanne were looking at her impatiently. Everything froze, like God had put the tape of the movie of her life on Pause so she would pay attention.
Here, look, this is important. She saw her mother’s hand go slack in hers as she took her last breath. She saw James packing his final bag indifferently, while she slumped bawling in the corner in her nightgown, feeling buried alive.
She saw herself clutching the pills on the floor the night he left. She saw herself swallow the rest of the bottle and not care whether she woke. She knew what waited for her in her rental home on the cliffs, but not what waited behind the door. So she chose the unknown. She said Yes.
And she thought it was as close to saying Yes to life as she ever had. She looked back up at the woman in white, standing in the doorway.
And she walked through the door.
This is an ongoing series from a forthcoming fiction novel by Sarah Durham Wilson of DOITGIRL.
Tune in weekly for the next chapter in ‘The Transformation of Amy Lunaro’.
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