Chapter 45 Amanda

CHAPTER 45 AMANDA

February 2007

Bolton Landing

The Bolton Community Church billed itself as nondenominational. In high school, Annie and I had been curious about the place, so we went to a Sunday service but left at halftime, which is what we called it when they stopped preaching and asked us to line up to consume the body and blood of Jesus Christ. The pastor had made clear they believed both the Old and New Testaments were the “infallible and inerrant word of God,” and sitting next to each other in the pew we exchanged a glance like, mmmkay. After we slipped out, we walked down to the local veterans’ memorial and Annie goes, “Okay, Amanda, if in five hundred years people are worshiping at the Church of Amanda, what would you be serving as the body and blood of Amanda?”

She was standing and reading, for probably the thousandth time, the plaque near the gilded war cannon, and without looking up she said, “Everyone is in the aisle with their hands cupped and the head of your church goes, ‘The body of Amanda’—and what is it, what’s your body made of?”

“Probably chicken nuggets,” I said.

She grinned because she loved it when I understood the game, then she said, “And the blood of Amanda?”

“Honey mustard dipping sauce to complete the experience.”

“Oh my god, you’d be the most popular church in history!”

“People would make pilgrimages from the ends of the earth,” I said, and we both started laughing at the absurdity of it, and I asked if our conversation was blasphemous and she said, “Borderline,” and then we were off on another tangent about Madonna.

The night after my bottle smashing, I found myself wheeling into that same church. My dad had, soon after the accident, ripped the passenger seat out of a van abandoned at his garage and jerry-rigged a mobility vehicle, which we’d used ever since. He dropped me at the church entrance and said he was proud of me, and I told him not to be—I hadn’t done anything yet. And I wasn’t sure I would.

Crossing into the church, with its faded red carpet, wood paneling, and general blahness, I was already imagining the tequila I would pour myself after. The AA meeting was in a bonus room with cheap linoleum flooring and metal folding chairs. If I had known she was going to be there, or if I had seen her before she saw me, I would never have entered that room. And I think about that all the time: about how so many of our instincts as humans are toward self-sabotage. They say moving toward the discomfort is the way to progress, but when you’ve already had so much of it—the discomfort, not the progress—why seek more?

Patricia Callahan (or Annie’s mom, as I’d always known her) was chatting in a small group, and the moment I appeared in the doorway she looked over at me like she’d been expecting my arrival. She even waved, at first with assurance, and then as her hand moved, she seemed to piece everything together and she began leaking confidence, slowly dropping her hand, then excusing herself from the group.

She was still beautiful. Even prettier than I remembered, I was disappointed to acknowledge. She’d cut her hair short, so it curled around her ears, and the look was good on her, really made her cheekbones the star of the show. Wearing a sweater and blue jeans, she looked at ease in a deep sense, and I realized that in all the years I’d seen her while growing up, I never once registered her as truly present—she was always somewhere else. In fact, whenever she had said my name it had startled me, like hearing it from a stranger.

Idling in that doorway, I felt trapped. Trapped and with the mother of my ex-best friend walking toward me like some chitchat was going to fix the disaster zone in which her daughter had abandoned me. A situation that Patricia Callahan wasn’t blameless in, either. I knew how absent she was with Annie, how desperate Annie was to prove herself to the world, but secretly and above all to her mother.

But there she was, coming closer and closer until she was bending down and wrapping me in a hug, her gold necklace smacking into my lips. I pictured my hardcover copy of The Very Last , still sitting on my bedside table, and a surge of adrenaline hit—this piece of knowledge I possessed, that I could wield like a weapon if necessary.

“Hi,” she said. “I’m so happy you’re here,” she added, holding on to me for longer than I would have liked, but then, I would have preferred no hug at all.

“I’m just here tonight ,” I said. And as I said it, I was certain I would not be coming back. In the years since the accident, even though we lived in the same small town, I’d never seen Patricia Callahan. Not all that surprising considering I’d barely seen her when Annie was around. What I didn’t need, and didn’t believe myself capable of, was avoiding alcohol while also healing my relationship with a Callahan. One or the other maybe, but not both.

“Just tonight sounds great to me,” she said and kept her hand on my shoulder, and it was all I could do not to shrug it off. I snuck a glance at Patricia, tried to scan her face, her body—did this woman know that her long-lost daughter had written one of the most famous books in the world?

I sat at the back during the meeting. Thankfully the chairs all faced forward instead of in a circle. Easier to get lost, in thought or otherwise. Plus, absorbing direct eye contact with everyone while listening to testimonials might have been too much for me that first night. Patricia sat in the second row, a few seats in, her legs crossed. She nodded at the right times, twice whispered softly to her neighbor, the pair sharing a knowing laugh. She even once placed her hand on the woman’s leg when a story got intense.

The actor in me wanted to address the group, to feel the thrill of their attention, but that felt dysfunctional. The only words I had were those I’d heard others speak in movies. None were mine. I kept my eyes down each time there was a lull, the group waiting to see if anyone else wanted to share. During one such stretch, toward what felt like the end, I was staring at the black canvas toes of my Converse when I heard Patricia’s voice.

“Hi, everyone,” she said, tucking her short hair behind her ears, a gesture that lodged a golf ball in my throat; there was so much Annie in the movement. “Thanks for being here. I’m Patricia, four years sober.” Everyone clapped and she lowered her eyes, endured their attention.

“But I’m not actually up here for me tonight,” she said and now she seemed to be looking at me, a soft tilt to her head, her eyes welcoming and kind. What the fuck. Wasn’t this supposed to be anonymous? I was unaware my body could ignite that fast. From dormant to radiating in an instant. I held eye contact with her and shook my head, as vehement as possible while maintaining subtlety. She looked confused but continued speaking, and I didn’t wait to find out what she had to say. I pushed myself out of that room within seconds, a personal land-speed record. I

I . Note from Cate: I understand my old best friend’s paranoia. Trust was not something my mom had earned. (But she was not speaking about Amanda.)