really grabbed my attention.
They contained a xeroxed article from the Sutton County Herald . The headline read, “Child Saves Life, Credits Blue Light.” The tune I had been humming in my head suddenly switched keys, went lower, C minor, with an eerie, spooky tone to it. My heart sped up and I read the article with interest once, then again more slowly, taking in the details. I noted the date at the top: September 28, 2002.
A seven-year-old boy found his father after he had fallen off of a ladder in the garage. His father was unconscious, and the boy knew enough to check his breathing. There was none. The boy called 911, but living out in the country, he knew he couldn’t wait. And that’s when it got really interesting.
The description of the blue light, the words he used, the feeling he described, matched exactly the way I experienced the blue light with Sophie.
In fact, it was the clearest part of that day. The most vivid memory. The boy, Jurgen Jameson was his name, said that the blue light “had some green and purple in it too, and it wasn’t like a haze but more like a lens.” This struck me.
It was exactly as I had experienced it. And then he described the feeling of the blue light “as if it started in my chest and throat and crawled out to my hands, into my daddy.”
I dropped the paper back onto my bed and stared into space. “Holy fluck.”
Later that night, I lay on my bed, sharpening my sketching pencil. I thought of Mia-Joy. I glanced at my phone on the nightstand. I knew I should call her. A memory hit me, clear as day. Sixth-grade summer. Mia-Joy had been all limbs and teeth, so skinny. Bossy and loud, with frizzy hair. But then something had happened the year of seventh grade, because when I came back that next summer, Mia-Joy had blossomed, grown into herself. She’d become a swan. So then she was tall, thin, striking. Bossy and loud. Still herself. But what I most admired, and didn’t realize until later, was that she hadn’t really changed. Not inside. She had become the most beautiful teenager, the most beautiful girl most of us had ever seen in real life, and she didn’t change.
She was obsessed with modeling, sure. She forced me to make audition tapes of her for every last reality TV modelingshow in the world. But she still laughed that same loud bark of a laugh. She still kept the same friends.
At that moment, I looked up from my pencil and sighed. I realized how much I liked and admired Mia-Joy. How much I missed her. She never shut up. She watched only reality TV. She talked more and louder than anyone. She read only fashion magazines and apologized for nothing. God, she was fun.
She reminded me of Annaliese. Just a more brash, real version of Annaliese, without the ridiculous collection of cowboy boots and love of all things country-western. I had a sudden flash of Annaliese and me doing the line dance at the sophomore spring fling. She had worn that belt buckle with the bull horns. Oh God. I smiled and flopped back onto my pillow. It made my throat tighten a little bit. I thought of the old comics that Annaliese and I had been drawing right before the day with Sophie. Thinly veiled comics about our teachers at school. Poking fun at Mr. Vergara with his skinny jeans. Mrs. Temperance and her ’80s perm. I laughed out loud.
It sounded so sad as it echoed off the walls of my room.
It hurt to remember how easy things used to be. I had been on a trajectory. My life was going in the right direction. It was clean and uncomplicated. How I missed it. How much I had taken for granted.
I flashed back to the memory of Cody telling me how my hair was the exact shade of a Hershey’s Kiss. I used to lovethat. I would tell people that story. I thought it was so cute. Now, when I thought of that, of Cody and me together, I wanted to punch him. Just punch him right in the jaw. I knew it wasn’t fair. But it all just seemed so … innocent, so self-indulgent. Our stupid surface romance.
They contained a xeroxed article from the Sutton County Herald . The headline read, “Child Saves Life, Credits Blue Light.” The tune I had been humming in my head suddenly switched keys, went lower, C minor, with an eerie, spooky tone to it. My heart sped up and I read the article with interest once, then again more slowly, taking in the details. I noted the date at the top: September 28, 2002.
A seven-year-old boy found his father after he had fallen off of a ladder in the garage. His father was unconscious, and the boy knew enough to check his breathing. There was none. The boy called 911, but living out in the country, he knew he couldn’t wait. And that’s when it got really interesting.
The description of the blue light, the words he used, the feeling he described, matched exactly the way I experienced the blue light with Sophie.
In fact, it was the clearest part of that day. The most vivid memory. The boy, Jurgen Jameson was his name, said that the blue light “had some green and purple in it too, and it wasn’t like a haze but more like a lens.” This struck me.
It was exactly as I had experienced it. And then he described the feeling of the blue light “as if it started in my chest and throat and crawled out to my hands, into my daddy.”
I dropped the paper back onto my bed and stared into space. “Holy fluck.”
Later that night, I lay on my bed, sharpening my sketching pencil. I thought of Mia-Joy. I glanced at my phone on the nightstand. I knew I should call her. A memory hit me, clear as day. Sixth-grade summer. Mia-Joy had been all limbs and teeth, so skinny. Bossy and loud, with frizzy hair. But then something had happened the year of seventh grade, because when I came back that next summer, Mia-Joy had blossomed, grown into herself. She’d become a swan. So then she was tall, thin, striking. Bossy and loud. Still herself. But what I most admired, and didn’t realize until later, was that she hadn’t really changed. Not inside. She had become the most beautiful teenager, the most beautiful girl most of us had ever seen in real life, and she didn’t change.
She was obsessed with modeling, sure. She forced me to make audition tapes of her for every last reality TV modelingshow in the world. But she still laughed that same loud bark of a laugh. She still kept the same friends.
At that moment, I looked up from my pencil and sighed. I realized how much I liked and admired Mia-Joy. How much I missed her. She never shut up. She watched only reality TV. She talked more and louder than anyone. She read only fashion magazines and apologized for nothing. God, she was fun.
She reminded me of Annaliese. Just a more brash, real version of Annaliese, without the ridiculous collection of cowboy boots and love of all things country-western. I had a sudden flash of Annaliese and me doing the line dance at the sophomore spring fling. She had worn that belt buckle with the bull horns. Oh God. I smiled and flopped back onto my pillow. It made my throat tighten a little bit. I thought of the old comics that Annaliese and I had been drawing right before the day with Sophie. Thinly veiled comics about our teachers at school. Poking fun at Mr. Vergara with his skinny jeans. Mrs. Temperance and her ’80s perm. I laughed out loud.
It sounded so sad as it echoed off the walls of my room.
It hurt to remember how easy things used to be. I had been on a trajectory. My life was going in the right direction. It was clean and uncomplicated. How I missed it. How much I had taken for granted.
I flashed back to the memory of Cody telling me how my hair was the exact shade of a Hershey’s Kiss. I used to lovethat. I would tell people that story. I thought it was so cute. Now, when I thought of that, of Cody and me together, I wanted to punch him. Just punch him right in the jaw. I knew it wasn’t fair. But it all just seemed so … innocent, so self-indulgent. Our stupid surface romance.
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