You looked so proud of me, Richard Gere, and I wondered how you found me in Canada—but then I remembered the letters I had written you, explaining where I was going. Your coming and helping me—especially knowing how busy you are with your acting and official Dalai Lama business—it means so, so much to me that I almost started to cry.
Thank you, Richard Gere.
Thank you one million times.
With a friend like you, I felt that I truly couldn’t fail to impress Elizabeth now.
Cool tektite crystal, you said to me when you noticed it bouncing against my coat zipper as I ran down the sidewalk after Elizabeth, trying not to slip on ice.
“Thanks,” I said.
You winked and nodded, gave me the thumbs-up with your expensive-looking leather glove—and then you vanished like a ghost.
When I caught up to Elizabeth, I could tell she was still upset, so I walked next to her for seven or so city blocks, catching my breath and allowing her to walk off her bad energy, like I had done before with Father McNamee.
I decided to wait until she spoke first, before saying anything.
When we reached the Saint Lawrence River, Elizabeth stopped and said, “Max wanted me to make sure you have your tektite crystal on at all times.”
“Yes,” I said, patting it with my glove. “I haven’t taken it off since he gave it to me.”
She pulled another leather necklace out of her coat pocket and said, “Max says put this one on too. You’ve worked up to it, wearing the first for more than twenty-four hours now, and my brother’s research suggests that alien abductions increase near rivers. So you will benefit from extra protection, according to Max.”
I took the extra tektite crystal and dutifully put it around my neck. It was hard to do with winter gloves on, but I managed.
We stood there silently for a time.
Then Elizabeth said, “You probably think I’m insane, acting the way I did back there.”
“No,” I said.
“Yes.” She peered up at me from under her beautiful eyebrows, through her wispy curtain of brown hair that was now hanging down from within a homemade-looking purple knit hat.
I bit my bottom lip and shook my head.
We looked out over the river for what seemed like a half hour.
Finally, she said, “You may think this is a stupid sentimental explanation, but I used to keep rabbits when I was a little girl. My mom bought them to breed and sell, but the guy who sold them to us lied and we soon found out both of our rabbits were male. Mom quickly lost interest, like she always did, or was too lazy to find a female. She ignored them, began to pretend they didn’t exist, probably because her pride kept her embarrassed about being duped. So I made the neglected rabbits into pets and loved them. Adored them. Talked to them. Even stole food for them from a nearby farm. Told them my secrets, whispering into their long, velvety ears for hours and hours.”
I didn’t know what to say, even though this obviously explained why she threw up.
It made me feel so sad.
“Max never loved them as much as I did,” she said, and began to walk along the river.
I nodded and followed.
“Are you ever going to talk?” Elizabeth said.
“Yes.”
“Say something.”
“Something.”
“Not funny.”
I wasn’t trying to be funny, so I felt ashamed. And then I could feel the little man in my stomach laughing at me, rolling around in my belly, crying tears of merriment even, because I was failing so horrifically.
We walked on for a block or so.
Then she said, “My rabbits’ names were Pooky and Moo Moo. They loved lettuce more than carrots. You’d think rabbits would love carrots best, but not these two. Maybe they were strange rabbits.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“Max, he loves cats,” she said.
Somehow I found my voice and said, “Yes, he does. Was Alice a good cat?”
“She was a doll. But she was Max’s cat, not mine. Pooky and Moo Moo were mine. There will never be another Pooky or another Moo Moo.”
“Mom was mine,” I said before I could really think about what I meant. “There will never be another Mom for me either. She was one of a kind.”
“You really loved your mother?”
“Yes. Did you love yours?”
“I hated her. I used to fantasize about killing her in her sleep. Slitting her throat with a steak knife—sometimes I’d imagine dragging the blade across her entire neck, making a huge red smile. And other times I’d just stab her jugular repeatedly. Sorry. I know that’s pretty sick. But, oh, how I wanted to kill my mother when I was a little girl!”
“Why?”
“A million reasons. Infinite reasons.”
We walked for a few more blocks, gloved hands in pockets.
“My mother killed Pooky and Moo Moo and fed them to me when I was just a child.”
I didn’t know what to say to that.
“She told me what I was eating only after I had finished. Like she was delivering the punch line to a joke, she told me with a grin on her face. You cannot imagine the guilt. I felt Pooky and Moo Moo inside me, trying to hop out of my stomach, for months. She made keychains out of the feet and gave me one as a present the following Christmas. I screamed when I opened it and began to cry. She called me peculiar and ungrateful and spoiled and weak and silly. Then she laughed at me and told Max his sister was sentimental. She actually used that word. Sentimental. As if it were a character flaw. Like it was horrible to feel. To admit that you missed things. To care. To love even.”