Zoe Letting Go

Zoe Letting Go

Zoe Letting Go

Nora Price

An Imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

ALWAYS LEARNING

PEARSON

For A.

Day One

Day Two

Day Three

Day Four

Day Five

Day Seven

Day Eight

Day Nine

Day Twelve

Day Thirteen

Day Sixteen

Day Eighteen

Day Nineteen

Day Twenty

Day Twenty-One

Day Twenty-Two

Day Twenty-Three

Day Twenty-Six

Day Thirty-One

Day Thirty-Three

Day Thirty-Four

Day Thirty-Six

Dear Elise,

The woods went on for miles. Hemlock, basswood, cherry, and ash; elms and pines and beeches. Trees crowded against the highway like gawkers at a police barrier, pushing forward for a glimpse of what was to pass. Their arms waved unsteadily in a hot wind as our car moved west on the narrowing highway. I kept my window shut as we drove through this channel of trees, but the sight of them passing—the endless green abstraction—made me ill. When it got so bad that I thought I might throw up, I hunched down in my seat and shut my eyes tight. The trees went on and on until suddenly they stopped, and because my head was bowed and my eyes closed, I couldn’t pinpoint when it happened. All I knew when I lifted my eyes was that the car had slowed, and the terrain had changed, and I no longer had a clue where I was.

It was a stupid mistake. I shouldn’t have shut my eyes for one second.

Scooped from the woods, as if by a God-sized shovel, stood a wide swath of lawn. The lawn was overlaid by a gravel path wide enough, barely, for one car. I whipped around to see where the gravel path had begun—there must have been a connecting road, after all, for no gravel path merges directly with a highway—but I could see nothing except acres and acres of lawn. I turned to my mother, who steered our car confidently over the path’s rough trail, and opened my mouth to ask where we were. But I stopped myself in time.

I knew she wouldn’t answer.

School is over. Instead of busted fire hydrants and Creamsicle wrappers—the sights and sounds of a Brooklyn summer—I currently find myself at the foot of a brick mansion in rural Massachusetts, still wearing pajamas, with a suitcase at my side.

A lot has changed since last winter. My hair is three inches longer, and the second piercing in my right ear has closed up for lack of use. I wear little makeup. I record these changes partly to update you and partly as reminders to myself. Though it occurs to me now that you might be more interested in hearing about the ways in which I
haven’t
changed. Those are often more revealing.

I’ll give it a try.

My posture is still poor and my penmanship messy. My memory remains pathetic—if you asked me what I did three days ago, for example, I’d have absolutely no idea. None. It’s as though my brain is a prehistoric computer with just enough memory to last twenty-four hours, after which point the whole database gets swiped clean. My skin is the same pale shade it was during winter, which is unfortunate given this year’s streak of sunny weather. I should have been outside, laying out. I should have put some color into my face. But I guess I’ve spent a lot of time indoors lately.

The sun’s warmth is startling today—when was the last time I stood, unshaded, in full afternoon light? The warmth seeps into my shoes through the flagstone steps. The suitcase at my feet is heavy but poorly packed, and it leans to one side on the gravel surface. Crammed inside are six weeks’ worth of socks and shirts and underwear; six weeks’ worth of leggings and bras; one toothbrush, one tube of toothpaste, face wash, a bottle of hypoallergenic moisturizer, and no hairbrush. In my rush, I forgot the damn hairbrush.

Is this letter perplexing? I’m sorry. I am doing the best I can under difficult circumstances, and I’m afraid I’ve gotten far ahead of myself. You must be confused—only after filling a page have I realized that you have no clue where I am or what I’m doing here. To be fair, neither do I. Perhaps I should start at the beginning, at six o’clock this morning, and try to sketch out what I remember.

The sky was dark when I awoke. No morning doves, no thrushes chirping away outside—just the sound of my mother commanding me to get up. “Pack a suitcase,” she said. “Pack enough for six weeks.”

“What?” I asked. “Why?” I could barely see my mother in the dark. “Where are we going?”

“I’ll wait for you in the car,” she said, turning away.

“Mom!”

But that was all I got.

Driven by a strange, panic-induced adrenaline, I obeyed her instructions. It felt like some kind of emergency procedure—was Cape Cod being evacuated? Had a disaster occurred in my sleep? When I got into the car, Mom was gripping the steering wheel, her knuckles white. The atmosphere was tense.

“Mom?” I asked again. “Is everything okay?”

She sighed, almost inaudibly. “Put your seatbelt on.”

I did, suddenly overcome by a wave of exhaustion. I just wanted to fall back asleep for a few hours. Sleep was on my mind. It had been all I could think of for weeks. I wanted to scrunch down in the seat, lean my head against the door, and forget that the world existed.

It wasn’t until the doors locked and the engine revved that I realized sleep would not be a possibility. Because finally, Mom told me where we were going.

Where, but not
why
.

After ten minutes of questions from me—none of
which she answered—my mother turned the car radio to the news station and put on her sunglasses. I sat, stewing, as she listened to traffic reports and weather reports and local headlines. Nothing penetrated my consciousness except for the questions: Why was I being sent here? What could my mother possibly hope to accomplish by stealing me away to a residence like this one? No—not a residence. “Institution” is a better term.

I know what you are asking yourself. And the answer, Elise, is yes.

Yes, you are the reason I am here.

But the answer is a qualified yes. You’re not the only reason.

Do you remember the birthday cake I made you last November? You weren’t eating cake then; you found the consistency too dry. You were only eating “wet desserts,” as you called them. Another one of your funny eating habits. Still, I had to do
something
for your birthday, so I decided to build you a cake out of ice cream sandwiches.

All I had to do was stack a bunch of ice cream sandwiches into the shape of a sheet cake. No baking necessary. Just collect a few dozen premade treats, arrange them attractively in a rectangle, stick a bunch of candles on top,
et voilà.

Well, not quite.

First, there was a quest to find the correct variety of sandwich. Vanilla, of course, bookended by chocolate
wafers. None of that mint-chip nonsense, and absolutely no Neopolitan. Next, I had to get my quarry home on the subway before it melted all over my lap. Back in the cramped apartment kitchen, the cake’s assembly presented a true test of my Tetris skills, though I managed to compose a mosaic of the sandwiches before they dissolved into soup. In the end, I spent about ten million dollars on subway fare and an entire weekend sprinting around Brooklyn fetching supplies for the cake. But there was no choice. Your present had to be perfect.

At seven o’clock on November 16, I arrived, tray in hand, at your family’s townhouse. The sun was still in bed as I knelt on your stoop, plastic lighter in hand, to ignite each of sixteen candles. Despite their skinniness, the candles emitted a glow that pushed its way bravely into the air’s chill. All around me the wind blew, and I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a lone Eskimo and his sled trudging past your house on Clinton Street, despite the fact that our coordinates were three thousand miles east of Alaska. It was a bitter morning.

Cake in hand, I struggled up the steps and took hold of the heavy brass knocker.
Tap-tap-tap.
When you appeared at the door, I held out my present, and sixteen candles illuminated your startled expression. Surprise turned to delight, and I knew when you smiled that I’d done a good job. You closed your eyes, held back your hair, and blew out the candles. When you looked up, your eyes sparkled,
and suddenly, I understood. You weren’t going to eat this cake, either. “Wet desserts” had become “no desserts.” If that was what you wanted, I wasn’t going to stand in your way. Nobody ever stood in your way.

With a last look at the birthday cake, we exchanged a quick nod to ensure that our thoughts were in the same place. The steps to your house were even icier on the descent, if that’s possible, and we barely made it to the sidewalk without slipping. You held the cake delicately, shielding it from the meaner gusts of wind.

“It’s beautiful, Zoe,” you said.

With a ceremonial flourish, I lifted the lid from the garbage can.

Thump.

You dropped the cake into the garbage, where it broke and splattered against the can’s dull plastic walls. Beneath the ice cream were bits of orange peel and plastic wrap and wine corks—all the things your family had used and disposed of over the past few days. You replaced the garbage lid, brushed off your hands, and smiled at me through the terrible wind.

“Happy birthday,” I said.

Seven months have passed since I marched through the November sleet with that birthday cake in my hands. The date bears no direct relationship to my present, yet my mind keeps returning to that day. To the sixteen candles
and ninety M&Ms—brown ones removed—that spelled out your name atop the cake. ELISE. Though I watched those candles sputter out with your breath, they still glitter, in my memory, like a roll of lit firecrackers.

I have learned not to trust my memory on certain matters.

Yours,

Zoe

My name is Zoe Propp.
I’m sixteen years old and a rising junior. “Rising junior,” on second thought, is not a good description for what I am. “Plummeting sophomore” would be more accurate. I dislike green tea, math of all kinds, and brushing my teeth. I like dahlias, navy striped socks, and club soda with a lime.