“I understood,” Esther says in that room with her and also from very far away, listening so carefully.
Sometimes Esther kisses Anais at the end of this story, but that is not the important part.
* * *
When Esther showed Cora the letter in Kitchen Witch, Cora read it with great care. Esther appreciated this, that she leaned in so far that her forehead nearly touched the page, her back an arch where Esther could see the bumps of her spine. Esther had always envied those bumps on skinny women, that delicate evidence of bones.
They were sitting in the outdoor café at the Norton Simon Museum, ducks bobbing on the green pond next to them, and Cora wiping the grease off her fingers on a napkin patterned with a Van Gogh. She sucked on her teeth, a little hiss, and turned her face up to Esther’s.
“That’s why I want to go to D.C.,” Esther said, tearing her own napkin. “I want to see that letter.”
Cora tilted her head. “Why?” Cora was a music teacher at an elementary school, finishing her last few months student teaching before she was certified. But Esther thought she would make a good therapist for that little head tilt and that unloaded Why?
It made Esther struggle for an answer, or rather for the precise and cogent phrasing of an answer. “I don’t think it’s right,” she tried, and amended, “I don’t think it’s telling the truth. The whole truth. I think that if I saw it myself, I could understand it better.”
“All right,” Cora said. She was quiet a moment, expression thoughtful enough that Esther knew not to interrupt her. And then, voice tinged with pleasure in her own self-conscious spontaneity, “We should go.”
It was the first time they would travel together, and Esther had doubts about that since she wouldn’t have the focus or the time for entertaining Cora. But, with school out for winter break, Cora went unworriedly and so Esther did her best not to worry about it either. She liked the idea of having Cora along for support—she got tremors in her hands when she flew alone—but beyond that, no one had ever shown interest in a subject just because Esther was interested. Cora’s curiosity, uncomprehending as it could be, made Esther want to open herself like a neglected vacation home. Shuck the curtains wide, dash from room to room sweeping dust off the shelves and shaking out the furniture covers, calling, Yes, yes, I’m here, welcome. Come inside and look around.
* * *
When Esther was in elementary school, her best friend was Hope. It’s miraculous to her now the way that childhood friendships run, because she couldn’t name, for all the money she’s ever had, a single thing she and Hope had in common. They had gone to the same school for only one year before Hope’s parents opted for homeschooling instead, but they were friends longer. Esther was dimly aware that Hope’s family was Christian fundamentalist. Her awareness of what that meant was even vaguer, except that she had a list of forbidden topics of conversation that included dinosaurs, trick-or-treating, ghosts, and politics.