Free Steal the North: A Novel by Heather B Bergstrom Page B

In case the flight gave you a headache.”
    I did have a slight headache and cotton mouth—aftereffects, I assumed, from Connor’s Vicodin pill.
    “Rub a little on your temples every few hours,” she instructed, “until your headache is gone.”
    In the shop below our apartment there was an entire section devoted to essential oils and another to herbs. Mom didn’t really believe in the healing abilities of either, especially after she had sent me down there once in desperation to check for a toothache remedy and I spent seven dollars on ground cloves, which we already had in our spice rack. I wondered if Mom knew Bethany believed in alternative medicine and not just in “bogus” faith healings. Mom hadn’t said anything, so probably not. I liked knowing something about her sister that she didn’t. “Thank you.” I opened the bottle to smell. I figured I’d wait to apply the oil to my temples until we got to Beth’s house and I could clip back my bangs.
    “Here, let me.” She took the bottle. I looked over at the few other people in the lobby. They were busy getting their suitcases. “Hold your bangs up.” I was embarrassed, but at least we weren’t at the Spokane airport. She rubbed gently in a circular motion. I loved the feel of her touch as much as I did her smell. The oil cooled my temples, then warmed them. Her massaging me was a little too intimate too soon, but no different from the time Mom and I went to a day spa (courtesy of Spencer’s secretary). Mom had felt uncomfortable at the spa, which made me uncomfortable, having Korean women rub “our big white feet” for minimum wage.
    My whole face felt warm now. Flushed. Beth’s face was extremely pale, but probably because she wore absolutely no makeup. “You look like your mom,” she commented.
    I wasn’t told that very often. “So do you.” She touched her hair. I told her I had a gift for her also. I pulled from my backpack the origami bird I’d made. It was a little crumpled.
    “Oh, Emmy! You
made
it?” I nodded. “I’ve never—from paper?” I nodded again. “I know right where I’ll hang it.” She admired it some more. “Thank you so much.” Mom had no patience when it came to doing origami. She said she found paper folding about as fun as embroidery. “Now let’s get your luggage.”
    Mom had to buy me suitcases for this trip. We didn’t own anything larger than a weekender, which Mom said was pathetic, given how much we talked about traveling and how we hung up postcards depicting faraway places. I wondered if Spencer told Mom yet about the tickets to Europe.
    “I’ll get the big suitcase.” I hurried over to it, a little ashamed now of its bulk.
    “Your throat sounds dry,” she said with worry. “There’s a pop machine out front.”
    I told her I was fine. I thought Mom was the only person who called soda pop.
    “It’s dry and dusty here,” Beth remarked, as if it were she who’d just stepped off the plane. “Your mom reminded me of that.” She quickened her pace. “She asked me to keep you hydrated.”
    Was I five? And it was certainly dry in Sacramento. The whole valley baked in summer and early fall. Our apartment didn’t have air conditioning, so for a third of each year Mom and I went practically naked around the apartment (when Spencer wasn’t there), especially in late afternoon and evening. Had Mom been bossy to her sister on the phone? Maybe older sisters were always bossy, but I felt strangely defensive of my aunt, whom, until a month ago, I hadn’t even known existed. “I thought of you every day,” she said as we wheeled the suitcases outside. It
was
drier here than in Sacramento, but not quite as hot. Had she really thought of me every day? “God finally answered my prayers. He brought you back to me.”
    Mom would contend, “More like technology and pilots.”
    But the truth was—though I wouldn’t realize this until later—I
had
felt summoned: by my aunt and her prayers; by the lake