Free Believe by Sarah Aronson Page B

the Phillies. And this show he watched late last night. He didn’t even seem excited about my portfolio. Of course, at the moment, neither did I.
    My parents were heroes, risk-takers. They had big ideas. I didn’t. They wanted to change the world. Not me. They took me to Israel to tell the world a story.
    I picked up the retrospective and hurled it across the room.
    Look what that got them.

THIRTEEN
    No surprise, I dreamed about my mother.
    But it wasn’t my usual dream. I was not under the rubble. I was not fighting for my life. She didn’t save me. I didn’t hear her telling me anything that anyone could reinterpret later.
    Tonight Mom was working. She sat at her desk with her feet up, just like she did in the picture. Today she was wearing all white. There was an arrangement of white flowers on her desk—the epitome of elegance and reverence and good taste. She also chewed the end of a pencil.
    â€œMom.” I felt a sharp, searing cramp in both wrists—but I didn’t worry. She was here. In my room. The flowers smelled great. I didn’t care that it was a dream.
    I also didn’t complain when she wagged her finger the way Lo did when she was annoyed. “One of your friends has loose lips. All that insider information? Those pictures? They were not public property.”
    â€œI don’t want to talk about that.” I wanted to talk to her. My mother. Here in my room. She looked so alive, so real, it was easy to forget that she was dead. “What are you doing here? Is there something you need to tell me about today?”
    I waited for her to get up and kiss me or give me some maternal lesson, but she stayed at her desk and motioned to someone behind me. I could hardly stand it—I was sure it was my dad.
    It wasn’t.
    Instead, out stepped the old lady reporter. In my dream she wore a red skirt. A red shirt. A red jacket. Even her eyes were red. “I guess you are supposed to be the devil,” I said. My mother rolled her eyes.
    Journalist as devil; mother as angel. I wasn’t really all that creative.
    Still, I tried to focus. “Why did you bring her?”
    The old lady said, “Think of this as one of those old fairy tales you used to like so much. It shouldn’t be too hard. You are the orphan princess.” Now she smiled at my mother.
    My mom begged me to forgive her. Then she said to the devil, “Just get it over with.”
    The devil sat on the edge of my bed. “In that last interview you did a few years back, you said you wanted pretty hands—that you hated your scars. That your hands were what made you miserable. That if it weren’t for your hands, you could live a normal life.”
    All these things were true. These scars, those operations—they made people crazy. They meant things to people that they didn’t mean to me.
    She said, “So I have a special surprise for you. Look at them.” She held out her hands for a big hug. “Don’t hold back. Whenever you’re ready, you can thank me.”
    For a second, I thought I had it all wrong. She wasn’t the devil; she was my fairy godmother. I examined my hands, and I couldn’t believe it—they were better than perfect. My skin looked pure white. The scars vanished. I started to say something to my mother, but when I looked up, she was gone.
    Something was not right.
    I asked, “What is happening?” I didn’t want to complain, but my hands felt funny—sort of numb. And hard. My fingers were stiff—even worse than usual. When I got up to look for my mom, my beautiful hands would not move. They didn’t bend. They couldn’t do anything.
    I asked, “What did you do to me? Where is my mom?”
    The old lady acted like everything that was happening was no big deal. “Don’t make a big stink. You hated your old hands, so the devil gave you a new pair.”
    That’s when the dream turned manic.
    My