Page 70 of The Seven Miracles of Beatrix Holland
It surprised Beatrice to think of Reno standing in front of a classroom. “What did you teach?”
“History.”
This quiet woman had talked to students all day? “You’re kidding.”
“I just… like knowing what came before.”
“Why did you stop teaching?”
Reno turned her head and met her eyes. Slowly. Deliberately. “After Scarlett died, I drank every day.”
Was it a test to see if Beatrice would act like an asshole about it? She stayed silent. Waiting.
“After a year or two, I couldn’t stop. Got so I couldn’t trust myself to do anything right, but I didn’t care, either. Went to class. Taught that way. Blacked out in front of my AP class. Twice. I was teaching, still talking. My eyes were open, but I wasn’t in the driver’s seat of my brain. Second time, they gave me a warning. Did it again, got filmed by one of the kids, who put it on YouTube.Drunk Historybut not funny, just slurring about Watergate and then I passed out, splitting my head open on a desk as I went down.” She spread out her hands and looked at them as if her fingers held answers. “Bled all over the homecoming queen. I heard she used the trauma of it as her college-entrance essay. Good for her, honestly. Lost my job. Lost respect. And lost friends.”
Beatrice just nodded.
“People in this town, they have long memories. There’s a lot of people who don’t trust me in this town, and a lot of days, I’m one of them. But I got sober. Stayed sober with the help of some good folks. Not the long-memory kind. They were there for me. So was Cordelia, who drove me to every one of my first twenty or so meetings. I owe her my life.” Reno took a choppy breath. “I’ll never be able to repay that debt.”
“How long were you and Scarlett together?”
Reno closed her eyes tightly, her mouth drawing into a slim line. She rubbed her chest with a closed fist.
“Are you okay?”
“Just a sec.” Her voice was low and ragged.
Was she ill? Should Beatrice call someone?
But instead of moving, she waited, and in another moment, Reno opened her eyes with a gasp. “I’m fine. Sorry. What did you ask? Oh, yeah. Twelve years.” Her words were slow but becoming more even. “Couple of rough ones in there. But the rest? Never perfect, never dull, and everything I ever wanted.”
Beatrice let the pause lie open between them.
Eventually, with her chin still tilted to Venus and the stars joining it, Reno said, “We went on a hike. She got bit by a rattlesnake.”
“Oh, my god.”
“Seemed like it was going to be fine—they got a helicopter to pull us out, they had antivenom on board, and they got her to the hospital pretty quick. But she was allergic to the antivenom, and even though serum sickness usually passes, hers didn’t. She died of shock two days later.”
Beatrice reached for words—any words—but could only come up with the worse-than-useless “I’m so sorry.”
Reno nodded. She took another sip of her tea. “Cordelia was there at the end. Scarlett was with me one minute. The next, she was with Cordelia.”
Beatrice blinked. “Sorry?”
“You know. How she talks to people after they pass?”
“Um. No. I donotknow.”
Shuffling her boots, Reno said, “Crap. I shouldn’t have—”
Jesus, if this was true, why hadn’t Cordelia told her? Of course, with the death doula work—that would fit. Beatrice made a keep-going motion with her hand. “You can’t stop now.”
“It’s why she does what she does. So she can be with them on both sides, helping them over. She can hear them, talk to them for a while. They’re not alone.”
“Wow.”
“All three of them do that. Talk to the other side in some way. Minna gets images.”
