Page 6 of The Fates We Tame
Her body’s a mess, and she likes to overshare.
But she’s a pretty one.
And as I step down into the pool, I find I want to know more about her.
2
SOPHIA
My driver’s license tells me who I am.
Sophia Chiara Viscuso. Born twenty-five years ago.
It shows me what I looked like before…
It’s the only thing in the world I trust. It was returned to me by the police in a plastic bag with the only other thing they found in my car: a shattered phone.
Apparently, it was with me the day I went through the windshield of a car. A car that isn’t even mine, which I was apparently driving erratically. Without a seat belt.
Before I swerved off the road and hit a tree.
My license is how the people who helped me on the scene knew who I was.
The mirror reminds me that I no longer look like the woman on my license. She’s a stranger to me even though some things remain the same, like my long dark hair, minus the regrowth at the back of my neck. I know my prosthetic eye is necessary. I’ve been told all the reasons why. But I’m struggling to accept the changes to my physical appearance.
I couldn’t bring myself to tell Theo the full story. I’m not sure why, because I’m usually an open book.
My family has been amazingly patient. Even when I asked them to see proof that we were actually family. My mother used it as an opportunity to pull out my baby books and tell me everything from the beginning, right down to how many stitches she needed post-labor. I saw pictures of a little girl in frilly dresses and knits. School photographs with bad haircuts. School plays with hideous costumes. A cap-and-gown graduation. A twenty-first birthday party with myfamiglia. Eating a large dish ofpasta con le sarde. Celebrating Stragusto in Trapani with my broader family and hunkered down at home celebrating the feast of Saint Agatha of Sicily.
My brothers were typical brothers, I guess. They told me stories involving escaped frogs and bloodied noses and my first date with a neighborhood boy they terrified. They showed me pictures of private air travel and concerts and, in the more recent pictures, lots of champagne.
We’re obviously close.
They call mePuparu.It meanspuppeteer. It’s a nickname I was given by my father for pulling my brothers’ strings to get them to do as I said.
But when they showed me the photographs at the start of this journey five months ago, I had this weird feeling that I was looking at someone else’s life.
Certainly, I was there in the images, but I wasn’t.
I have no memory of any of it.
And I didn’t have a real connection to any of them beyond them telling me I was loved, which felt…awkward. My initial feelings toward them were that of any stranger I saw on the street. In the months since, thanks to their efforts, I’ve learned to love them in my own way. They’ve been fierce advocates for my recovery. I worked for my father, but he won’t let me even think of trying to find a way to work yet. Instead, he pays for everything.
Despite living in the rehab unit, I’ve visited my luxury apartment a handful of times and been to my parents’ house to spend time there in the past month as my independence has grown. I’m not a hostage here, but there is safety in having on-call support at night. Of having easy access to various therapies. And of having some kind of space from the overwhelming worry my family has for me.
Plus, the other places feel…foreign. There is evidence of me in both places. Photographs. Clothes that fit me. But in other ways, neither place reflects me. I didn’t like either of the books I took from my bookshelves, ones my youngest brother assured me were my favorite. And the clothes are all too…much. Too expensive, too restricting, too impractical.
All I want now is softness against my skin. Clothes that hide my scars and don’t hinder my movements in any way.
I feel guilty for all of it. My therapist says it’s normal to harbor the feelings I do. Their generosity overwhelms me. They pay for everything. For the care here. For my apartment because I have no work. They’ve bought me a new phone, new laptop, and new clothes.
And yet, I may need them to help me find a new place to live. Somewhere that will give me a new start. Maybe on a lower floor, so if the elevator ever breaks down, I don’t have to walk up eleven flights of stairs.
I’m early for my session, but I no longer want to be in my room. I debate going to the roof to get some steps in on the track up there, but I find myself heading in the direction of the lobby.
“Morning, Angelique,” I say when I pass the administration station on my floor of the three-story building.
“Morning, Sophia. Where are you off to?”
