Page 62 of The Otherworld

“I don’t… want to pry or anything,” Adam begins, his voice soft and tentative. “But I was just wondering…”

“Yes?”

He clears his throat, pausing to slide the chopped peppers into a bowl. “What happened to your mother?”

“She… died,” I answer softly.

Adam doesn’t seem surprised to learn this. “I’m so sorry.”

“It was a long time ago. I was too young to remember anything about her. Sometimes I wish I did, though—even if it meant missing her more. Papa doesn’t like to talk about her. I suppose it hurts him too much. He doesn’t even have any pictures of her, so I have no idea what she looked like.”

“Oh. I thought the photo in his sock drawer was of him and your mother.”

I frown. “What photo?”

Adam looks down, a flicker of regret crossing his face. “Sorry, I… just happened to see it when I was borrowing clothes from your dad. You didn’t know about it?”

“No… I didn’t.”

I drop everything and rush out of the kitchen, heading for Papa’s room. Sure enough, I find a small silver picture frame in the top drawer of his dresser.

My heart swells as I turn it over.

Mama looks young in the photograph. She’s standing on the steps of an old stone church, wearing a high-necked gown of white silk, beaming up at Papa with a smile bright enough to outshine the sun. Papa must be at least thirty years old, with dark, curly hair and a glint of adventure in his eyes.

It was their wedding day. September 29, 1977.

Why did he never share it with me? Does it hurt him too much to see Mama’s face? Is that why he prefers to keep her hidden in a drawer like this?

A sudden wave of anger wells up in me. That wasn’t fair of him. I deserve to see this picture. I deserve to have at least one small memory of my mother—even if Papa wishes to block it all out.

Adam looks up as I return to the kitchen, the photo frame still clasped in my hands. “Why would Papa hide this from me?”

There is a long silence before Adam speaks, his voice cautious and reflective. “Maybe he was hiding it from himself. Maybe it was too difficult… It must have been painful for him to lose his wife like that.”

“But at least he had her. At least they shared some happy times and made some memories. He doesn’t have to think of Mama and only remember what he’s lost—he can remember all the good things. All the happy moments they shared. He must remember some good things.”

Adam steps closer, looking down at the photo in my hands. “Everyone has a different way of dealing with grief, Orca. Sometimes happy memories hurt even more than sad ones.”

“How can that be?”

Adam shrugs. “You miss someone the most when you remember what your life was like when you had them. The kind of person you were because of them. And that’s what tears you apart—because you feel like you lost part of yourself, too.”

“Like if the sun went down and never came back up again,” I muse quietly, tilting my head as I take in the details of the wedding photo. “I wonder if she was Papa’s sun. I wonder if she was his soulmate.”

I prop the picture frame against a jar of fresh lilacs on the kitchen table, then return to chopping vegetables. “I read what you wrote about soulmates in your journal, but your entry was unfinished. You started to write, ‘people want to believe in soulmates because…’ and that’s where you stopped writing.”

Adam lifts his gaze to the window, a distant look in his eyes.

“Because…?” I prompt, waiting for the rest of that ever-unfinished sentence.

“Because that way, we can’t make a mistake,” he says. “We can’t choose the wrong person if the right person is already destined for us. And if we find them, this ‘other half,’ we think they’ll magically complete us—they’ll fill that void in us, and we won’t need to take responsibility or strive to fill the emptiness ourselves.”

I ponder this while slicing the last of the mushrooms. “The khaos?”

“Exactly. I think the idea of soulmates can be problematic because it makes you believe you need someone else to complete you. Like you can never be whole without that person.”

I turn his words over in my mind, studying the undertones like grooves in a branch of coral. “Maybe it’s not someone who’s preordained,” I murmur, thinking aloud. “Maybe some people just make soulmates. They find someone and love them so much that they sort of… become part of that person. And it’s not that they were one being before, but they are now, and that’s why it hurts when one of them goes away. Because it only hurts when one of you goes away, right? Not before you ever meet them.”

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