Epilogue
Our English literature teacher, Mr. Edgewater, spent a great deal of time getting us all to understand the essence of classical tragedy. He stressed that the tragic character isn’t simply someone who has a terrible thing happen to him or her. He or she has to have hubris, too much pride, meaning ego. He or she therefore causes the tragedy to occur.
I will always wonder if Haylee thought she could do what the therapists couldn’t when it came to Cedar Thomas. Maybe she believed he was so in love with her that she could lead him from the dark, insane world to her world of constant pleasure and happiness. She might have even thought up the whole thing, not realizing that she had gone too far. Maybe she believed that if it didn’t work, no one would blame her. She would simply return to some form of treatment. There was no such thing as good or evil; there was simply a wrong turn.
The police detective informed us that they were confident the driver, Cedar Thomas, deliberately went through the guardrail and plunged the car a few thousand feet to the rocky place below. Miraculously, there was no fire, but neither the driver nor his passenger was wearing a seat belt. The medical examiner claimed that death was instantaneous.
Days later, Dr. Alexander invited us to meet at her home. Only my father and I could go. Mother was practically catatonic, under care and medication. My father almost refused the invitation, but after a second thought, he decided we should hear what Dr. Alexander had to say.
“I didn’t ask you here to listen to excuses,” she began after we sat in her modest living room. “I wanted to tell you what I believe happened.”
“It clearly looks like he committed suicide and took Haylee along for the ride,” my father said. The events had hardened him almost to the point of being unrecognizable. Once again, he was launched into a conflict between anger and sadness.
“As strange as it’s going to sound to you, that’s not what I think happened.”
“Why not?” my father asked.
“Cedar Thomas believed he could read auras around people. He was taught to believe this, and it became a device to service his own inner rage, his deep paranoia.”
“But he drove the car over a cliff deliberately,” my father said.
“Because at the time, he was convinced your daughter had a demon living in her.”
“Then why did he pick her up? Why did he want to be with her?”
“He thought he was doing good, destroying evil.”
“But he would die, too,” my father said, his face showing terrible pain.
“We would know that. We’re rational and logical. But he thought he would be rewarded in the hereafter. That’s my assessment.”
My father shook his head. “How did you let her get involved with this nutcase?”
“Neither of them was living in solitary, Mr. Fitzgerald. I think Haylee was intrigued and fascinated by him. She appeared more energetic, more interested in doing productive things.”
“And thought she could cure him?” I said.
“Maybe. More likely, she didn’t think of him being cured, just free. They’d both be free.”
“So she used him,” I said. “Whatever the reason, she was responsible for what happened to herself.”
“I don’t think we should blame her now.”
“So we’re back to that,” my father said. “Whom should we blame?”
“Either you believe what Cedar Thomas was taught, that there are demons in some people, or you accept that we all share blame. We don’t mean to do harm. Things we do get misinterpreted, misdirected. They’re mistakes, and maybe we miss seeing the effects of those mistakes, but we want good things for people we love. Your ex-wife wanted that. She certainly didn’t want this, and neither did you or Kaylee. I simply want you to find some peace with it all.”
I looked at my father.
“I don’t know if you’re right. I don’t even know if it matters, Dr. Alexander,” he said. “I don’t envy you for the world you’re in. It’s easier to believe that there are good guys and bad guys and leave it at that. But I appreciate your telling us about the boy and sharing your thoughts with us. Kaylee?”
We stood to leave.
“What about me?” I asked. “I’m one of the Mirror Sisters. Will I make a similar mistake, overestimate what I’m capable of doing, and cause more trouble?” In the back of my mind, I was thinking about Troy and how I had advised him.
“It’s not all in what’s reflected, Kaylee. I think you know when to ask for help.”
My father was quiet for most of the ride back. We both were.
“She’s right,” he finally said. “She’s like the rest of us, more educated but only out to do some good. It’s pointless to blame her.”
“I like that, Daddy. Maybe someday I’ll do what she does.”
“Maybe you will. That way, I’ll get some free therapy.”
It was practically the only time either of us had smiled during the last few days and practically the only time we would in the days to follow.
Mother was not well enough to attend Haylee’s funeral. Troy cut school to be with me. I knew his biggest worry was that I wouldn’t return to Littlefield. There would be too many questions and all the astonishment at my hiding the past and my sister’s existence.
“If you transfer to some other school, I’ll transfer there, too,” he promised.
That night, I called him after talking about it with my father.
“I’m coming back,” I said. “I’m not running away from anything anymore.”
“I’ll be waiting,” he said. “We’ll go for the best sundae in America.”
“In the world,” I said, and we started to talk about all that we would do in the weeks and months to come.
At the end of the week, I went to Haylee’s grave alone. There was no monument or footstone yet, just a small plaque with her name and dates. It was a bright day, one of those days when the sky is almost turquoise and the small clouds look like what my mother once had described as puffs of God’s breath. We were only about five when she told Haylee and me that.
Haylee had blown up her cheeks and looked at the sky and said, “I want to make a cloud, too.”
“And what do you want to do, Kaylee?” Mother immediately asked me.
“Whatever Haylee wants to do,” I replied. It was the answer she wanted, the answer she would never hear again.
I studied the mound of earth. I had seen the coffin lowered, but it still seemed unreal to me. Nevertheless, I stepped closer to talk to her.
“I think deep down you really wanted us to be sisters again, Haylee. You ran away, but you thought you would be back, maybe even for Christmas. You’d expect Mother would have two of everything she had bought for us. We’d each kiss her cheeks, and she would kiss each of ours.
“Then we’d play Christmas songs in duet, and there would be lots of laughter and hugs and, most important, promises. We’d go to bed together, talking about boyfriends and how we were going to be married in the same ceremony and take the same honeymoon and have children at the same time.
“We were supposed to grow old and die together at the exact same moment.
“So you see, it doesn’t matter what happened. I’m going to live for both of us just the way we had planned. Nothing’s changed. Mother will still see two of us, and even though he doesn’t want to, so will Daddy.
“To lose you, really lose you, I’d have to live in a world without mirrors. You will live on in my reflection just the way I would in yours.
“What do you think of that?”
I stood there for a moment, listening to her laughter and imagining us holding hands as we ran across the lawn to greet the guests who had come to our fifth birthday party, while we recited, “Haylee and Kaylee, Kaylee and Haylee.”
I knelt, put my palm on the freshly turned earth, whispered her name, and then left, feeling renewed confidence in the happiness that would come.