The Possibilities: A Novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings Read Free Book Online Page A

She is Morgan!
    I was five when my mother died of lung cancer. I know what it’s like to be young and to move on. For the first time I wonder how my dad felt—to see his child mourn the loss of her mother, then the next day want to play with her friends.
    I wonder how he’s doing up there. I’m sure he’s enjoying Kit’s company too much. I’m positive he’s already asked where she’s from, what her parents do, how old she is, why she’s in Breckenridge, where she went or goes to college, what she wants to do with her life, and if she put ten percent of her earnings into savings. Hopefully he hasn’t asked if she’s on oxy whatever or if she’s a cutter.
    I place the folded clothes into shopping bags for the Salvation Army. They are just clothes, just objects.
    “What is it, exactly?” I ask. “The party at the Broadmoor.”
    “It’s just that,” Suzanne says. “A party.”
    “So, no speeches or—”
    “All I know is that Morgan has been working very hard,” she says.
    “Okay,” I say, detecting defensiveness and responding as such. “I just wanted to be a little prepared, let my dad know what to expect.”
    “It will be like a cocktail reception,” she says, suddenly assured. “A party. Just a little something where the college can recognize one of their own. In fact I think Morgan is setting a precedent. It’s never been done before.”
    For other dead kids , I can’t help but think. For dead alums . It’s strange the new ways I’m meant to feel good or honored.
    “I bought this for you the other day,” Suzanne says. She walks to her purse on the dresser. I can tell she has read my thoughts, maybe wants to corroborate, but that would mean taking something away from her daughter. She hands me a red bottle. “Love this stuff,” she says. “It’s some miracle skin cream made by monks in their rice paddy fields.”
    “Thanks,” I say. “Is it expensive?”
    “Of course.”
    “Does it work?” I ask.
    “I don’t know, does it?” She angles her face toward me.
    I look at her eyes, her forehead and smooth cheeks. She looks the same as she did last week, last month, last year. “You have such nice skin,” I say.
    I remember the pot I found and walk over to his bedside table and open the drawer. “Here. I have something for you too. Made by farmers in their marijuana fields.”
    I hand her the three baggies.
    “Oh wow,” she says.
    I have never seen anyone smoke so much pot besides Billy, Cully’s dad, but he was a kid then. Suzanne is almost fifty and this pot stuff is a new thing she’s taken up since the trouble with Dickie began, that and the eating, and she’s gotten very good at both.
    “And I have no idea what this is,” I say, handing her something with a cord and plug.
    “That’s a vaporizer,” she says.
    “What’s that?” In my day I have smoked from a hookah, an apple, a glass pipe, a Pepsi can, and a bong named “the reverend” but have never heard of a vaporizer.
    “It’s to breathe vapor and not smoke,” she says. “So it’s clean. Pure.” Then she adds, “And so parents can’t smell it.”
    We both raise our eyebrows at the same time and I smile even though there’s a tug—an irritation and shame that he kept a secret from me, but of course he did stuff like that. The shame comes from having Suzanne witness it. I keep moving, filling the bags, then moving them to the hall.
    “Well, go ahead and have it all,” I say. “Smoke it or vaporize it, or whatever.”
    “I don’t know,” I hear her say behind me. “I feel like I shouldn’t. It’s something of his and—”
    “For Christ’s sake, it’s drugs. If it was Xanax, I’d take it. I’m not going to frame it. He’d be grounded if I had found this before . . . ”
    “Sorry, I was just trying to be respectful.”
    “I guess I wouldn’t ground a twenty-two-year-old,” I say. “I’d just yell at him. I was always pestering him, nagging him.” My eyes water. I keep moving,