Excerpt
“Anessa!” The panicked voice of her friend, Sarah Williams, screeched through the phone.
“Hi, Sally.” Anessa, barely awake, stifled a yawn. At six-thirty in the morning, she had just gotten up and hadn’t even had a moment to wash her face or ask the question to her mirror.
“Thank God you answered! Grandmother’s had a stroke! They’re rushing her to St. Michael’s. Mom’s heating up the car. Please meet me at the hospital right away,” Sally sobbed. “Gotta go.”
Anessa clutched the now-dead phone in her hand, fully awake and shaken by the terror in Sally’s voice. Anessa was not quite clear what to do next. Thoughts of Sally’s situation rushed through her mind. Her grandmother, Mrs. Herber, was her friend’s lifeline. The Williams family had suffered years of abuse under the heavy hand of a disturbed, tyrannical father, and Sally had received the support she needed from her grandmother. In fact, without the older lady’s care and encouragement over the past few years, Sally might have run away and gotten into who-knows-what kind of trouble.
Mrs. Herber had suffered a stroke many years before that had left her body debilitated but her mind intact. While Mrs. Herber was confined to a wheelchair, she was able to communicate, speaking clearly, and her heart remained warm and loving. The doctors had warned, however, that she could have another stroke at any time, one that could kill her or leave her completely incapacitated, both physically and mentally. Was this that stroke? What would happen to her friend, Anessa wondered, if Mrs. Herber died?
Anessa’s mind immediately switched to getting to the hospital. She had gotten her driver’s license several months earlier but had no car. She and Charlie, her stepbrother, usually went to school together in his souped-up Corvair. Charlie had gotten a part-time job when he was fifteen. He had saved his money and with some help from his grandfather had bought the run-down car and fixed it up. He was still working on the body, so the faded yellow exterior wasn’t beautiful, but it drove well enough. Charlie was, therefore, one of the few seniors at Summerville High who owned his own car.
For a moment, Anessa didn’t know whether to wake Charlie or her parents. Everyone would be up in half an hour. What to do? Anessa went to her room and stood in front of her five-foot tall mirror with its rosewood frame. As she gazed at her reflection, Anessa asked a question, “Shall I wake up Charlie or Mom to take me to the hospital this morning?”
Anessa’s grandmother had given her the mirror five years ago on her eleventh birthday. At that time, her grandmother, MomMom, had taught Anessa to use the mirror as a tool to access her own intuition, starting each day with the question, “What can I do today to make me happy?” Sometimes when she looked in the mirror she thought of a genie in the bottle or the magic mirror from Snow White, but she had gradually learned that it wasn’t magic like that. The answers she got came from inside herself, from a source within her that was good and strong and always knew the best thing to do in any circumstance. Anessa had begun to suspect that the answers she received were the voice of God within her and that everyone had this voice contained within, even if they were unaware of it.
This morning, however, such thoughts were far from her mind, and she strained for an answer to her question. Immediately, in her mind and heart she understood “both.” Then she heard, “By the way, what will make you happy today will be to spend it with Sally at the hospital. Your mom can cancel school for you.”
After so many years of asking her mirror the question “What can I do today to make me happy?” and getting replies with and without looking in the mirror, she was confident in its messages, and so Anessa headed toward her parents’ room without hesitation. The bedroom door cracked open just as Anessa was about to knock and out came her mom, wrapping her quilted pink robe around her and responding to Anessa’s surprised look by saying, “I heard the phone and knew you needed me. What’s up?”
“Sally’s grandmother had a stroke. She’s at St. Michael’s. Sally sounded awful, really stressed out and scared. I want to go be with her. My mirror said I should spend the whole day. Will you call school?” Anessa pleaded.
“Go get dressed,” her mother said, kissing the top of Anessa’s head. “My car developed a mysterious malady last night. It’s at the shop, and Jeff and I will need to take his car to work. I’ll wake Charlie, and we’ll ask him to drive you. Then I’ll call your school and let them know you won’t be in today. Hopefully, I’ll be able to come by St. Michael’s over lunch.” After a pause, her mother added softly, “It will be alright. She won’t die today. She’ll be around for a while yet.”
“How do you know, Mom?” Anessa was choking up.
“I’ve a very clear feeling. You know how that is. Now, hurry along. Sally’s going to need you.”
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