I Wish You Happy: A Novel Read online

  PRAISE FOR KERRY ANNE KING

  “Laugh, cry, get angry, but most of all care in this wild ride of emotions delivered by Kerry Anne King. Brilliant prose inhabited by engaging characters makes this a story you cannot put down.”

  —Patricia Sands, author of the Love in Provence series

  A compelling and heartfelt tale. A must-read that is rich in relatable characters and emotions. Kerry Anne King is one to watch out for!”

  —Steena Holmes, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author

  “With social media conferring blistering fame and paparazzi exhibiting the tenacity often required to get a clear picture of our lives, King has created a high-stakes, public stage for her tale of complicated grief. A quick read with emotional depth you won’t soon forget.”

  —Kathryn Craft, author of The Far End of Happy and The Art of Falling

  “Closer Home is a story as memorable and meaningful as your favorite song, with a cast of characters so true to life you’ll be sorry to let them go.”

  —Sonja Yoerg, author of House Broken and Middle of Somewhere

  “Kerry Anne King’s tale of regret, loss, and love pulled me in, from its intriguing beginning to its oh-so-satisfying conclusion.”

  —Jackie Bouchard, USA Today bestselling author of House Trained and Rescue Me, Maybe

  “King’s prose is filled with vitality.”

  —Ella Carey, author of Paris Time Capsule and The House by the Lake

  “Depicting the depth of human frailty yet framing it within a picture of hope, I Wish You Happy pulls you in as you root for the flawed yet intoxicating characters to reach a satisfying conclusion of healing. King’s writing is impeccable—and her knowledge and exploration of depression and how it affects those it touches makes this a story that everyone will connect with.”

  —Kay Bratt, author of Wish Me Home

  “Kerry Anne King’s Rae is a woman caught between the safety of her animal rescue projects and the messy, sometimes terrifying reality of human relationships. You’ll never stop rooting for her as she steps into the light, risking everything for real friendship and love in this wistful, delicate, and ultimately triumphant tale.”

  —Emily Carpenter, author of Burying the Honeysuckle Girls and The Weight of Lies

  “Kerry Anne King explores happiness and depression; the concept of saving others versus saving ourselves in this wonderfully written and touching novel populated by real and layered people. If you want to read a book that restores your faith in humanity, pick up I Wish You Happy.”

  —Amulya Malladi, bestselling author of A House for Happy Mothers and The Copenhagen Affair

  ALSO BY KERRY ANNE KING

  Closer Home: A Novel

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2017 Kerry Schafer

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Lake Union Publishing, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Lake Union Publishing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781477848869

  ISBN-10: 147784886X

  Cover design by Shasti O’Leary Soudant

  For Jamie, a bright soul gone too early into the dark

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  EPILOGUE

  AFTERWORD

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  BOOK CLUB QUESTIONS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Chapter One

  The day begins with a pocketful of wishes, and not a star in sight.

  Even though I know it’s futile, I can’t help voicing my requests.

  I wish it wasn’t Monday.

  I wish I had air-conditioning.

  I wish Oscar wasn’t dead.

  Wishes don’t change anything, my mother always says, but sometimes they translate into action. And sometimes, every now and then, wishes are granted out of the blue, as if there really is a cosmic fairy godmother out there watching over me.

  Oscar’s death is not like that. It’s not reversible. He’s dead when I wake up in the morning, and he’s still dead late in the afternoon. No wish is going to bring him back.

  By the time I get into my car to drive to my weekly session with Bernie, I’m fed up with both wishing and thinking.

  It’s a blistering afternoon in late July. The air whistling through the vents of my elderly Subaru doesn’t pretend to touch the heat. I drive with the windows open, for all the good it does me. Even the breeze feels thick and heavy and offers no relief.

  An unnatural glare erases all shades of gray, turning the world into sharp-edged geometric shapes. Even the shadows look solid enough to touch. Storm clouds gather over the mountains to the north, brilliant white on top, black and ominous beneath. Maybe this is it, the apocalypse, ushered in not by smallpox or zombies, but a sun on nuclear overdrive, pouring out enough light to incinerate us all.

  I navigate town on autopilot, aware of these two things: my sadness, and the brightness of the light, both of which are out of all reasonable proportion. Wedging my car into a too-tight space between an SUV and a pickup truck, I gather up the shoebox from the passenger seat and plod across the street into the waiting room of Your Mindful Self. Even this dim, shadowy refuge from the rest of the world seems far too bright.

  Air-conditioning raises goose bumps on my sweat-slick skin; the cardboard is clammy and damp. I feel two-dimensional and unreal, as if an invisible camera is recording the details of me, disheveled and tearstained, the shoebox clutched in my arms like a talisman.

  The small waiting area with its worn beige carpet and three green chairs is empty, except for me. According to the clock on the wall, I’m late, and Bernie comes to collect me almost at once, cool and serene as a willow tree in a floating green dress, her brown curls loose and long over her shoulders. With a murmured greeting, she leads me back to the inner sanctum.

  Sinking into my accustomed chair I concentrate on my breath, the way I’ve been taught. But even my breathing feels sharp and wrong, and I open my eyes again and lock on to Bernie. My lifeline, my savior.

  My paid friend.

  Her words, not mine, and said tongue in cheek. A gentle reminder that she isn’t my friend but my counselor, and won’t be in my life forever. A catalyst, she says. To give me the momentum I need to get on with my life.

  I’ve been steadfastly stuck now for five years, the weight of my determined inertia too much for even a force of nature like Bernie to budge.

  I focus in on her face, the lines of kindness and humor, the curl dangling in front of her left ear, the green stone she wears around her neck on a silver chain.

  I’m safe here.

  With this thought, her image dissolves into a fractured kaleidoscope of colors. My face is wet with tears before
I even know I’m crying. Bernie hands me the tissues, as bothered by my weeping as a tree would be by rain.

  I relinquish my shoebox onto her desk while I mop my eyes and blow my nose.

  “What did you bring me today?” Bernie asks.

  “Wait.” I grab for her hand, but I’m too late. She’s already lifting the lid.

  An instant of silence while she registers the contents, and then the peace is fractured by a piercing shriek. Bernie shoves her chair back, draws her feet up, and anchors them under her skirt. Her gaze is fixed on the box, eyes wide with horror, as if I’ve brought in a severed hand, maybe, or a skull.

  “I don’t do rats.” Her voice jumps a full octave higher than its usual calm contralto. Her hands tuck the skirt in tighter around her feet.

  “He’s dead,” I say, shocked out of my tears by her reaction. “It’s not like he’ll be jumping up into your lap.”

  “Still a rat, dead or alive.” Her voice trembles. Her hands, too, are shaking.

  “Breathe,” I tell her, in my best imitation of her counselor voice. “In: two-three-four-five. Out: two-three-four-five.” God knows she’s used that one on me enough times to justify the little edge of sarcasm that’s slipped past my guards.

  She’s not breathing, at least not in the mindful way, and the look she levels at me is one I’m pretty sure they don’t teach in counselor training. “Why on earth did you bring that—thing—to my office?”

  “It’s not a thing. It’s Oscar. He’s dead.”

  “I can see that. What I don’t see is why there is a dead rat on my desk.”

  I retrieve the box and cradle it in my lap, trying to understand her reaction. Oscar lies in a state on an old hand towel. It just happens to be Christmas red, and his white fur makes a dramatic contrast. His pink feet, which have always seemed like hands to me, are stretched out and open, as if he’d voluntarily surrendered when death came calling. His naked tail curls pathetically around his body.

  “It’s the tail,” Bernie says. Her voice sounds a little better, and she’s breathing again, but her feet hide safely underneath her skirt. One of her hands smoothes her hair. “Rat tails. Mouse tails. They’re so naked.”

  I replace the lid on the box and let an edge of anger into my voice. “He was completely naked when he came to me. His mother was eaten by a family cat. My coworker brought him to me in a matchbox.”

  “And you took him home and saved his life.” Bernie sighs, shifts her weight, and allows her feet to come back to the floor. Her professional skin is back on, but it doesn’t fit quite right.

  “Tell me about Oscar,” she says, trying to take us back to our regularly scheduled counseling program. But the room is full of emotional fallout, and at least half of it is hers. Her eyes tell me that she sees this as clearly as I do.

  “I wish you hadn’t opened the box,” I tell her.

  “I wish you hadn’t brought it.” She takes a breath and softens her voice. “I thought it would be the usual. A wounded bird, motherless kittens. It never crossed my mind that you would bring me a rat.”

  Silence grows around us, pressing in on me. I try to swallow a golf-ball-size lump in my throat that refuses to go down. “It’s Oscar,” I finally manage to croak, willing her to understand the universe of meaning in my words.

  “Oscar is a rat.” Her voice is cool and relentless. “A dead rat.” She doesn’t say, Get a grip, Rae, but that’s what she means.

  She leans back in her chair, presses her fingertips together. “I wonder. Maybe if you had friends—real friends—your world wouldn’t crash into pieces every time a small creature passes into the great beyond. This isn’t the first time we’ve had this conversation, Rae.”

  Which is true, of course. I’ve wept in her office over kittens, birds, and bunnies. On those occasions she was warm and empathetic, but always the conversation comes back to this place. What about people, Rae? When are you going to let some people into your life?

  “I’ve tried that,” I tell her. “It never ends well.”

  “Try again. You know the definition of insanity, right?”

  “Repeating the same action and expecting different results. Yeah, I know it. Which is why I don’t do friends.”

  Her mouth opens, and I know what she’s going to say, some sort of variation on doing friendships differently, using all of the tools in my toolbox, but then she shifts the gears on me and asks, instead, “How are your parents?”

  Every muscle in my body tightens. “My parents are fine.”

  “You could change things up a little,” Bernie says. “Call them tonight. Tell them your—pet—died, and you’re sad.”

  It’s not that my parents don’t love me. The problem is that they are both what I call Highly Focused People, HFPs, while Bernie says I’m a Highly Sensitive Person, HSP. The disconnect caused by that one little letter—F versus S—puts us on either side of a vast communication chasm we’ve never managed to bridge.

  They call me every Sunday afternoon, precisely at four, to inquire about my well-being and ask if I’m ready to apply to medical school yet. My mother asks if I’m dating, but weddings and grandchildren aren’t really on her agenda. The only acceptable reason to call them on a Monday would be my impending death, or my long-overdue application to medical school.

  Bernie knows all of this. She also knows this pattern is not about to change.

  When she adjusts her necklace, leans forward with both elbows on the desk, and rests her chin in her hands, I brace myself for what’s coming.

  “When was the last time you went out? You know. Drinks. A movie. Dinner. Shopping.”

  “I hang out with people at work.”

  “That’s work. You didn’t answer my question.”

  Rule number one of counseling is that you can’t run away during a difficult session. Letting go of the shoebox, I anchor myself to the chair with both hands. Bernie lets the silence grow until it is cosmic, then sighs, sinks back, and lets her hands fall to her lap.

  The gesture does me in, it’s so full of futility. Even Bernie doesn’t know what to do with me.

  “Your trouble, Rae, is that you only have two switches: full-on spotlight, or lights out. You need a dimmer switch. If you could modulate your emotional attachment to people—and animals—life would be so much easier for you.”

  I’m all about this easier life, and I think a dimmer switch sounds fantastic. But I’ve done the exercises and the journaling and the cause-and-effect chains and the feeling analysis. None of it works. Maybe because of this dimmer switch I’m missing, but also because everybody, including Bernie, lies about their feelings.

  She doesn’t want me to know what she’s feeling. She wants to pretend that her emotional state is purely professional. But the acid wash of her anger and resentment swirls around in the pit of my stomach with my own anxiety and grief.

  This is the thing she’s never understood about me, as many times as I’ve tried to explain. I don’t need body language or vocal cues to read her emotions. I feel them, just as surely as I feel my own. Her anxiety tightens my shoulders and quickens my breath. Her anger heats my blood. Right now, behind her oh-so-professional veneer, I know she wants this session to end as much as I do.

  I need Bernie. I need these sessions. But it’s not going to work with a morass of half-truths stretching between us. For the first time in years I dare to speak what I’m not supposed to know, hoping against hope this time will be different.

  “You’re pissed at me. For making you feel vulnerable.”

  I don’t need to see the infinitesimal lift of her eyebrows, the compression of her lips, the way her nostrils flare, to know I’ve crossed a line.

  “What I feel doesn’t matter right now,” Bernie says, after a pause that is just a shade too long. “What matters is that you learn to handle your own emotions. Shall we go through a calming exercise? Perhaps—”

  “No.” I shake my head. “That doesn’t work. I need to know what you are feeling. Right now
. About me. About us. Are you hurt, pissed off, afraid? I bet you wish you’d stayed in bed this morning, or maybe called in sick.”

  “Rae, this isn’t—”

  “You keep talking about this dimmer switch thing. This is a perfect opportunity. Show me how it’s done. Be real with me, Bernie.”

  For just a minute I think she’s going to come clean. Her reserve falls away, anger firms the line of her chin. Her right hand clasps the stone at her throat. But then she takes one of those damned calming breaths and puts on a concealing smile.

  “Deflection is a common defense mechanism,” she says, far too gently. “I know this is difficult terrain for you, but—”

  “I’m not deflecting.” I get to my feet. “This isn’t going to work, Bernie. I think we both see that.”

  “Rae . . .” Bernie stands and stretches her hand out toward me, as if she’s going to touch my arm, grab my shoulder, reel me back in. She doesn’t, though. Her hand drifts back down to her side. She doesn’t say whatever she was thinking.

  “Good-bye, Bernie.” Tears distort my vision. I bump my hip into the doorjamb on my way out. Oscar’s weight shifts in the box with a sick little bump and roll.

  Bernie doesn’t come after me.

  Outside, the mass of clouds has grown darker. Thunder grumbles across the sky, and a gust of wind sweeps the pavement in front of me, raising a swirl of dirt and bits of paper.

  Holding tightly to the box so the lid doesn’t blow off, I bend my head and squinch my eyes half shut against the gritty wind. Once safely in the car, Oscar settled on the passenger seat beside me, I take three deep breaths before I turn the key.

  Those breaths are Bernie all over again. Her words, her ideas, are embedded in everything.

  I brush away tears. Fuck Bernie. Who needs her?

  Me, that’s who. I need her. I don’t know how I’m going to manage without her, but I’m pretty sure I won’t be coming back.

  Chapter Two

  Since I live in a rental house and lack a backyard for the purpose, I’ve taken to borrowing neglected graves in the Colville cemetery when one of my small creatures passes on. Nobody pays any attention to a sad-faced woman with a hand trowel planting flowers on an old grave. Most people look away, not wanting to see either grief or crazy, so it’s never a difficult thing to slip a small body into the earth beneath the begonias or the petunias, or whatever flower I’ve chosen to commemorate the occasion.