My novel continues… At the age of 10, Susie had just taken the next step toward becoming aware of her “Higher Self.”
Izak
After my talk at the center, Jake invited me to go to that café down the street from Matt and Lisa’s Place with him, Rose, and Susie. Susie and I were walking together, several steps back from Jake and Rose. Susie would usually have run to the corner first, then looked back at us. This time, she was hanging back with me, holding my hand as we walked… the distance between her parents and us increasing. It’s hard for me to think of her as Susie after what happened just now—how she talks—a grown-up in a child’s body. We stop. Susie tilts her head up at me the way she does. Actually, now that I have seen Rose do the same thing, I realize Susie may have gotten that gesture from her mom.
“Izak?”
“Yes—Susie?”
“If it will help, you can call me Susan. I feel more like her now.”
“Okay. I will try that. By the way, did you know I was thinking about that just now?”
“I had an idea about it, yes. Don’t get me wrong, though. It isn’t as if I was reading your mind, or anything like that. I was only applying how I feel about what happened earlier, to how you might feel interacting with me now.”
She turned to gauge the widening lead her mom and dad had on us, tugged my hand, and we resumed our walk at a faster pace. “Susie—This will take a while. Susan, your way of talking, vocabulary, and sentence structure are so different. And your understanding of how my earlier interaction with you may have changed how I relate to you now is so… unlike that of someone your age might have. Do you know why that happened?”
“Not really, Izak. Susie understands only that it is from her other self, and that physically, she is the same. The Susie part of me is developing a better sense of her older self, how she thinks, and how we will be as we continue our merging. It feels weird to me, as well, but also natural. One thing I have become aware of is that, as Susie, I had always mispronounced your name as, I-Zak.”
“Susan… I always thought the way you said my name was endearing.” She tilted her chin and let her head drift in a slow, knowing bob, an unconscious echo of her grandmother Emily’s mannerisms.
“At first, Susie knew she had said it wrong. Nobody corrected her. Besides that, she noticed that you laughed the first time she said your name that way. It made her feel good to hear you laugh.”
“So, after that, she said it wrong on purpose—You have me doing it now. Is how you are talking about Susie in the third person intentional?”
“Yes, it is. It is inevitable at this point as Susie and I continue to merge, and she takes on more of my personality. Her saying your name the way she did is a simple example of one of her quirks that I no longer need. The changes you see are due to me, taking more control.”
“I do miss how Susie used to call me Grampa, though.”
Susan and I had nearly caught up to her parents by the time Jake held the door for Rose. As we reached the entrance, I turned to her, preparing to open the door for her. The corners of her mouth quirked up, and stifling a laugh, she said, “I-Zak—if you stick with calling me ‘Susan,’ then I’ll call you ‘Grampa Izak.’”
Memory is the Key 