She leaned forward. “It means that you represent this family wherever you go, and whatever you do. We all do. So we must take care, in public, to comport ourselves in a way that upholds our legacy.”
I must have looked either confused or idiotic, or both, because she went on.
“Just yesterday, for example,” she said. “I was driving in town, and I pulled out of the parking lot at the pharmacy, and the car that was approaching in the lane had to slow down. He honked at me, and I almost honked back. But then I thought, I’d better not. We can’t have word getting around that the Suttons are bullies.” She gave me a conspiratorial little smile.
“Well,” I said, “I can’t honk at people if I don’t have a car.”
I guess I was hoping for some acknowledgment that I might like to drive somewhere at some point. I loved driving. Dad had taken me for the driver’s test on my sixteenth birthday, and I passed on the first try.
“Yes, perfect! So that won’t be a problem.”
Well, that backfired.
“Does that sound reasonable to you?” she asked. “Do you think you can help carry on our position in the community?”
No, I’d prefer to bring shame and scorn to your family. I nodded. “Yes, I think so.”
“Of course we can count on you,” she said, relaxing a little. “I can tell that you’re a thoughtful, caring person. And look at how much Agatha likes you already!”
Uh-huh. I looked at Agatha, who raised her fingers and dropped them. Her eyes were locked on a spot somewhere out in the yard behind me.
“Funny, too,” Laura said. “Making jokes.”
I tried to smile.
Agatha sighed, which caused her mother to check her watch and rise from the table as if we’d been ordered to leave immediately.
“Agatha,” Laura said in a clear, firm voice, “let’s go upstairs and get ready for bed.”
Agatha pushed her chair back and stood up, without turning her gaze from the window. Then we headed back to the stairs in a line, Laura first, then Agatha, then me.
“Do you happen to know the Wi-Fi password?” I asked. I’d rehearsed the question in my head fifty times. I don’t know why it seemed like such an intrusive thing to ask.
“I’m afraid John handles all of the technology,” Laura said. “We’ll have to check with him tomorrow. I hope that’s all right.”
“Sure,” I said. I could fend for myself for one night. “I’d use my data, but there’s no signal.”
“Oh, no,” Laura said. “You won’t get cell service out here. It’s a nightmare. I don’t even carry my phone unless I’m going into town. We do have a landline if you need to make a call.”
Is that what she thought people used phones for? “Maybe tomorrow I can help you get your phone on Wi-Fi,” I said. “I set up all my family’s phones. I was like tech support.”
“Perhaps,” she said pleasantly. “Like I said, John makes all of those decisions.”
She said it so naturally that I was halfway into another thought before I realized what she had said. Decisions? What kind of “decisions” needed to be made about Wi-Fi?
Well, sometimes technophobes didn’t know what they didn’t know. Olivia, one of the girls at Palmer House, was like that. We all spent a surprisingly enjoyable evening investigating exactly how she thought the internet worked—something to do with your phone loading up data when you plugged it in. Tam actually convinced her that she could wirelessly charge her phone by setting it on top of a package of AA batteries from the supply closet.
“If you like, the bathroom in the nursery can be your own,” Laura said to me. “We’ve had a larger one modified for Agatha, with a walk-in shower and safety rails.”
We reached an open door and Laura beckoned me in. It was a huge bathroom, exactly as she’d described, the walls lined with handles and the shower wide open so you didn’t have to step over the side of a tub. There was a chair in there, and a row of bath products—expensive-looking shampoos and conditioners, a comb, a loofah. On the wall hung a plush pink bathrobe. Beneath it, waiting neatly on a bench, was a pair of folded pink pajamas, a little square of undies, and a pair of pink ballet-style slippers.
“We’ll be finished in about twenty minutes,” Laura said. “Why don’t you shower? It always feels good to get cleaned up after a day of traveling. Maybe after I put Agatha to bed, we can talk for a few minutes and get to know each other.”
“Okay,” I said, but to be honest, I wasn’t sure I needed another round of awkward conversation to cap off this endless day.
“I’ve stocked the bathroom with towels and a few bath products for you,” she said. “Some of my favorites. If you don’t like them, we can get whatever you prefer. And I also left you a pair of pajamas—I didn’t know if you brought any.”
“Wow, thank you,” I said, feeling genuinely touched by her thoughtfulness.
“Agatha, let’s go,” she said.
But Agatha seemed not to have heard her. She stared at the wall.
“Your ears must be painted on today,” Laura said, gently guiding her into the bathroom and then closing the door.
I stood in the hallway, rooted in place.
When she thought I was ignoring her, Mom used to ask me, Are your ears painted on?
A little tornado of longing and grief seemed to move through my body. And when it was gone, I felt emptier than ever.
But I was also . . . intrigued. And as I listened through the door to the sound of water running, of footsteps, of a quiet, instructive voice, the curiosity sharpened into a feeling that could almost be described as hunger.
What else might Laura say that would bring up, so viscerally, the memory of my own mom?
* * *
THE PAJAMAS SHE’D left on the bed for me were made from dove-gray cotton so smooth it almost felt like silk, with lacy white ribbon sewn around the neckline and sleeves. The buttons were white with small flowers carved on them. Guaranteed, these pajamas cost more than the rest of my clothes put together.
In the bathroom, draped artfully on the small counter next to the sink, were a fluffy white towel and washcloth. And on the shelf in the shower was a neat row of brand-new bottles of shampoo, conditioner, and body wash, all with the same fancy floral labels as the ones in Agatha’s bathroom. I opened one and sniffed it. The fragrance was as far from my style as you could get—the heavy, perfumed smell of roses and jasmine—but I would never tell Laura I didn’t like them. I’d just go around smelling like an old lady for the foreseeable future.
I’d forgotten how nice it was to take a shower with plenty of hot water and no one banging on the door shouting that your time was almost up. I stood with my eyes closed, enjoying the excellent water pressure and the solitude and the admittedly first-rate lather of Laura’s bath products. The fragrance was already growing on me.
Finally, not wanting to give the impression that I was wasteful, I turned off the water and climbed out, wrapping myself in the fluffy towel and puttering over to the sink. A fancy new hairbrush was on the counter, along with the toothbrush Laura had given me—a fancy electric one, brand-new in its box. And a tube of organic cinnamon-flavored toothpaste.
I hung the towel on the bar, changed into the pajamas, and brushed my hair and teeth. By the time I finished, I felt warm, relaxed, and sleepily optimistic in spite of Agatha’s rejection. There was more to life here than Agatha.
I opened the door that led back to the nursery. The ceiling lights were off; just a single dim lamp was lit in the far corner. Laura was perched on the side of Agatha’s bed, reading to her from a small book she held in her hands. Her voice was low and steady, like the drone of a prayer.
“—be banished from this realm. And may virtue stand as a wall before you and leave you cast into the dark night, apart from innocent souls and the homes of righteous men—”
Suddenly
she froze and half turned toward me. The curves of her face were outlined by the warm lamplight, but I could see a bright, surprised look in her eyes.
“I’m—I’m sorry,” I stammered.
“I didn’t see you there,” she said. She deftly closed the book and slid it out of sight. “No need to apologize. I was just finishing up Agatha’s nightly reading.”
“Sounds heavy,” I said without thinking.
“We try to read widely,” she said, and I caught a hint of offense in her tone.
I nodded, knowing I’d done something wrong but not sure how to fix it.
“Go ahead,” she said gently. “I’ll be in shortly.”
Then she leaned over Agatha’s motionless form and kissed her forehead.
A searing sensation tore through my heart, and I closed my eyes and turned away.
My mother used to kiss my head like that.
I tried not to stumble as I made my way to my little room and put my dirty clothes in a tight bundle on the plain wooden chair in the corner. Then I sank onto the bed, facing away from the door, desperately trying to keep the tears out of my eyes. I felt myself on the edge of something huge and dark and yawning, some deep hole of loneliness I might never climb out of.
I’d been on this edge before and had always managed to back away from it—usually with the help of the arrival of a bossy nurse or a conveniently petty squabble with one of the Palmer House girls. But there was nothing like that here. No distractions. Nothing to shove me back from the edge.
There was nothing at all here.
Still, I shook myself—literally shook myself—and forced the darkness back.
I couldn’t fall apart on my first day.
Laura’s voice came from the doorway a few minutes later. “Margot? May I come in?”
I nodded and managed a yes that didn’t sound like it was being forced out of my mouth by a waterfall of impending tears.
The door opened, and Laura stepped halfway in. I could see that she wore a long, high-necked nightgown under a satiny floral robe cinched tightly around her tiny waist. “I brought you some tea. It’s chamomile and lavender—caffeine free. Tea always helps me relax.”
She set a cup of pale yellow liquid on the nightstand. “Thank you,” I whispered, desperate not to make eye contact.
“I wanted to mention . . .” she began. “I read through the medical information your caseworker sent. I hope you don’t mind—I just thought it was best for us to know what the doctors were thinking about the course of your recovery.”
This was a little confusing. “I’m—recovered,” I said. I’d broken a clavicle and bruised my sternum, but the rest of my trauma was your basic girl-escapes-from-sinking-car stuff: cuts, bumps, bruises, a little hypothermia. All in the past.
“Yes, although—” She stopped and scratched the corner of her eye. It was so unlike her that I knew she was profoundly uncomfortable with whatever she was about to say. “There’s more to recovery than just physical healing.”
Well, obviously. I wished I could reassure her that my emotional defects wouldn’t be a hindrance to her well-ordered life, but in truth I had no idea.
Should I come clean? Tell her about the nightmares? Or did she, perhaps, already know—was there some reference to them in the files she had snooped into?
I surprised myself with that word—snooped. That wasn’t fair.
“I wanted you to know that if you need to talk about anything, you can come to me. It’s quite common for there to be lingering effects after the kind of trauma you’ve been through. They can surface at unexpected times.”
Such as, for instance, a generalized sense of having no idea why you were still on the planet, maybe? I wouldn’t say it came at unexpected times. It was like a winter coat someone had superglued to my skin.
I gave her a tight-lipped smile and a stiff shrug.
“But please,” she said. “If you see anything, or—”
“See anything?” I asked. “What do you mean?”
She blushed, looking like she wished she could vanish into thin air like a genie. “I mean—the reports mentioned—I’m only quoting the doctors, you understand . . . but the hallucinations?”
“What?” I asked. “Hallucinations? No, no, I haven’t had those.”
“And memory loss?” she asked. “Time sort of . . . slipping away?”
“No,” I said, and as soon as I said it, I wondered if not remembering anything about the actual accident counted.
“Oh, well, good,” she said quickly, too brightly. “I’m so glad. That means your recovery is going smoothly.”
Yeah, you think that now, I thought. But wait until the screaming starts.
“I’m sorry to burden you with this,” she said. “Today wasn’t the right day. You’re already processing so much, coming here and adjusting to the way we do things. I wanted to make sure you felt that we were looking out for you . . . the way your parents might.”
Her words sliced like a knife right into my soft parts. I looked up at the ceiling, trying not to show how deeply they wounded me.
“I’m sorry, Margot,” Laura said. “I’m so sorry.”
Oh no. Come on. I didn’t need anyone’s understanding or compassion. I knew how terrible it was—why did people think I needed reminding? Why did they think I needed to rehash the accident all the time?
But that wasn’t what she meant.
“It was unfair of us not to tell you about Agatha before you came,” she said in a rush. “I think . . . we were so happy at the idea that someone might come and . . . and like her. I know that sounds ludicrous, because to someone who never knew her before, it probably doesn’t seem as if there’s anything there to like. But beneath it all, she’s still a person. And she still gets lonely, I’m sure of it. But that’s selfish, and it wasn’t fair not to give you a choice—a real choice.”
So great was my surprise at the conversation going in this direction that I forgot all about hiding my face. I looked straight at her, at her sad, sheepish expression.
“No, it’s all right,” I said. “I swear. It’s fine. I mean, it’s not what I expected . . . but when do you ever really get what you expect?”
A tiny light seemed to flicker behind her eyes. “That’s very generous. But I don’t want you to suffer in silence. We want you to want to be here.”
“I do want to be here,” I said. Did I? Whoops, too late to take it back.
She smiled. “Are you going to sleep now?”
I reached over and tapped my phone to see the clock. It was barely past eight. But what else was I going to do? It seemed too soon to start roaming the house, even just to go down and find a book in the library. I wondered what Laura did at night. Did she watch TV? If so, she would invite me to watch with her, right? I tried to imagine her kicking back on a comfy sofa and putting her feet up—her feet in their silky white slippers. Or in an overstuffed reclining armchair, like Mom used to do, snoring in her reading glasses and fuzzy socks. But I could only picture Laura sitting straight up, perched on the front edge of a sofa, sipping tea.
“Probably,” I said. “I’m pretty tired.”
“I understand. I’ve gotten into the habit of going to bed when Agatha does. Isn’t that awful? It makes me sound about a hundred years old.” She smiled ruefully. “Sometimes I feel a hundred years old.”
“Is it just you with Agatha?” I asked, trying to recall what John had said. “Don’t you have a nurse or anyone else to help you?”
Laura tucked her hair behind her ear. “We tried nurses in the past, but—this sounds silly—they did their jobs too well. They would get into a schedule, and then I found myself avoiding them so I didn’t disrupt their routine. I could go a whole day without seeing Agatha. And . . . even though it made my life easier, I missed her. She’s my child, and I think . . . I think she needs me. Children,
especially girls, need their mothers.”
I must have reared back. I felt like I’d been punched.
“Oh, no—what have I said?” she gasped, stepping fully into the room, her hands on her cheeks. “Margot, I’m so sorry. I’m an idiot. I’m worse than that, I’m—”
I held up my hand. “No,” I said hoarsely. “No.”
I meant, No. Please stop talking. You’re making it so much worse.
But she seemed to think I was saying she wasn’t an idiot, or that there was nothing to be sorry for.
“I am, I am. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Her voice melted into tears as she sank onto the bed and wrapped her arms around me.
I resisted, inwardly and outwardly, for a fraction of a second . . .
And then something inside me snapped. I closed my eyes and went limp. I let the weight of my cheek press against her thin, warm shoulder and let her arms curl tightly around my ribs.
“Oh, sweet Margot,” she breathed. “Oh, sweet, sad Margot.”
Stop talking, please. Stop talking now so I can pretend you’re my mother.
I didn’t want to cry, but I ended up crying anyway. And I felt her body shake with quiet sobs. The room was nearly silent, but the air was thick with our grief. I could smell it. I could feel it coming out of her skin.
“The real truth is,” she whispered, her voice jagged around the edges, “I know you want to leave, but you must stay. So much depends on you.”
She was quiet then, and the silence was as tight as a stretched-out rubber band.
I breathed in her scent, pretending that my mom had decided to try a new perfume and laundry detergent. That she’d gone on a diet and lost twenty pounds. And I bet Laura was doing her own version of the same thing: pretending she was hugging Agatha with a haircut.
CHAPTER
7
A LOW RUMBLE of thunder shook the house.
We leaned apart. The moment had passed.
“Tomorrow, we’ll see about your clothes,” she said kindly but a little stiffly. “And anything else you want.”
The Companion Page 5
