by Emiko Jean
“Forget about Monica,” Amelia says as we stand in line for morning meds. “She’s a bitch, and she probably wears dirty underwear.”
I smile absent-mindedly while my eyes stay trained on Chase. Ever since breakfast I’ve been tracking his movements. As much as I hate to admit it, I need his help. I need to ask him if he knows where Cellie is.
Amelia doesn’t miss a thing. “You’re staring at him again.”
“Staring?” I keep my expression blank.
Amelia wiggles her head back and forth in the space between Chase and me. “Yeah, you know, the act of looking intently at something with your eyes wide open.” She pries her eyes open to illustrate her point. Her hands drop back down to her sides. “So what’s up? You got the hots for him or something?”
I chew my lip, not sure what to say. Should I tell Amelia that I need his help? That I’m using him to get information that’ll help me hunt for my sister? Better not. So I stay mute and refocus on the kid in front of me. He wears an Insane Clown Posse tee, and a yellow band wraps around his left wrist.
But Amelia isn’t deterred. She sees something in my face, the wrong thing. “Patient relationships are strictly forbidden, Alice.” But her face isn’t forbidding; instead it’s laced with hungry interest and delight.
“It’s not like that.” I scratch my forehead. “He’s hard to read, that’s all.”
“Like Atlas Shrugged?”
I chuckle. “No, more like War and Peace.”
She shoulder bumps me and grins. “Just remember, Alice, chicks before dicks.” I smile and bump her back. Amelia chuckles for a minute, but then her face changes. “Seriously, though, I don’t think he’s a good idea. He was in the D ward, and one of the girls in my therapy group said . . .”
“What?”
“I’m not supposed to say.”
“Christ, Amelia, you can’t just leave me hanging. What’d that girl say about Chase?”
“She said, and honestly I wouldn’t believe her if she didn’t tell me that she went to high school with him and then another girl confirmed it . . .” Her words come out in one long, rushed run-on sentence.
“What’d she say, Amelia?”
“She said Chase is in here because he killed someone.”
I imagine that my expression is a cross between disbelief and horror. My mouth hangs open and before I can form a response, Amelia nudges me. “You’re up,” she says, motioning to the nurse’s counter.
“Alice Monroe,” a nurse says, and by the annoyance in her voice, I know it’s the second time my name has been called. As I walk to the nurses’ station, I throw Amelia a look that says wait here. I grab the cup from the nurse’s outstretched hand. I’m on what I like to call “the Fourth of July,” a combination of red, white, and blue pills. The nurse jerks another cup toward my face, one with an inch of water. I grab it from her and down all three pills with one swallow. I open wide, roll back my head, and let her peer into my mouth. “Good,” she says; then, “Next.”
Amelia is up next, and I try to wait off to the side for her, but a tech comes and ushers me to group therapy. We’re broken into groups that are named after birds: sparrows, blackbirds, doves, robins, blue jays, swallows, ravens, crows, etc. I’m in the blackbird group and Amelia is in the sparrows.
The group therapy room is far from peaceful. The harsh fluorescent lights cast a sickening pallor on the speckled linoleum floor and plastic chairs. It makes me feel disoriented and nauseous. I sit in the chair farthest from the door so I can see everyone who walks in. Dr. Goodman is there, along with Nurse Dummel.
Monica comes in and rolls her eyes when she sees me. More patients shuffle in and sit down.
“Good morning, everyone,” Dr. Goodman starts. “As many of you can see, we have a new member in our group: Alice.” I am not new. I’ve been in the blackbirds before. With the exception of Monica, everyone else here is new. “Could everyone help me in welcoming Alice?” There are quick murmurs of greetings, monotoned Hi, Alice’s. And then a much softer whisper, laced with malice, “Welcome, pyro.” My eyes dart to Monica, who sits with her mouth shut, but I swear it’s her voice. I look around to see if anyone has noticed, but everyone seems oblivious. “Well, that was a very nice, warm—”
The door to the therapy room bangs open. Chase stands in the entryway scanning the group. His eyes land briefly on mine before he settles into an empty chair.
“Well, Chase, thanks for joining us today,” Dr. Goodman says.
Chase mutters something, but I can’t make it out.
“You just missed welcoming Alice to our group. I think, since we have someone new and it seems that some of us could use reminding”—he shoots a pointed look at Chase—“we should go over our group therapy rules. Would someone care to read them?”
Monica’s hand is first in the air.
“Go ahead, Monica.”
Monica clears her throat and sits up taller in her chair. She reads from a poster on the wall just to the right of me. “‘Speak your truth. Be on time. Accept others’ differences. Breathe. Listen. Tolerate. Rest. Recover.’”
“Thank you, Monica,” Dr. Goodman says when she’s finished. “What Monica forgot to mention is that everything said is confidential. What happens in group therapy stays in group therapy. Now let’s pick up where we left off yesterday. Alice, since you’re just settling in, you don’t need to talk. Just get to know the group. This is a safe place.” The doctor leans forward, ready to dig in. “Yesterday we talked about goals. Figuring out what we want. It can be long term or short term. Anything. Chase, since you were the last to arrive, would you like to be the first to share? What is it you want?”
Chase smirks. “I want to be rich enough that every time I enter a room, a dozen white doves are released.”
Wow, he’s even more irritating than I had originally thought.
“Clearly, Chase isn’t up to sharing today.” Doc steadies me with a level stare. “It’s important to remember how our attitudes can affect the group. It’s always okay to feel negative, to not want to share, but it’s never okay to damage morale. This is a boundary.”
Dr. Goodman asks if anyone else wants to share, and Monica’s hand shoots into the air again. Kiss-ass. Bored, I remove a square of origami paper from my hoodie pocket. I can feel Chase’s eyes on me. As I begin to fold, I risk a glance up. Sure enough, he is watching me, almost studying me. When our eyes connect he lowers his head, like he’s embarrassed to have been caught. The movement gives me a full view of the scar on his face. I go back to folding. By the time group is over, I’ve made one paper elephant and two paper dogs. And all I think about the entire time is Chase and his scar and how he might’ve gotten it killing someone.
Lunch comes and goes. Amelia and I sit together. When we start to move from our seats, the lights in the cafeteria dim and a tech comes out holding a massive sheet cake with one candle lit. Unease skitters up my spine. A girl smiles with delight as he sets it down in front of her and begins to sing “Happy Birthday.” Other techs and nurses join in and encourage patients to sing as well. Some do. But for the most part it’s just the techs and nurses singing. The girl blows out her candle, and the tech takes the cake back to the kitchen and cuts it.
A piece is dropped in front of me, and immediately I am sick. “I don’t want it,” I say.
“Throw it away, then,” the tech says over his shoulder as he continues to dole out the cake.
I frown and inadvertently make eye contact with Chase at a nearby table. “I don’t want it,” I say a little louder, which gains the attention of the other nurses and techs scattered around the perimeter of the room.
“Christ, Allie, cool it,” Amelia whispers harshly. I forgot she was beside me. “You’re going to get yourself a stay in the Quiet Room. Give it to me. I’ll eat it.”
“Have at it,” I say, sliding the paper plate toward her. The smell of cake is overtaking the still air. Even though it’s chocolate, there are notes of vanilla and almond unde
rneath. A fine sheen of sweat breaks out on my brow. I need to get out of here. Fast. I hightail it down the aisle. The sticky sweetness is starting to coat my skin. When I make it to the cafeteria doors, they’re locked. I jiggle the handle, trying to jerk them open.
“Whoa, Alice.” Donny the Mullet steps in. “Everybody stays in the cafeteria until it’s class time.”
“I have to . . .” But the words are lost under a sour, acidic taste. Heart pounding in my chest, I give Donny a weak smile when his palm hovers over the radio hooked to his belt. It’s nothing, I try to convey silently, but all the patients suddenly have gray skin, and the hum of the fluorescent lights is replaced by black flies buzzing. My head throbs, and the white of Donny’s uniform hurts my eyes.
Then everything shifts. Without warning, I’m back in the barn. Now all I smell is smoke, kerosene, and smoldering hay. The burns on my hand and shoulders ignite in a flurry of pain, as if the skin is still on fire. I’m lying with Jason while everything blazes around us. Jason touches my hip, then my cheek, and opens his mouth to speak. Finally, the words that wouldn’t compute the other day come back to me in an uneven rush. Shit, baby. I’m burning up.
…
FROM THE JOURNAL OF ALICE MONROE
After somebody dies, people spend a lot of time dwelling on the what ifs. What if I’d treated her differently? What if he’d never gotten in the car that day? But those what if thoughts never occurred to me. When I found out that Grandpa had died, I didn’t even cry. Neither did Cellie. It’s not that we were heartless. Far from it. We just didn’t understand what “death” meant—and how it would change our lives forever.
But there it sat in the room with us. Amid the Chans’ embroidered sofa and dark wood furniture. Words floated around us—Died. Dead. Body.—spoken in hushed tones by the policemen who swarmed the house. Mrs. Chan answered their questions in a short and direct manner even though her hands shook and her eyes watered.
“And when was the last time you saw him?” a police officer inquired. The cop was clean-cut, his uniform neatly pressed and his hair closely shaved. He was cold and efficient, and for some reason, this created an aura of instant distrust.
She told him Friday. They’d walked together to get the mail. She called Grandpa devoted. “His daughter, the mother, just showed up one day, her belly so big, and just like that”—she snapped her fingers—“she took off, left him alone . . .” Her voice trailed off, lost in a sniffle and full-body tremor. “When I think about how cold it’s been outside,” she mumbled. “My husband said all there was to eat was cake.”
The police officer said we were lucky someone found us. Another couple of days and who knows what would have happened. There were teeth marks on some of the cans. He asked if we had any relatives in the area. Mrs. Chan shook her head and said we were alone.
Once, Mr. Chan and Mrs. Chan had a daughter. She died on her way home from university. A truck driver fell asleep at the wheel, drifted into her lane, and just like that, she was gone. Grandpa attended the funeral, leaving us at home with a bubblegum-chewing babysitter. Mrs. Chan related the tragic story of her lost daughter to the police officer and then looked at Cellie and me meaningfully. I imagine she thought we could fill each other’s voids. That our separate losses could, like a double negative, negate each other and become something positive.
Soon Shawna came, a social worker, the first in a line of three. Shawna sat across from Cellie and me in the living room, but just before she did, she squeezed my shoulder. It was one of the few times I remember being offered physical comfort. Her fingers brushed Cellie’s back, but I don’t think Cellie felt it. Years later she would throw this in my face—the comfort Shawna had offered me and then withheld from her. She would tell me how it made her feel empty inside, half as loved.
“Hello.” Shawna smiled, but the smile didn’t quite touch every part of her face, and that made it seem fake, almost painful. Her teeth were a little crooked, and she had the kind of eyes that seemed not the right shape for her face. They opened a little too widely and made you feel uncomfortable, as if she were staring at you. “Do you know what’s happened?”
I thought of Grandpa lying in the middle of the living room, his cold cheek that turned a darker shade of gray every day. When neither of us answered, Shawna went on, “You were very brave.” She leaned in and told us that Grandpa had died. “Do you know what that means? Do you understand?”
We didn’t, not really. The only other time we’d heard of death was when Grandpa told us stories about Nam. Once, he told us about the time he’d dragged a wounded soldier from the jungle. Sometimes he would lift his shirtsleeve and show us the jagged shrapnel scar. Then he would weep and tell us to go play outside.
But it seemed important to Shawna for us to know, so we nodded yes. And when she smiled, I felt just like DeeDee the dog must have felt right after she pulled off Mr. Chan’s sock.
We stayed with the Chans that night. Mr. Chan retrieved clothes from our house. The room had a double bed, but Mrs. Chan promised she would get us a bunk bed just like we were used to. Lickety-split. We were given a bath and clean pajamas, and when Cellie asked for extra blankets, Mrs. Chan patted our heads and told us we’d never be cold again. Now I think about how wrong she was. This was only the beginning, the first turn of an unstoppable storm. Mrs. Chan kissed each of our cheeks, and her breath smelled musty but clean.
The next morning Cellie woke early, and her excitement was even greater than the night before our birthday. She bounced around on the bed and clapped her hands together, chanting, “Come see! Come see!”
I followed her to the Chans’ kitchen, and Cellie twirled on the linoleum floor, gliding like an ice skater in her socked feet. I smiled and we joined hands, spinning together until we were dizzy and fell to the ground, our laughter bouncing off the walls.
Mrs. Chan came into the kitchen and smiled, but then her look fell. “Oh my,” she said. Her hand moved to her heart, and she patted her chest like she was trying to keep something from fluttering away. “Oh my.” Her eyes locked just above my right shoulder.
On the counter, gleaming under the bright kitchen lights, were perfect rows of canned food. Sometime during the night Cellie had crept from our bed and removed every single one from the pantry, shiny cylinders of peaches, black beans, and chicken noodle soup, all arranged in perfect aisles, one after the other, each can slightly off center, so the label faced the right, just like little soldiers marching off to war with their heads turned toward the sun.
Cellie and I both attended therapy. Our therapist was a kind, bearded man who asked us to paint pictures and build families out of clay. While I only had to visit him once a week, Cellie had to go twice. As the months passed and she didn’t improve, she began to go three times a week—I would stay with Mrs. Chan in the waiting room, eating almonds and reading Highlights magazine. I hoped against hope Cellie would be better, but she never got the chance; the Chans began to withdraw, to watch us with a different set of eyes.
“Well, what are we supposed to do?” Mrs. Chan said to her husband one night. I paused in the hallway and pressed myself into a dark corner, nightly glass of water forgotten. She stood by the sink and wrung out a sponge.
Mr. Chan shook his head. “This morning I found the leftover chicken in the bathroom. When I asked her about it, she just stared at me and shrugged her shoulders.” They were talking about Cellie. She’d been taking food—leftovers, pieces of fruit, loaves of bread—ferreting them away and showing me where she’d hidden them. Just in case.
Mrs. Chan’s lips parted in the way people’s do when they’re not sure what to say. I liked Mrs. Chan. She was teaching me how to fold origami. Cellie didn’t like it; her fingers were too clumsy, always shaking, as if the cold from Grandpa’s house had settled into her bones for good. But Mrs. Chan said I was a natural, that I had the hands of a surgeon and the patience of a tree in winter.
Mr. Chan sighed. “I didn’t want to tell you this, but she’s been s
neaking over to the house at night.” He walked over and touched Mrs. Chan’s hip. “Darla.” He lowered his voice. “We’re too old. The therapy isn’t working. We can’t give her the support she needs.”
An icy hand touched my shoulder, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. Cellie. She’d crept up behind me, her head tilted in a question mark. I pressed a finger to my lips, folded myself deeper into the shadows, and invited her to join me. Quieter than a whisper she came, laced her fingers through mine, and pressed her cheek into my flannel nightgown.
“Do you think it’s possible for us to separate them? Has the doctor talked to Alice about it? Maybe we can make her understand how sick she is? That she needs help?” Mrs. Chan said. Cellie’s grip became painfully tight around my hand. “If it was just Alice . . .”
Mr. Chan bowed his head and kissed his wife on the cheek. He sighed as if it was useless. “I’ll call Shawna tomorrow.”
We went back to our room, jumped into the bed, and huddled under the covers, our heads making a tent. “They’re going to try to split us up.” Cellie’s voice trembled. She wept, and her tears were a siren’s cry—beautiful, haunting, impossible to ignore. Go on, Alice. You can have the last of it. I found her hand in the dark and rested mine over it. “Don’t worry. I won’t let them take you away. Wherever you go, I’ll go too.”
“Do you promise?” she asked.
My answer was easy and automatic. Because blood was blood and it was thicker than any sickness. “I promise,” I said. “We’ll never be apart.”
CHAPTER
4
