Wintergirls

by Laurie Halse Anderson

  I pull this self back into the body in the passenger seat of my father’s car.

  “Where’s Emma?” I ask. “Doesn’t winter break start today?”

  Dad punches a button on the dashboard. The too-loud sound of a jazz trumpet crashes into us. I reach for the volume button, wince, and turn it down.

  He drives for fifteen miles without saying a word.

  When he gets off the highway, he does not turn right. He turns left, north, toward the dark line of storm clouds bringing more snow from the top of the world.

  “Where are we going?”

  “I’m taking you home.”

  “This isn’t the way.”

  His fingers tighten on the steering wheel. “You’re staying at your mother’s until you’re admitted.”

  “No, Daddy, please! What about Emma? She wants me to bake more gingerbread cookies with her and she needs help wrapping your presents and we’re going to sing Christmas carols at church. And I promised to take her sledding and make snow angels.”

  He pulls into the passing lane without checking his mirrors. “You won’t be seeing Emma until you’re better. Maybe that will give you some incentive. If you won’t try for yourself, try for her.”

  His voice cracks. He sniffs, swallows hard, and pushes the accelerator until the speedometer’s needle rockets into the red zone. I do not know this man. I clutch the door handle, not sure if we’ll make it.

  He still has a key to her house on the ring with the rest of them: the office, the gym, Jennifer’s house, and three cars. He unlocks the door, steps in, and waits for me to follow.

  Dr. Marrigan is in the library dictating notes to her computer. When we walk in, she holds up a finger so she can finish reciting details about her latest quadruple bypass on a guy who spent the last forty years eating cheeseburgers.

  Dad carries my bags up tomy bedroom. When he comes down, it looks for a minute likeDr. Marrigan is going to tip him like a valet or a bellhop.

  “Did you arrange for her ride to Dr. Parker’s tomorrow?” she asks.

  “Jennifer will pick her up at one and bring her back after the session.” Dad zips up his jacket and pulls on his gloves. “You’ve taken care of the morning?”

  “Why does Jennifer have to drive me?” I ask. “I can drive myself, if you let me borrow a car.”

  They don’t even look at me. I am not in the room, apparently.

  Dr. Marrigan nods atProfessor Overbrook. “One of my nurses, Melissa, will be here from the time I leave until Jennifer arrives. She can help out after Christmas, too, whenever she’s not on duty. Fifteen dollars an hour, cash.”

  “Good,” he says.

  “You got me a babysitter?” I ask.

  They don’t react. I am still not here.

  “What time will she be back?” Mom asks.

  “It’s a two-hour session, so with the driving, maybe four thirty, four forty-five,” Dad says. “You’ll be home by then, right?”

  Dr. Marrigan straightens the pile of medical journals on the coffee table. “I’m on until seven. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve; Melissa is going to her brother’s when Lia leaves at one. We can’t ask her to come back.”

  He frowns. “I guess Jen could stay.”

  “If things are quiet, I’ll sneak out early,” she says.

  “That would be best.”

  His good-bye kiss on my cheek is so light, I can’t feel it. He walks out the front door and takes the time to lock it behind him.

  “The blanket on the couch is plugged in and heated up,”Dr. Marrigan says. “There’s a bowl of soup in there, too, beef barley. While you make that disappear, I’ll explain how things are going to be.”

  “You’re talking to me now, right?” I ask.

  “I’ll be there in a minute, soon as I finish this up.”

  After ten more minutes of dictation, she comes in and perches on the edge of the other couch, sitting as straight as if she were balancing a crown on her head. She waits for me to make the first move.

  “I want to go back to Dad and Jennifer’s.”

  She reaches to her left to click on a light. The sun sets early at the end of the year.

  “We all agree you should be here,” she says. “New Seasons called to confirm your intake date next week.” She brushes dust off the lampshade. “They have your hospital files and will conference call with Dr. Parker after you see her tomorrow.”

  “I’m eighteen. What I say to her is private.”

  “Not if a court decides you’re a danger to yourself and others.”

  “When did that happen?”

  “I’ve operated on half the judges in this county, Lia. If it needs to happen, it will.”

  I’m not eighteen, I’m twelve, locked into toe shoes, dancing the pas de Mom again, with her standing in the wings, telling me what I’m doing wrong.

  Steam curls off the surface of the soup. “That place didn’t help me before. It’s useless to send me back.”

  “That’s what your father said.”

  “He did?”

  “He’s changed his mind about a few things, after what you did. He’s finally admitting how desperate things are, but he doesn’t think treatment will work.”

  I can’t help myself. “Why not?”

  “You don’t want to get better. He says nothing will work until you want to be healthy and have a real life. I almost agree with him.”

  “So why make me go?” I ask. “Why waste the money?”

  “Because if we don’t, you’ll die.”

  “You’re exaggerating.” I cup my hands around the soup bowl and lean into the steam, hungry now for the burning tug of the stitches. I pick up the spoon and stir. It brings up vegetables and barley from the bottom. Nanna used to make this, but I can’t let me taste it. The first sip would melt through the sheet of ice that is keeping me suspended over an open hole.

  I let go of the spoon and hide my hands under the blanket. “Why do you keep it so cold in here?” The words come out too loud, like my volume button is broken.

  “You don’t have enough body fat to maintain your temperature. The solution is to eat something nutritious every few hours. Very simple.”

  “I don’t need to eat every few hours. I have a slow metabolism.”

  “Your metabolism has slowed because your body thinks you’re stuck in a famine. It is holding on to every ounce it can to keep you alive.”

  My fists clench where she can’t see them. “You’re blowing my problems out of proportion so you don’t have to look at why you’re so miserable.”

  “Stop changing the subject.”

  “Stop bullying me. It’s my life. I can do what I want.”

  Mom smacks her hand on the coffee table. “Not if you’re killing yourself!”

  The wind shrieks through French doors and blows between us, making me shiver. She stands up and paces. I fix my eyes on a faded spot of paint on the wall.

  “What is the point of this irrational behavior?” she asks, her back to me. “What are you trying to prove?”

  “You think I like scaring Emma and making you guys so mad you won’t even look at me?”

  She turns around. “I don’t know. I don’t understand anything you do. Drink that soup.”

  I pull the blanket up to my chin. “You can’t force me.”

  She closes the heavy drapes. It cuts down on the draft and puts me in shadows. She turns on two more lights before taking a deep breath and sitting down again.

  “Your body wants to live, Lia, even if your head doesn’t,” she says. “Your numbers rebounded quickly at the hospital; liver functions improved, QT interval improved, phosphate and calcium levels better. You’re tough and I mean that in the best way possible, medically speaking.”

  Tough leather, stubborn stain, acid that rusts and crumbles the building.

  “If you don’t eat, I won’t shove food down your throat, even though it’s tempting. But you must stay hydrated. If you restrict fluids, you’ll be placed in a psych ward. I
nstantly. I’ve already worked it out with Dr. Parker and consulted the district attorney about the paperwork.”

  “I will hate you forever if you throw me into a nut-house.”

  “You have to take your meds, too, all of them.” She picks lint off the afghan. “Melissa or I will watch you for an hour after you take them to make sure they get into your system. We’ll also measure how many ounces you drink and how many you excrete.”

  “You’re going to measure my pee?”

  “It’s the best way to make sure you are hydrated. There’s a plastic container in the downstairs bathroom for collecting urine.”

  “This is ridiculous. I’m not that sick.”

  “The inability to rationally evaluate your situation is a result of malnourishment and disturbed brain chemistry.”

  “I hate it when you talk like a textbook.”

  She leans forward. “I hate it when you starve yourself. I hate it when you cut open your skin, and I hate it when you push us away.”

  The wind pushes against the glass doors so hard the drapes sway.

  “I hate it, too,” I whisper. “But I can’t stop.”

  “You don’t want to stop.”

  The poison in her voice shocks us both.

  She stands again and quickly gathers up the afghan, sniffing hard and swallowing tears. At first I think she’s going to walk away, maybe put the afghan in the closet or the washing machine. But she doesn’t. She spreads it on top of the electric blanket that I’m hiding under, tucking it around my shoulders and hips.

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “That was mean.”

  “It was honest,” I say. The weight of the blanket is sweet. “Dr. Parker would approve.”

  For a moment, the wind stops. The house is silent, waiting for me to tell her.

  I could try. Maybe not everything. Maybe just the names, the bad names

  ::stupid/ugly/stupid/bitch/stupid/fat/::

  ::stupid/baby/stupid/stupid/stupid/stupid::

  that stab me when I think about eating a cinnamon bagel or a bowl of Bluberridazzlepops. And then there is the matter of being trapped between the worlds with no compass, no map.

  She smoothes my cheek with the back of her hand and leans forward but doesn’t kiss me. She sniffs my head once, twice, three times.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  She sits next to me. “In med school we read about a study in which mothers could identify their babies by smell a day after they were born. I thought it was baloney.”

  “It’s true?”

  “I knew you by your smell within hours. It comforted me, like a drug, almost. I loved the smell of my daughter. I used to sniff your head all the time when you were a baby.”

  “Mom, that’s weird. And if I think it’s weird, you’re really in trouble.”

  “I slept on your pillow for months when you moved out, pretending I could still smell you. Stupid, huh?”

  I swallow hard. “Not really.”

  “It almost killed me when you left.”

  “I had to.”

  “I know.” She looks down at her magic hands. “My only child was starving to death and I couldn’t help her. What kind of mother did that make me? I was a mess.” She takes a deep breath. “I wanted you here, but you didn’t want to be here. I wanted you away from Cassie because she was headed for trouble. You were determined to stick with her. Cindy told me when Cassie broke off your friendship. I was so happy I almost danced in the street—”

  “Do I smell like cookies?” I interrupt.

  “What?”

  I clear the scratchiness out of my throat. “Do I smell like cookies? My head, I mean. Like ginger and cloves and sugar?”

  Her smile is warm and true. “No, not at all. I always thought you smelled like fresh strawberries. Is that weird, too?”

  Neither one of us dares breathe, because we are both here in the same space and at the same time, Mommy and Lia, no phones or scalpels or burning words. Neither one of us wants to break the spell.

  If I tell her about all of my ugliness now, this fragile bridge will crumble under the weight of it.

  “No,” I say. “It’s not weird, it’s sweet.”

  For dinner I drink electrolyte-replacement fluid that tastes like the smell of a hospital bathroom (= ? Mom took the label off and made the computer power cords disappear so I can’t check the numbers). I eat a small banana (90), too. It tastes like banana.

  Mom eats a chicken Caesar salad with globs of dressing and two pieces of pumpernickel bread. She watches a documentary about North Korea while I pretend to read. When it’s over, she checks my stitches, pulse, and blood pressure, and gives me my meds, even my sleeping pill.

  I bet she takes one, too. How else can she fall asleep without seeing all those sliced-open bodies and twitching hearts?

  I fall asleep before I’m ready and wake up in the middle of the night, confused again about where I am and why and who. A thousand fingers are reaching up through my mattress, poking through my skin to scratch my bones. I leap out of the bed and pace to shake off the feeling.

  Across the street at Cassie’s house, a pack of wolves are digging at the rosebushes, looking for bodies to eat and bones to crunch. I can’t tell anymore when I’m asleep and when I’m awake, or which is worse.

  052.00

  The highs and lows shifted overnight. Instead of blowing out to sea, the winter storm is stuck over the heart of New England. We’re supposed to get at least two feet of snow today. I wonder if I could call someone to take Emma sledding. Mira, maybe. Or Sasha. Would they answer the phone if they knew it was me calling?

  Thinking about Emma makes me want to pull out my stitches with a pair of pliers. They should burn me at the stake for what I did to her. Set me adrift on an ice floe. I wish there was a way to make her forget what she saw, to wipe that memory clean. There’s not enough soap and bleach in the world.

  I wouldn’t have to use pliers. I could cut the stitches with nail clippers and pull until this body fell apart.

  My mother calls me. I walk down the stairs.

  Nurse Melissa arrives when we’re eating breakfast (grapefruit half = 37, dry toast = 77), a giant mug of electrolyte drink (= ?) and pretty pills (= white velvet sheets wrapped around my brain). She’s only a couple of years older than me but already has the don’t-even-try-it forehead lines that good nurses get from constant frowning.

  An hour later, I pee five hundred milliliters of yellow water. Melissa stands in the bathroom and watches me.

  “You’re not getting paid enough for this,” I say.

  She phones in the fluid report toDr. Marrigan’s office.

  I am dying to know how much I weigh. There are no scales here and they wouldn’t tell me at the hospital. They stuck so much goo into me, I bet I put on ten pounds. My skin itches from the new fat. It’s going to split and peel off me. Melissa gives me skin cream and watches while I rub it on my arms and legs.

  I sleep under a mountain of blankets for the rest of the morning.

  Jennifer drives me to Dr. Parker’s office without saying a word. I don’t blame her. I wouldn’t talk to me, either, if I were her. I bet she’s afraid that if she opens her mouth, she won’t stop yelling at me for days and that would mess up Christmas on top of everything else.

  We stay behind a plow the whole way, the wipers turned on HIGH, her hands gripped so tight on the wheel the knuckles are white. The snow makes it hard to tell up from down or see anything until we are close enough to crash into it.

  She finally turns into the office park and pulls up close to the curb.

  “So,” I try. “Four o’clock, right?”

  She nods once, eyes staring into the storm.

  “And, um, I’ll come over Christmas morning? So we can open presents?”

  “Have your mother call me.” She turns up the fan to blast the heat.

  “Okay.” I open the door.

  “Wait.” Jennifer grabs my arm. For the first time since they strapped me on
the stretcher, she looks me in the eye. “David doesn’t want me to say this to you, but too bad. I love you, Lia. When I married your father, I swore to love you like you were my own. But you hurt my little girl.”

  She is shaking with anger.

  “You hurt her by starving yourself, you hurt her with your lies, and by fighting everybody who tries to help you. Emma can only sleep a couple of hours a night now. She’s haunted by nightmares of monsters that eat our whole family. They eat us slowly, she says, so we can feel their sharp teeth.”

  My heart shifts out of idle into fourth gear, revving like a race car skidding around the track.

  “I’m—”

  She lets go of my arm and covers my mouth with her hand. “Shush. You go in there and you tell the truth to that woman. Tell her what’s in your head and why you do these things. Tell her there is a good chance you can’t live at your father’s house anymore, so you better figure out how to get along with your mom.”

  “I can’t come back?”

  “I can’t let you destroy Emma, too. I won’t.”

  She turns back in her seat, suburban-stepmom mask bolted firmly in place. “Four o’clock. Maybe a little later, depending on the roads.”

  053.00

  The receptionist, Sheila, isn’t at her desk. Probably left early to cook for Christmas. I put my ear up to the closed door to Dr. Parker’s inner office; someone is crying on the other side. Parker’s voice murmurs, then comes the annoying ding! of the session timer.

  I keep my eyes on the floor while the crying patient crosses through the waiting room and opens the door to the storm outside, still snuffling and hiccupping with sobs.

  Dr. Parker always goes to the bathroom between sessions and sometimes takes a meditation break. It’ll be at least five minutes before she calls me in. I came prepared, armed with my knitting. I need to finish this scarf/shawl/ blanket thing so I can start on something for Emma—a hat, maybe, or a sweater for her stuffed elephant.