When her mom first saw her hair, she’d pursed her lips and looked away. Later, Sadie had heard her parents talking about it in their bedroom.
“What’s gotten into her?” her mother said.
“It’s just hair,” her father said. “It’ll grow back.”
“I just don’t want people to get the wrong impression of her. I want her to make friends and be happy.”
“We have to give her a little leeway. She’s growing up.”
“Sometimes I feel like maybe we’re giving her too much rope.”
“Leave her alone, Cyn. She’s fine.”
Annoyed with her mom’s judgy tone, Sadie also knew they both loved her and wanted the best for her.
Now, Sadie walked toward the kitchen. “Should we figure out our project? I’ll get some snacks.”
“We have plenty of time,” Piper said. “Relax a little.”
The proposal for their project was due a week from Thursday. When Mrs. Marrone had said they needed to choose partners for their weather forecasting assignment, Sadie had felt her stomach drop. As everyone chatted and paired up, she dreaded being the only person left without a partner, but then Piper had turned around and asked her to pair up. Sadie was so relieved, she hadn’t stopped to wonder why Piper had noticed her all of a sudden. For the first half of the school year, Piper hadn’t seemed to know she existed.
“Where’s your mom?” Piper asked now.
“Not home,” Sadie said. “She’s at the hospital with my aunt.”
Sadie was used to coming home to an empty house, but today it seemed even quieter, their voices echoing off the hardwood floors and ceilings.
“What happened?”
“I’m not sure.” Her mother had sent a cryptic text around lunchtime, saying that Aunt Alison had been taken to the hospital, but she was fine and no need to worry. Sadie wished her mother would accept that she wasn’t a baby anymore, that she could handle whatever was going on. Her aunt was the healthiest person she knew. She had been known to run a half marathon and get on the treadmill later the same say. It was surely a false alarm.
“You’re lucky your mom gives you space,” Piper said. “My mother is always in my business. She’s constantly telling me she’s there if I need to talk and blah, blah, blah. It’s so fucking annoying.”
Sadie forced a laugh. “Yeah, so annoying,”
Sadie actually thought it sounded wonderful to have a mother who showed interest in her life, but she would never admit that to Piper. Her mother didn’t work, but she always seemed to be busy anyway, her days full with volunteering fundraiser committees, coffee with friends, Weight Watchers meetings, anything other than spending time with her daughter. When people asked her mom if she worked, she told them she was an attorney-turned-homemaker, and Sadie would bite her lip. Her legal career had ended a few years after law school and how could she claim to be a homemaker if she was barely ever home?
“She wants to have the sex talk with me every fucking day,” Piper said. “As if I don’t know everything already.”
“Really?” Sadie wanted to ask what exactly she knew about sex and whether any of that knowledge was first hand. Sadie hadn’t even been kissed. She had known Piper could teach her a few things.
Piper had told her she’d just moved to town from Brooklyn, but some of the girls from the ice rink said she had been in their classes at the other middle school, that she was a pathological liar and not to be trusted. Sadie suspected Piper didn’t always tell the whole truth, but did anyone? Her parents left out important stuff all the time. Her other friends loved to exaggerate what they did on their vacations. She knew for a fact Caroline hadn’t gone to Cape Cod with Jason Thorne as Caroline had implied. Their families just happened to be vacationing at the same beach resort, the photo on Caroline’s phone cropping out Caroline’s little sister and Jason’s mom. How was that any different?
“I probably know more than my mom does,” Piper said. “I don’t think she’s gotten any since my father left.”
“When was that?” Sadie couldn’t imagine talking about her mom like that.
“Five years ago.”
“Wow.”
Piper started climbing the stairs.
“Where are you going?” Sadie asked. As she watched Piper climb the stairs with her boots on, she couldn’t help thinking about the dirt stains she’d have to scrub away later so her mother wouldn’t know.
“Your parents won’t be home for a while. It’s a good time to do a little exploring.”
“Exploring?”
“Scavenger hunt. It’s one of my favorite games.”
Sadie followed Piper up the stairs. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea. My mom’s a bit of a control freak. She knows exactly where she keeps stuff and she’ll notice—”
“Don’t worry,” Piper said. “I do it all the time.”
Though she had never been here before, Piper seemed to know which room was which without asking. She made a beeline to the medicine cabinet in the master bathroom. Grabbing a few bottles from the shelf, she turned them around to scrutinize the labels. “Advil, boring. Pepcid, boring. Tylenol, boring.” She examined every bottle while Sadie stood in agony, wishing the torture would end. She couldn’t imagine how angry her mother would be if she caught them snooping around in her room.
Piper took a bottle of Claritin off the shelf and shook the contents. “So far, your parents are a disappointment,” she said. “Where’s the good stuff? There’s got to be something.”
Sadie grabbed the bottle from Piper and placed it back on the shelf. “Are you crazy? My parents will kill me if they come home.”
“People always say that, but what would they really do?” Piper closed the cabinet and walked over to the dresser.
“Let’s go figure out our project,” Sadie said. “We have Oreos.” She felt stupid the second she said it. Cookies weren’t going to entice Piper, but it was the first thing that came to her mind.
“Are you for real?” Piper opened the middle drawer of the dresser. “The hunt’s not over.” She reached underneath a pile of folded shirts and took out a flat rectangular box.
“Rainbow loom?” she said. “Is this yours?”
Sadie felt her cheeks turn red. “No, I mean, it used to be, but now it’s my mom’s.” After the craze ended, Sadie’s mom had become addicted to making bracelets on the loom. She said it calmed her nerves.
“Your mother uses it? I thought my mom was the lamest of them all, but this moves your mom into first place.” She put the box back where she’d found it and closed the drawer.
“The underwear drawer is the most common place to hide valuables,” Piper said, opening the top drawer.
“This is a bad idea. My mom will definitely notice if anything is missing.”
“Don’t worry.” Piper stretched a purple thong between her thumbs. “I just like seeing what’s here.” She snapped the thong back into the drawer. Reaching her hand to the back of the drawer, she found an envelope and pulled out a wad of fifty-dollar bills.
“She likes to keep cash around, just in case,” Sadie said. She always wondered why her mom kept all that money in her drawer. Maybe it was a symptom of her anxiety, like she was paranoid that the banks would fail and they would need stockpiles of cash to buy food and gas.
“For what?”
“I don’t know. Emergencies, okay?” Sadie felt her heart speed up. “Can you put it away now?”
“She won’t notice if we each take a few.” Piper took some bills out of the envelope, pocketed a few, and handed some to Sadie, who grabbed the envelope and stashed it back in place before Piper could take any more money. Sadie stuffed the bills in the pocket of her sweatshirt. She’d have to remember to return them before her mom came home.
“Not bad so far,” Piper said. “But there’s got to be more.”
Piper walked over to her father’s nightstand, opened a drawer, and took out an old copy of Playboy magazine. “This is so old school.” She
waved the magazine at Sadie. “Doesn’t your dad know he can use his phone?”
“Put it away!” Sadie didn’t want to think about what her father did while looking at the pictures. “I could get in trouble.”
“I could get in trouble,” Piper mimicked. She threw the magazine back and rummaged around. “I thought he would have something juicier. My brother said this one doesn’t even show anything.”
“We have some good snacks downstairs,” Sadie said. “My mom has a secret junk food addiction.” Back on that again. She couldn’t think of any other way to lure Piper out of her parents’ room.
Piper reached her hand to the back of the drawer. “Wait a minute, I think I’ve struck gold.” She held an orange pill bottle up in the air. “Ahhhhhhh,” she sang, as if holding up the holy grail.
“Not a good idea,” Sadie said. “My father might be taking those for something.”
Piper read the label on the bottle. “Who’s Robert Ward?” Piper asked.
Sadie shrugged. She had no idea who that was and she didn’t care. She just wanted Piper to put the bottle back and get out of here.
“Part of the label’s missing, so we’ll have to inspect,” Piper said.
“No,” Sadie said. “I really don’t think...”
Piper opened the safety cap and emptied a few pills into her hand. One side of the pill had the number 40 and the other was etched with the letters OC.
“Jackpot,” Piper said. “If my brother is good for anything, it’s teaching me what pills look like.”
“What do you think it is?”
“I don’t think, I know,” Piper said. “It’s Oxy.” She returned the pills to the bottle, replaced the cap, and put the bottle in her pocket. “Now, let’s go have those Oreos.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Alison
August 23, 2019
“MRS. JACOBS, IT’S TIME FOR LUNCH.” Rhea entered the bedroom without knocking. In the five months since her surgery, Alison had learned that being an invalid meant an end to privacy. “I’ve made your favorite soup.”
Chewing a sandwich or a piece of steak was now impossible, so Alison’s diet consisted solely of soft foods. Rhea had been working as her home health aide since she’d arrived home from Spaulding last month, so she knew Campbell’s tomato was one of the few foods Alison could force down her throat, but calling it a favorite was a bit of a stretch.
Alison raised her left hand as a sign of thanks, the right side of her body still quite weak. Svetlana said she would continue to gain strength, but the progress had been so slow that sometimes Alison wondered why she continued therapy at all.
Rhea rolled the tray table in front of Alison’s chair and adjusted the height. She insisted Alison transfer from the bed to the chair first thing every morning: to work the core, she said. Alison remembered a time when working the core meant planks and crunches and push-ups, and now simply moving from the bed to a chair was strenuous exercise. She used to be so active, and now she barely moved. Alison ran her left hand over the left side of her head. Her hair had finally grown in to about six inches. For several months, there was only peach fuzz over the scalp incision, but now, her hair looked almost normal. She wouldn’t be gracing the cover of Vogue anytime soon, but at least children didn’t point at her anymore on the rare occasion she left the house, asking their parents what had happened to that woman. There was still a bony ridge where the two cut edges of skull weren’t quite flush, an imperfection that would be with her forever.
“It’s nice and warm,” Rhea said, holding the spoon up to Alison’s mouth.
She swallowed the spoonful and Rhea wiped the dribble from the right side of her mouth with a napkin. A few months back, Alison had made her way to the linen cabinet and pulled out the napkins she and Michael had bought on their honeymoon in Portugal, the blue and white geometric patterns on the fabric paying homage to the signature tiles lining the buildings of Lisbon. Using cloth napkins would be better than filling landfills with paper ones. At first, she’d been embarrassed that a stranger had to help her eat, walk, and even use the toilet, but now she was used to it. Even though Rhea had only been with her a few weeks, the intimacy of her job made it seem like so much longer.
“Good,” Alison said. Since she’d returned home, Cynthia had been calling a few times a week. Alison refused her calls and Rhea got the picture, blocking Cynthia’s advances like a mama bear protecting her young cub. The last thing Alison needed was to listen to Cynthia’s histrionics and sobbing. Dwelling on Cynthia’s drama would only hamper her recovery.
“Uh, I …” Alison was trying to say, “Thank You,” to express how grateful she felt to have Rhea by her side supporting her in so many ways, both physical and emotional. Though Rhea was paid nicely, this was no easy assignment. There was a lot of heavy lifting and Alison wasn’t exactly scintillating company.
“I, um …” Something that used to be so easy was now the most difficult thing in the world.
Rhea zipped her gray hoodie sweatshirt over her pink scrub outfit and smiled, her long black hair in a ponytail draping down her back. Alison wondered if she ever let her hair down, and how she combed out all the tangles.
“You … nice,” Alison said. It’s wasn’t even close to eloquent, but it was the best she could manage.
“My prayers at church have been working.” Rhea wiped Alison’s mouth again. “You’re speaking so much better.”
She was right. Alison had made significant progress, getting stronger and finding new words every week. On a good day, she could even string one or two words together. Okay and alright now felt like old friends.
“Alright,” Alison said.
Despite this progress, she couldn’t help thinking Rhea’s prayer skills could use some work. The results, though significant, seemed underwhelming, but she wasn’t in any position to judge. Michael would find some overused cliché to fit the situation like, “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” or “Beggars can’t be choosers.” His constant use of trite phrases had been kind of cute when they were first dating, but after more than ten years of marriage, it had gotten old.
Rhea fed her the last spoonful of soup, wiping the errant drips with a clean corner of the napkin.
“There’s more healing to come,” she said. “You’re not even close to the end of your journey.”
Alison reached her left hand to grasp Rhea’s.
“I’ve got more prayers in me yet, Mrs. Jacobs,” Rhea said. “How about a nice nap after lunch? Rest helps with recovery.”
Sometimes in that blurry moment of transition from sleep, Alison forgot she wasn’t the same person she used to be. Her dreams hadn’t changed, even though everything else in her life had come to a screeching halt. She often dreamt about Becca, just like she used to, and when she was unconscious, her brain in that pleasant dusky anonymity of sleep, she was herself again. She could walk, feed herself, and most importantly, talk. She shared her thoughts eloquently, blissfully free of the struggle of transporting words between her brain and her mouth.
In today’s dream, Becca walked down the school hallway past the main office, wearing the yellow sundress that accentuated her breasts. Alison watched her from above as she walked from her classroom to the cafeteria to the teacher’s lounge. It was their school, and yet everything looked different, the hallways recognizable but the colors more vibrant, grays and browns turned to bright oranges and greens. Becca stopped to curb the prepubescent antics of Greg Foster, the undisputed class clown, and he obeyed without argument. Alison marveled at the expert way she managed student behavior, just like she did in real life, making it look easy. Alison would have gone toe to toe with Greg, and she undoubtedly would have gotten frustrated and sent him to Principal Weaver. At only twenty-nine, Becca was a better teacher than Alison had ever been.
“Did you have a nice nap?” Rhea’s voice snapped her awake. “Nate will be here any minute.”
She helped Alison swing her legs over the side of the bed, placed th
e walker in front of her, and watched as Alison slowly maneuvered over to the chair.
“He’s taking the bus here today,” she said.
“Alright...” Alison said.
“Nate just tried out for the school play,” Rhea said. “I’m sure he’ll have a lot to say about that.” There was no doubt. Rhea’s ten-year-old son talked about anything and everything. Sometimes, Alison wondered how his little brain wasn’t deprived of oxygen.
“Hi, Mrs. Jacobs!”
Nate bounded into the room, dropped his backpack on the floor, and sat in the chair next to hers. He brushed his hair off his forehead and smiled. “You’re never going to believe what happened today. I had the best day ever. You know I was trying out for The Lion King, right? Well, auditions were today, and we had to sing a song and read some lines—”
Sometimes she wondered if her speech therapist had given Nate an assignment to sit by her side and talk. Supposedly, listening to people speak helped the brain cells reconnect with each other, reminding the sections of the brain involved in speech to come back from their extended sabbatical. At first, Alison found Nate’s diarrhea of the mouth irritating, but now it had become part of her day, distracting her from her depressing thoughts. She also liked hearing about what was going on at her school, even if she had to get it from the perspective of a fifth-grader.
“Nate, slow down,” Rhea said. “Mrs. Jacobs will follow better if you speak a little more slowly.”
Alison wished she could tell Rhea that she still understood everything perfectly. It was forming words that posed the problem.
“It,” she said. “It okay.” She was thrilled “okay” was back to stay. She’d missed that word so much.
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