by Hunt, Angela
“It’s hard to miss someone you never knew.”
“You’re right, it is.” I force myself to look directly into Sarah’s face. “Now that I know about you, I’d give anything if we could make up for lost time. If I’d known you were growing up here alone, I’d have brought you home and adopted you. I’d have done anything to see that you got the help you needed.”
“It’s okay.” She looks away and squares her shoulders. “I don’t think I’ve missed out.”
“Oh, sweetie.” I bite my lip, wanting to say that she’s missed out on everything—family, friends, a social life. She’s never been to a reunion, never sung in a school choir, never belonged to a church. But that’s probably the last thing she wants to hear.
“So,” I begin again, “tell me about yourself. What do you like to do for fun?”
She blinks. “Fun?”
“Do you have a hobby?”
If anything, her expression becomes blanker than before. “I like to read. And watch movies.”
“I like movies, too. And books, though I don’t have nearly as much reading time as I would like.”
“I understand. There’s always some project to work on around here.”
“I’m sure there is.” What I’m not sure about is what Sarah’s free to discuss and what is verboten. “Who are your friends? Do you get enough social interaction out here?”
She looks at me as if I’ve just suggested that she’s not eating enough lead. “I talk to people every day.”
“Friends?”
“They’re certainly not enemies.” She lifts her shoulder in a stiff shrug. “How many friends is a person supposed to have?”
I laugh softly. “Maybe you have a point. I’m not sure I have more than a handful of close pals.”
“I have Dr. Mewton and Judson and Shelba, the cook. And I talk to a couple of the guards from time to time.”
That’s not much personal engagement…and humans are such social creatures. I sit up, well aware that the psychologist in me is overpowering the inexperienced aunt. “Tell me about your relationship with Dr. Mewton. Are you close?”
Sarah shrugs. “Close enough.”
Her response is vague…deliberately so? “Well,” I answer, fumbling for words, “while I’m sure Dr. Mewton has been kind to you, she’s not your mother.”
“Neither are you.” She utters the words calmly, without rancor or bitterness. “People come through here all the time. They get patched up, they convalesce, they go away. Sometimes they stay, but I don’t spend a lot of time getting to know people who are going to leave.”
“Why don’t you tell me more about your friends here?”
She opens her hands and begins to count on her fingers. “Judson has been here over two years. He lives in the room next door and he helps with op tech. He’s blind, but he types like a madman. I modified a text-to-speech program that allows him to hear anything on screen, so he’s quite capable.”
“What brought Judson to this place?”
“That’s classified—need to know only.”
“Oh.” I know it’s silly, but I feel as though I’ve just had my hand slapped. Maybe the information is classified, or maybe Sarah harbors romantic feelings for this friend. In any case, I’d better watch my step.
“How old—” I approach the question carefully “—is Judson?”
The corner of Sarah’s mouth dips. “Old. At least forty.”
Well, no romance on that horizon. “And the others who live and work here?”
“Shelba, the cook, is probably Dr. Mewton’s age. She’s always fussing at me about not eating enough, but I love her.”
“Good.”
“Hightower—he’s back with us, but he’s not talking right now. I’ve run op tech for a couple of his missions, but I’m not sure why he ended up here this time.” She stares into space for a moment, then lowers her gaze. “The reason is probably classified, so I haven’t asked. Chip and Mitch are the guards who met you on the dock. There’s a six-man team assigned here, but they rotate on and off the island. They’re all nice guys.”
“You know them well?”
“Well enough—sometimes they work at different posts. We talk every now and then. Mitch and I talk more than most.”
“Wait a minute.” A slow smile creeps across my face as my feminine intuition sounds an alarm. “How do you know who met me at the docks? Were you peeking…or is that classified, too?”
Her eyes dart toward the intercom, then she looks at her hands and lowers her voice. “Security camera feeds. I hack into them all the time, but don’t tell Dr. M.”
I laugh, as amused by her honesty as by the fact that Dr. Mewton knows Sarah is prone to eavesdropping. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep your secrets to myself. Your father would have commandeered the system, too. Remind me to tell you about the time he set up a video camera in our neighbor’s backyard.”
I search her features for a trace of humor, but what passes for a face remains as motionless as stone.
“Can we talk at dinner?” she asks. “Shelba will be serving in half an hour.”
“Let’s do it. I hope I’ll be able to meet Judson and Shelba. I’d like to meet all your friends.”
She stands, and her voice is light as she steps toward the door. “I think that can be arranged.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sarah
Beneath the hum and flicker of the dining room’s fluorescent lights, I watch as my aunt laughs at one of Judson’s tired jokes. His face positively glows when she talks to him, and his smile spreads when she places her hand on his arm—something she often does when she speaks. I never touch Judson, and neither does Dr. Mewton. Neither of them routinely touches me. Is this practice peculiar to my aunt, or do other people casually touch when they talk?
I can’t deny that her presence has cast a spell over our little threesome. I felt her power the moment she opened the door to her room. I saw her standing there, framed by the doorway, and for a moment I couldn’t speak. Though I had watched her on the monitors, the pixelated two-dimensional image could not convey the full reality of who she is. Her presence—her texture, her warmth, her vitality—could not be conveyed on the screen.
Only after we began to converse did I realize that she is only the fifth woman I have seen up close. I have known Dr. Mewton and Shelba for years, and twice we sheltered female officers who came to the convent—one for plastic surgery, the other to recuperate from serious chemical burns. Neither of those women behaved anything like Dr. Renee Carey.
Other women visit this facility, of course. They rotate in and out with the medical teams, but they tend to remain isolated in the upstairs hospital unit. On more than one occasion a visiting female has caught a glimpse of me near the workout room, and she has always turned her head and hurried away. Not one of them has ever come forward to talk to me. The reason may have something to do with security, but I suspect it has more to do with the natural human tendency to avoid monsters.
Dr. Renee Carey, on the other hand, has no monstrous characteristics. I’ve decided that she looks a bit like Audrey Hepburn in the post-Breakfast at Tiffany’s years. Even though he cannot see her, Judson certainly seems to find her attractive. She must have what others refer to as charm.
During a break in the chatter between Judson and my aunt, I jump into the conversation. “Do you like Audrey Hepburn?”
My aunt blinks. “My Fair Lady’s Audrey Hepburn?”
“Good grief, Sarah,” Judson says, “where on earth did that come from?”
My neck burns with humiliation, but my aunt laughs. “I do like Audrey,” she answers, “but Katherine has always been my favorite Hepburn. I love those old movies with her and Spencer Tracy.”
I make a mental note. “I must have missed those.”
“They’re oldies but goodies.” Dr. Carey folds her hands over her now-empty plate. “I love old movies, but I prefer the theater. Have you ever seen a play, Sarah?”
Why i
s she asking? She knows I don’t leave the island, but maybe this is a probe, like those I’ve developed for the Gutenberg program. My aunt the psychologist is trying to discover what experiences I have in my brain.
“I’ve seen plays on DVD,” I tell her, glad that I can answer in the affirmative. “One weekend I watched all ten hours of Nicholas Nickleby.”
“Did you enjoy it?”
“Very much.”
“I’m sure it was good,” she says, picking up her water glass, “but there’s nothing quite like being in the theater, right down front. When you can hear every gasp and see every drop of perspiration on the actors’ brows…that’s a unique experience.”
I lift my chin. “The DVD version was exceptional.”
Judson leans in my aunt’s direction. “Last time I was in New York, the wife and I saw—” he scratches his shaved head “—you know, the play about the French Revolution.”
She smiles at him. “Musical?”
“Yes.”
“You must mean Les Miserables.”
“That’s it!” Judson snaps his fingers. “That show lasted nearly three hours, but it was unbelievable. I’ll never forget it.”
If they’re trying to make me hunger for new experiences…they’re doing a better job than they realize.
I turn the focus of our conversation back to our visitor. “Do you have children, Dr. Carey?”
She widens her eyes and takes a quick sip from her glass. “Unfortunately, I spent the first five years of my marriage establishing my practice. By the time the business was strong enough for me to think about maternity leave, I had managed to lose my husband.”
“But why does a woman need a husband to have a baby? In Baby Boom, The Natural, and One Fine Day, women prove to be perfectly capable of raising children alone.”
Dr. Carey lowers her glass and gives me a direct look. “Listen, Sarah, films can be wonderful entertainment, but they’re rarely realistic. I talk to unhappy people all day, and I can’t help noticing that a lot of unhappiness stems from homes where children felt neglected because their parents were absent or too busy. I didn’t think it would be fair to offer a child one distracted mother when he deserved two committed parents.”
Shelba enters the dining room, a freshly starched apron tied around her waist. She smiles at my aunt and gestures to the table. “The dinner was good?”
“Delicious,” Dr. Carey says, setting her napkin on the table. “Thank you very much.”
I watch, amazed at the graceful ballet between her words and gestures. Without being told, she has placed her napkin to the left of her dinner plate, exactly where Judson has left his. Now Jud is wheeling away as the doctor stands, both of them perfectly in sync with some music I can’t hear…
I drop my napkin onto my plate and stand, too, not willing to be left behind. “Dr. Carey, would you like to see my apartment?”
“Yes,” my aunt says, hesitating only an instant. “I’d like that very much.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Renee
Sarah’s use of the word apartment to describe her one-room living space is about as accurate as the real estate agent’s description of a fifth-floor walk-up as “a fitness lover’s dream.” A twin bed rests against the plaster wall, covered by a fuzzy afghan and several throw pillows. Two pairs of sneakers are conjoined in tumbled comradeship at the base of an antique armoire, while a lamp, a hairbrush, and a half dozen flash drives lie scattered over the top of a dresser. Movie posters adorn the walls, the largest of which features Gloria Swanson’s luminous face in Sunset Boulevard.
A computer desk dominates the business end of the room. Two monitors, a keyboard, a laptop, a mouse, and an external hard drive crowd the top of the desk. I spy other pieces of equipment, but to my technologically untrained eye they look like a jumble of wires, cables, and boxes.
“Impressive.” I slip my hands into my pockets as I jerk my chin toward the mess. “Obviously, you know more than I do about computers.”
Sarah drops into the desk chair, sitting on one bent knee. “This is just…stuff. It’s what we do with the stuff that’s important.”
“I’m sure it is.” I glance around for another chair, but apparently she doesn’t entertain many guests.
“Did you…” she begins, her voice tentative. “Did you happen to bring a photo album or something? I’d like to know more about my dad, maybe see pictures of him when he was my age.”
“I’m sorry, Sarah, I didn’t bring pictures. But I did bring something else.” I reach into my purse and pull out a small plastic trophy—a gold loving cup that must have cost forty-nine cents at some cheesy gift shop.
I sink to the edge of her bed and smile at my distorted image in the cup. “When I was thirteen, Kevin joined me, Mom, and Dad at an old-fashioned church dinner on the grounds. They had a three-legged race after lunch, and Kevin and I won this for first place. It’s nothing, really, but I think that was the happiest moment of my life.”
Sarah leans forward in her chair. “What’s a three-legged race?”
“You’ve never seen one? Not even in a movie?”
“No.” Her tone has soured.
“Two people,” I explain. “They stand side by side and bind their inside legs at the thigh, knee, and ankle. So when the race begins, they have to work together or they fall together.” I meet her gaze and hold out the trophy. “Kevin’s not with me anymore, but sometimes I can hear his voice in my heart. I think he’d want you to have this. And I think he’d want you and me to work together.”
She takes the little trophy and studies it as if it’s a priceless treasure. “Work together in what way?”
I gather up my courage and bend to peer into her face. “I didn’t bring a photo album because I thought I was coming only for a short visit. And, to be honest, I was hoping I could convince you to visit me sometime. There’s no reason we have to remain apart, you know.”
She swivels her chair toward the wall and sets the trophy on a corner of her desk. “Come on, Dr. Carey. You know I can’t leave the convent.”
“I don’t know that. You can do anything you want to do.”
“Like this?” She turns and points to her face. “I know how people will respond to me. I saw how you reacted this afternoon, and you’d been prepared.” She shakes her head. “I’ve read about people like me—burn victims who end up committing suicide, and cancer patients who would rather stay in their homes than venture out and show the world how tumors have eaten away at their faces. So thanks for the invitation, but I think I’m better off staying here.”
What can I say? She will be more sheltered here, but behind these walls she’ll never have a chance to experience life in all its fullness.
“I don’t know, Sarah.” I keep my voice light as I stand and move to her dresser. “Everyone is born with virtually unlimited potential. I think we’re meant to spend every bit of it and die without a smidgen of promise left.”
I run my fingertips over the edge of the bureau, where behind the jumbled cords and a hairbrush I spy a plastic case filled with mounted coins—British guineas, crowns, and gold sovereigns. American pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters. The Canadian two-dollar coin known as a “tooney.” The miniature portraits of Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Queen Elizabeth wink at me in the lamplight.
“You like coins?” I ask, delighted to have found that she has an interest in something outside this facility.
She shrugs. “I used to collect them when I was younger. Dr. Mewton would bring them to me.”
I pick up the plastic case and examine it in the lamplight. “I don’t recognize this big piece—the one with the two menonit.”
She rises out of her chair to glance at the case, then settles back down. “That’s Juan Carlos of Spain and his son, Felipe. That’s two thousand pesetas.”
“Ah.” I set the case back on the dresser, taking care to avoid hitting the lamp. “I don’t know much about foreign coins, I’m afraid. I suppose it’ll
be easier now that so many countries are using the Euro.”
“Those coins aren’t as nice,” she says, “but I do like the Spanish Euro. It features Juan Carlos and Sofia on the face.”
I grip the edge of the dresser as the truth crashes into me. Every coin here features a portrait—not a building, a monument, symbol, but a human face.
My brother’s daughter has spent a lifetime collecting faces—first on coins, then on movie posters. She may never have admitted the truth to herself, but she has yearned for the thing that makes us most human, the thing she doesn’t have.
Instinct tells me that in all that face collecting, she’s been longing for something else she lacks. A father. A mother. A sister. Anyone she can call family.
In the silence of the room, I catch my breath and hear my heart break—a clean, sharp sound, like the snap of a pencil.
I am going to help her. I’m not sure how to proceed, but Sarah will let me know what she needs.
“Sarah.” I spin around and squeeze her shoulders, bending until our eyes are only inches apart. “Sweetheart, I think I understand some of what you’ve been feeling. There’s a wonderful world out there, and I’d love to help you experience it. Say you’ll at least think about coming to visit me, okay?”
She hesitates. “Yeah, sure. I’ll think about it.”
“Good.” I close my eyes and press my lips to her uneven hairline. “On that note, I’ll leave you so I can get some rest. I’ll see you in the morning.”
And as I walk down the stairs that will lead me back to my room, my thoughts drift to Sunset Boulevard and the radiant Norma Desmond. In the musical version, Norma’s former director sings an aria about the moment he first saw the young actress and knew he’d found his perfect face….
In Sarah Sims, I’ve found an imperfect face. But I might have also found my heart.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Sarah
When my aunt has gone, I pull a random DVD from my favorites drawer and pop the disc into my computer, not caring what might appear on the screen. Whatever it is, the movie is bound to carry me away from troubling thoughts and unanswerable questions.
