Shallow Pond

by Alissa Grosso

  When I reached fifty and opened my eyes, Annie’s re-mained closed. I sighed and pushed my chair a few inches back from the bed.

  “How was she doing before this?”

  I half-expected it to be Donald, but when I looked up it was Dr. Feld. He gave me a lopsided smile that wasn’t at all reassuring.

  “She seemed to be doing okay,” I said. “But things have been stressful. Our other sister ran off.”

  “When you have a chance, I think we need to sit down and have a conversation. There are some things I need to tell you about.”

  I thought of when we’d first brought Annie to the hospital, when she’d asked to speak with the doctor alone. He must still think I was in the dark.

  “I know about the cloning thing,” I said, “if that’s what you want to talk about.”

  His eyes grew large and he looked into the hallway to make sure no one had heard me.

  “I tracked him down,” I continued. “Joseph. He goes by Donald now. He should be getting in touch with you. He’s going to figure out a way to fix her.”

  “I see,” Dr. Feld said. He patted his belly as he considered this. “Of course, we will do whatever we can, but you need to understand that Annie is very sick.”

  I told him I understood, but the truth was, I didn’t. I didn’t understand how someone who’d gone through as many bad things as Annie had should also have to have her life ripped from her at such a young age. It wasn’t fair—and I clung to the hope that she had to get better, if only to make up for all the suffering she’d patiently endured.

  Someone who worked at the Italian restaurant where Annie had collapsed knew Shawna’s mother, and, in typical small-town fashion, the news of Annie’s coma spread quickly through the town. When Zach drove me home Sunday afternoon, Jenelle and Shawna were waiting for me on the front steps.

  “My mom wants you to stay at our place,” Jenelle said.

  “I’m fine here,” I said, but the truth was, being in our house alone spooked me out. Other than for a few hours here and there, I’d never been home on my own before.

  A half-hearted debate ensued in which Jenelle, Shawna, and Zach insisted that I should stay with Jenelle, and I offered up increasingly feeble protests. In the end they won, and agreed to help me pack up some things to bring with me.

  Annie’s room was in a sorry state from the ransacking it had received at my hands the previous evening. Shawna even wondered if a robbery had occurred, but I assured her that it was fine. I packed a suitcase with clothes and grabbed all my school things, though the idea of going to school the next day seemed out of the question. When I grabbed my pile of school books, my scholarship letter fluttered to the ground. Jenelle picked it up, but before I could grab it from her hands, she read what it said.

  “This is fantastic! Bunting, why didn’t you tell us about this?”

  “What is it?” Shawna asked.

  “It’s nothing,” I said. I saw Zach standing awkwardly in the hallway and felt the need to keep the news from him. Fat chance of that with Jenelle around.

  “She’s getting a full college scholarship,” Jenelle said.

  “Awesome!” Shawna threw her arms around me, nearly suffocating me with her embrace. I saw Zach watching from the hallway.

  “It’s just an offer,” I said. “It doesn’t mean anything. I haven’t signed anything yet.”

  My nonchalance did little to dim the enthusiasm of my two friends. Zach’s look was penetrating and accusatory.

  “I’m not sure I’m going to be able to go,” I said, but nobody seemed to be listening to me.

  We went back downstairs and were about to head outside when Jenelle gasped, and I turned around to see that she was looking into my father’s old office. I’d left the door open, and I saw what she saw—the urn tipped over on the ground, the ashes scattered across the floor.

  “Somebody has been here,” Jenelle said. She quickly shut the door to block the view. “Bunting, you do not need to go in there.”

  “What is it?” Shawna asked.

  “It’s not what you think,” I said. I knew that explaining further would mean telling them that my father’s death had been faked, and I couldn’t think of any way to explain that without telling them everything. For a moment, I toyed with the idea of confessing the whole thing. I imagined the look of horror on their faces. I could see how the story would spread through the town. I imagined a Frankenstein-like revolt by the residents of Shallow Pond, in which they attempted to exorcise their little town of its demons. I imagined that the next time I came back to this house, it would be burned to the ground.

  So I kept my mouth shut, and we filed silently out of the house.

  Thirty-Three

  I went to school each day and sleep-walked through my classes. Even though I was staying with Jenelle, and even though I saw Jenelle and Shawna as well as Zach every day, I felt more alone than I’d ever felt in my life. Jenelle’s mom drove me to the hospital each afternoon. The rides were long and silent, and then I went and sat in the room with my silent sister. Sometimes I told her about my day, but mostly I sat there listening to the whir of the machines, making deals with God about when she would open her eyes. But God never held up his end of the bargain.

  One afternoon I stepped into her hospital room and found that I wasn’t alone. The unruly white hair had been combed since I’d last seen it, and the dirty old bathrobe had been exchanged for old but respectable-looking clothes. He sat in one of the chairs at the end of her bed, and he looked up at me when I came in. His eyes were bloodshot and his face had the puffy look of someone who’s been crying. That look in his eyes scared me. I looked quickly at the machines, but they all seemed to be chugging along just fine. Annie was still alive.

  “You have to understand,” he said. “I never wanted any of this.”

  “What were you thinking? Cloning some woman who had a disease that killed her?”

  “I thought I’d fixed that,” he said. He rubbed his face and sighed. “We had a dog, a golden retriever, who had a genetically inherited issue. Hip dysplasia is a common occurrence with large purebred dogs.”

  “Rose, Tulip, or Crocus?” I asked.

  “No, this was their model, Daisy. I cloned her, but I used a procedure to fix the hip dysplasia in the process. The three cloned dogs never had any hip issues.”

  “The dogs were clones,” I said. Of course—it made sense now. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it before.

  “Yeah. And they were fine. So I thought the three of you would be fine. No one was supposed to get sick.”

  A part of me wanted to trust this man, wanted to believe he wasn’t just some selfish jerk, but there was too much ugliness to easily ignore it.

  “Why do it at all?” I asked. “I just don’t understand.”

  “Because I had the means to give her another chance,” Donald said. “It wasn’t fair what happened to her, and I wanted to make it up to her, let her live her life all over again.”

  To hear him say it, he was some sort of selfless saint, but I didn’t believe it. “You didn’t do it for her,” I said. “She was dead. You couldn’t bring her back to life just by making some”—I glanced at the hallway to make sure no one was listening—“copy of her. Instead, you’ve forced someone else to go through the same torture all over again.” I waved my hand at my comatose sister.

  “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

  “You didn’t do this for her,” I repeated. “It was never about Susie. If it was really about her, you would have simply let her die and not tried to play God. You did it for yourself, because you couldn’t deal with losing her.”

  “It’s not something you could ever understand,” he said.

  “But why three of us?” I asked. “Four, if you count Zach. Why do this to four people? What gives you the right?”

  My voice had gr
own loud enough to attract the attention of one of the nurses, who poked her head in to ask if we were doing all right.

  “We’re fine,” I said. When the nurse left, I turned back to Donald. “You made this mess, and you’re going to fix it.” Then I stormed out of the room and down to the hospital lobby, to pretend to work on homework for a while until I could visit Annie alone.

  As I pulled a notebook out of my backpack, I saw the acceptance letter I’d shoved inside for safekeeping. I sat in the chair, folding and unfolding the letter. How could I go off to college with my sister in a coma? A morbid part of my brain thought that if Annie were to die, there would be nothing holding me in Shallow Pond, that it would make sense to go to school. But the more I thought about that, the less sense it made. Why spend four years at college when it was pretty much guaranteed that I only had a short time left to live?

  Donald came by and took a seat opposite me without asking my permission. I shoved the letter into my backpack.

  “You’re so much like her,” he said. “I mean, not just looks, but you act just like her.”

  “You don’t even know me,” I told him.

  “What was that paper?” he asked.

  “College scholarship,” I said. He started laughing and I grew annoyed. How dare he laugh at me?

  “Sorry,” he said when he saw the look on my face. “It’s just that Susie was awarded a scholarship too, a partial scholarship, but it meant we would have had to separate. The school that gave her the scholarship was three hundred miles away. She didn’t want to be apart. I tried to talk her into accepting it, although I wasn’t too crazy either about us being apart for that long.”

  “Well, see, I’m not like her,” I said. In that moment I’d made up my mind. “I’m going to accept the scholarship. There’s nothing to hold me back.”

  “That’s good,” he said. He did look surprised, and I thought he was going to say something about Annie, the only reason in the world I’d ever stay in Shallow Pond, but he said, “What about Zach?”

  It was my turn to laugh. “He’s just some guy who goes to my school,” I said. “Some guy whose life is as messed up as mine.”

  Saying it made it real. I wasn’t obsessed with Zach. I felt surprised that I ever had been.

  A few days later, almost two weeks after Annie first entered the coma, I was called out of class and asked to report to the main office. I took my time walking there. My heart was in my throat, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to find out why I’d been called out of class. When I got there I saw Jenelle’s mother waiting for me and felt my legs grow weak. She saw the look on my face.

  “Barbara, she’s awake,” she said.

  The relief took its time making its way through my body.

  The ride to the hospital had never felt so long. I was desperate to get there, worried that every second counted, that at any moment Annie would slip back into a coma and I would lose the chance to see her.

  But we made it in time, and when I walked into her room Annie was sitting up in bed. She looked awful, but she was clearly awake. I ran to her and hugged her. Tears ran uncontrollably down my face.

  “Hey,” Annie said, “knock that off. You’re getting me all wet.”

  I straightened up and smiled at her. My tears melted into laughs of relief. Annie just shook her head at me like I was crazy.

  “They said I’ve been in a coma for twelve days,” Annie said.

  “You have,” I said. “It was scary.”

  “I can’t remember anything.” She shook her head again. “The last thing I can remember was thinking I’d seen Dad’s ghost at our door.”

  I didn’t want to talk about any of that, not now. I needed her to get better, and that wasn’t going to happen if we focused on unpleasant things.

  “I’ve decided to accept the scholarship,” I told her.

  “That’s good, Babie. I’m glad. I don’t want to see you make the same mistakes I made. My whole life has been one mistake after another. I’m going to leave this life with nothing but regrets to show for my time.”

  “Don’t talk like that!” I shouted. “You’re not going anywhere. You’re going to have plenty of time to make up for your mistakes.”

  She sighed and turned away from me. She thought I was being foolishly optimistic, but I wasn’t. Donald had figured out how to make us, and he could figure out how to fix us.

  “Get out of Shallow Pond while you’re still young,” Annie said.

  “I’d spend my whole life here if it meant living to a ripe old age,” I said. “But it doesn’t matter. We’re both going to live our lives the way we want to. You’ll see.”

  She sighed again and made a big deal out of adjusting her blankets and pillow. I itched to explain things, to let her know about the secret weapon in my arsenal, but I knew I couldn’t tell her without upsetting her, and that was something I didn’t want to do just yet.

  But then he walked into the room. Annie recoiled, gasping with fright and maybe confusion too. I spun around quickly and saw that Donald looked surprised. Perhaps no one had told him that Annie was awake.

  “Get out of here,” I hissed, and he backed slowly out of the room.

  “It’s happening again,” Annie said. “I’m seeing things. I don’t know what to do.”

  “You’re not seeing things,” I explained. “There’s some stuff I need to tell you.” I sat down in one of the chairs and slowly told her about Zach, about realizing that he must be a clone of our father. I told her about finding the fake ashes, and then the address in her room, and then about going to track down the man who’d gotten us all into this mess.

  “What have you done? Why would you do that?” Annie moaned. “He can’t be trusted. Never allow yourself to be alone with him.”

  “He’s going to figure out a way to make you better,” I said. “That’s why he’s here.”

  I sat with Annie until the nurses forced me to leave so she could get some rest. Donald sprang on me as I headed down the hallway. I jumped back, recalling what Annie had said about trusting him. His icy blue eyes were bright and manic-looking. The normally bustling hallway seemed way too empty.

  “Have you eaten yet?” he asked. “Come have some dinner with me in the cafeteria. There’s something I want to talk to you about.”

  “My ride’s waiting,” I said. “I have to go.”

  He looked annoyed at this, but I didn’t care. I didn’t want to be anywhere near this man. I continued to back slowly away, heading in the direction of the nurses’ station.

  “I’ve got good news and bad news,” he said. “The good news is I’ve figured out how to fix her. How to fix Annie.”

  I stopped backing up. He had my full attention now.

  “Then what’s the bad news?”

  “The bad news is I won’t be able to do it without your help.”

  “How is that bad news? Of course I’m going to help.”

  “Well, it means you aren’t going to be able to accept that college scholarship. You’ll have to stay here during the treatments, and it could take as long as a year.”

  I thought of how he seemed to want me to be an exact duplicate of Susie, how he couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to stay with Zach, how he’d assumed I too would not make use of my college scholarship. And I remembered what Annie had said, that I shouldn’t trust him. Had he actually figured out a way to fix Annie, or was this all some trick—a trick that would keep me around so that I could become his new Susie?

  Thirty-Four

  At lunch, Todd Jameson asked Shawna to the prom, which meant that of the three of us, I was the only one without a date. But it didn’t matter. How could I possibly be worried about the prom when my sister was in a hospital bed, pretty much on the verge of death? Maybe I had the power to save her, or maybe the man behind my utterly messed-up life was just feeding me more of his tw
isted lies. But could I take that chance and be the one responsible for hammering that last nail into Annie’s coffin? I didn’t feel like I had a choice in the matter. I was stuck in Shallow Pond for at least another year, perhaps for all eternity.

  But there was a prom coming up and I was supposed to be all excited about it. In fact, judging by the reactions of my friends, I was supposed to be freaking out that I didn’t yet have a date. We still had more than a month to go before the big day, but by the way Jenelle and Shawna were acting it seemed like the fate of the entire world hung in the balance.

  “I don’t understand why Zach hasn’t asked you yet,” Jenelle said for what must have been the fiftieth time. The school day was over and they were both waiting for me at my locker. Either I was moving too slowly or Shawna had to pee—she was dancing around and hopping from foot to foot, which couldn’t have been easy in her platform sandals.

  “It’s not like we’re a thing thing,” I said.

  “I don’t know what that means,” Jenelle said.

  “It’s just that it’s kind of complicated. I can’t explain.”

  “You never can.” Jenelle sighed. “Look, anyone can see he’s crazy about you. He’s probably scared to ask you to the prom because he thinks you’re going to say no. Guys hate rejection.”

  “You say that like there’s someone out there who likes rejection.”

  “Boy alert, eleven o’clock,” Shawna said.

  “Two o’clock,” Jenelle and I corrected her in unison, when we saw Zach walking toward me.

  “It’s about time,” Jenelle said. “Okay, catch you later. Call if you need a ride.” The two of them scurried away so that I could talk to Zach alone.

  I was still seeing Zach every day at school. We said hi to each other as we passed in the halls or grumbled about our English teacher and her doddering ways, but mostly we didn’t talk. We hadn’t spent any actual time together since the night we’d tracked down Donald.