“Dada!” Lola said. Her big blue eyes lit up, and she reached for his face.
In the main room, a light came on.
Kyle’s smile disappeared. We both knew a second before she started that this time it would be really bad. He shoved Lola at me, and I took her, and she began to cry.
Stacie was screaming. She wasn’t screaming words, just screaming. Loud and long and wild. Something hard hit the floor. Something else crashed.
I stepped out of the bathroom just far enough to see. Kyle was holding Stacie. There was blood on her arm, blood dripping on the floor, and a serrated knife on the ground that must have had her blood on it. All the rest of our silverware was on the ground, too.
“Let me go!” she screamed. “Let me go!” She squirmed in his arms.
“Shh,” Kyle said. “Baby, shh.”
I took Lola back into the bathroom and closed the door. Why does she scream now? I thought. Why now and not when he’s doing it? And why does he stop her from hurting herself, but he won’t stop hurting her? How can he possibly think this is love?
“He cried for his sister, but he killed his parents,” I whispered.
“Dada,” Lola said.
“Yes, Dada,” I said. “Why is he this way? Why does he do this?”
Stacie was still screaming.
I closed my eyes, and it was like I closed my ears, too. There was no more yelling. What Kyle had done to his family, what he had done to Stacie, what he had done to me, that was all gone. I held Lola close to me, and I rocked back and forth. “Once there was an otter,” I began. “An otter who wanted to be friends with a turkey.”
Lola was warm, and I could feel her little heart beating. She touched my face with one of her tiny little hands. “Chel!”
“Lola, you said my name.” I opened my eyes and looked at her round face, with her blue, innocent eyes.
“Chel!”
In the background, there was noise. But I couldn’t hear it. I only heard Lola’s sweet little voice. I smiled. “Do you want to hear the rest of the story?” I said. “The otter wanted to be the turkey’s friend, so he lifted his nose out of the river . . .”
• • •
A day goes by, and then two. Vinnie doesn’t tell my secret. I told someone the truth, and yet it’s like I didn’t. It’s like everything is the same. Just like I thought, my dad has already found a lawyer to fight for me. The lawyer tells the judge that I’ll be harmed if I have to talk. He brings in a report from Dr. Kayla, who says I’m not ready. But the judge says I have to go into court with the lawyer so he can talk to me himself. I’m supposed to go with Dr. Kayla and the lawyer and my parents.
I could tell them that Dee is dead, but that won’t stop them from looking for Kyle. Aunt Hannah and Lee will want to send him to jail for what he did. They won’t stop and their lawyer won’t stop until I tell them where he is. I know that this lawyer my dad got can’t stop that forever.
But Dr. Kayla said they won’t send me to jail. If I don’t talk, there’s really nothing they can do. So on the third day after I told Vinnie, the day I’m supposed to go in to see the judge, I stay in my bedroom.
My dad knocks on the door. “Honey? It’s going to be fine. The judge isn’t going to ask you any details. He’s just going to ask you how you’re feeling. We went over all this with the lawyer.”
“I’m not going,” I say. I’m wearing shorts that I bought on my shopping trip with Lee and a purple top. I’m also wearing the ugly pink beads, and I’m holding my Stacie doll. I’m doing this for her, too. I’m doing this for the person she was before, the one who always wanted to have kids someday. That Dee would have done anything to protect them. I can’t bring her back or change what happened, but I can do this for her.
You wanted them, I hear her scream.
You would have wanted them, too, I think. You would have loved them more than anything in the world. I picture Dee right here in this room on the trundle bed eating Red Vines, smiling. I picture her on roller skates as we whizzed through the paths in the big park.
“I wonder who I’m going to marry,” she says. She skids off the path and stops herself against the play structure with the tire swings. I totter after her. I was always more cautious on roller skates. She never seemed to worry about falling, just whooshed off on the sidewalk or the grass or into the street. Now we’re standing on sawdust.
“Probably somebody rich,” I say.
“A millionaire!” She pulls off her skates and jumps up on the tire swing. “And he’ll have blue eyes and long hair like a knight.”
“I don’t think there are knights anymore,” I say, climbing on the next tire swing.
“I said like a knight,” she says, swinging. “And we’re going to have six children, and they’ll have blue eyes and dark hair just like him. Well, maybe a couple will be blond like me.”
“If they’re rich, I guess they can dye their hair however they want,” I say.
She laughs. “Six beautiful, rich children. And we’ll live in a mansion. You and your husband can live right next door.”
“We’ll have two mansions and twelve kids,” I say.
That was Dee. That was Lola and Barbie’s real mother.
And she was still there, part of her, for a long time. I remember that day the car came, those long minutes under the window. Minutes when she could have jumped up, pounded on the window, run out the door. You wanted her, she accused me. But she was silent. To protect Lola, she sacrificed herself, too.
• • •
We heard the door slam behind Kyle, but even then, I didn’t want to stand up. In case the man was still out there, in case there was any chance he’d see us. The first thing I saw was Kyle’s legs, the bottoms of his ratty brown cargo pants.
Lola let out a cry, and I began to breathe again.
But the man must be gone. The first person to ever come up here in close to two years, and we’d let him go. Stacie dropped my hands and stood up.
“I saw you looking out,” Kyle said, his voice whiny and high.
“I’ll take her,” Stacie said. I looked up and saw Stacie hold out her arms. Lola was still crying, flailing her little hands. I stood up, too, but Kyle didn’t look at me.
“You wanted to talk to him.”
“No, I didn’t,” Stacie said. Her voice was flat. “Just give me Lola so I can feed her.”
Kyle burst into tears. He pulled Lola closer, and she screeched.
“She’s just crying because she’s hungry,” I said. I could smell the chicken that I’d left on the stove burning. Kyle smelled it, too, and he headed for the stove, moving Lola to one arm. He turned the stove off, plucked the frying pan off the burner, and tossed the blackening chicken into the garbage.
“Stop crying,” he said to Lola, tears still streaming down his face. “Stop!”
Lola screamed harder.
“I can feed her,” Stacie said.
Kyle turned back toward us. His face was streaked with tears, but his eyes were hard. He cradled Lola with both arms again. “No one’s eating tonight. Not you, not Chelsea, not Lola. You’ve been bad.”
“She’s just a baby,” Stacie said.
“She looked at him, too,” Kyle said. “She made him ask questions.”
“She’s too young—”
“No.” He leaned down into Lola’s face. “You’ve been bad.”
Suddenly I remembered the day I told Stacie she was pregnant, how Kyle had been playing with that Barbie and saying he loved her, how he’d slammed the Barbie on the table. I stepped forward, reaching for Lola. “I’ll take her,” I said. “I won’t let Stacie feed her.” One more step and then another, and finally, I was close enough.
Kyle shoved Lola into my arms. He leaned against the kitchen counter. “You’re all bad,” he said.
We sat there for hours, with Kyle st
aring at us, afraid to move. I held Lola while she cried her lungs out. Stacie leaned against the window that we’d both wanted so badly to look out of, wanted so badly to use to signal that man. Later that night, when Kyle was finally asleep, she took Lola into the bathroom and fed her. And that wasn’t the last secret nighttime feeding. Even when the girls were too old to nurse, Kyle would sometimes take their food away. And we’d stash food together, hiding it in odd places like in the backs of high cupboards or underneath clothes. We’d take a little at a time so Kyle wouldn’t notice it was missing and then use it to feed the girls. Stacie always helped with that. Almost until the end.
• • •
I haven’t given her enough credit, for everything she did. For everything she didn’t do. For all the years she held out, before . . .
I squeeze my eyes closed, search for another memory, a day or an hour or even a moment when she was Stacie, but she was still herself. When she would agree with what I’m doing. I know there are more, but I’m stuck back under the window. My hands grip hers, and she grips my hands back.
You wanted her.
My dad opens the door and peeks his head in. He frowns when he sees my purple shirt. I’d been wearing other colors, and this doesn’t look good. It looks like I’m really crazy like we want Dr. Kayla to say. I set the Stacie doll down and try to look not crazy.
“You don’t have a choice, honey,” he says. “I promise it will be okay. Your mom and I will be right there.”
“I have a choice,” I say.
He sighs and tilts his head that way he used to do when he was annoyed. Like when I took Jay’s ball and wouldn’t give it back to him.
“Someday I’ll tell you and you’ll understand,” I say. I wonder when that will be. When Kyle dies, how will I know? Will the girls be able to find me?
“Amy.” He sighs again and sits down next to me on the bed. “There is a court hearing. We have to go.”
My mom stands in the doorway now. She wrings her hands in front of her chest. Her eyes flit back and forth between us. I see Jay behind her, standing in the doorway of his bedroom, staring. Mom is wearing a floral print dress like the kind she used to wear to church. It doesn’t look natural on her anymore.
“I’m not going,” I say. “If they want to put me in jail, they can do that.”
“Nobody is going to put you in jail,” my dad says.
“Okay,” I say. “Good.”
My dad doesn’t even try again. He goes back out of the room, and my mom stares in at me while he calls the lawyer and tells him that I won’t go. In her eyes, she is saying, Tell me. Behind her, Jay’s eyes are saying, Tell them. I make my eyes empty. I say nothing with my eyes at all.
Many hours later, after everyone else is asleep, I’m curled up on my bed, still wearing my clothes, holding the Stacie doll close. I’m trying not to think about anything, but I see them like they’re right there. I see Barbie the day she was born, all messy and squealing. I see Lola jumping, trying to catch a fly. I see Stacie sitting on the bed, staring with those blank eyes. I see Kyle smiling. I feel his hand connect with my face, the hardness of the floor that comes up to meet me. I hear their voices saying my name. Chel! Chel! I hear the door slam in front of me. I hear the gravel crinkling beneath my feet. The night air swirls around me as I pass the line, the end of our world, the point beyond which horrible things are supposed to happen. I feel my steps taking me down, past the edge, away from them.
And suddenly: Stacie is pregnant with Barbie, probably seven or eight months along. She’s sitting up on the bed with her back leaning against the wall. One hand sits absently on her belly, and her face is calm. Two-year-old Lola is on the bed, too, playing with a rag doll, one I made myself out of an old T-shirt and cotton balls. The doll’s face is drawn on in marker, but Lola doesn’t care. She’s named it Poopa, and she loves it.
“Mommy, Poopa wants to say hi,” Lola says, scooting over to her.
“Well, does she?” Stacie says. “Did you hear that, Barbie? You’ve made a new friend.” Kyle had already named the baby, even though, of course, we didn’t know it would be a girl. He was so sure he’d get exactly what he wanted.
“Mommy, they’re friends already,” Lola says. She presses the doll’s face against Stacie’s stomach.
“I wish I had a friend named Poopa,” says Stacie, patting the doll’s head. She looks up at me, where I’m standing with my broom, afraid to move and spoil this.
“It’s a good name,” I say.
“Brilliant.”
“What’s ‘brilliant’?” Lola asks.
“Like smart. Like if you know a lot of things,” Stacie replies.
“Brilliant!” Lola says, taking the doll back. “Brilliant!” It becomes her new favorite word, and for the few weeks until Barbie is born, whenever Lola says it, Stacie looks at me and smiles.
• • •
I open my eyes to find Lee sitting next to me on the bed. The window is open. I sit up and stare at it.
“You didn’t move the whole time I was climbing in,” she says. “But you weren’t asleep. Your eyes were open.”
I wipe the drool off my chin. I must have fallen asleep at least for a while.
“The judge set another date,” Lee says. Her hair is in a ponytail, and she’s wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt. She’s not dressed for a party this time.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“No, you’re not,” she says. She says it flatly, like it’s just a statement of fact.
I look away from her. She’s right. I know I’m doing the right thing.
“Picture this, Amy,” she says. “You have a daughter who you love more than anything in the world. She’s your oldest daughter, and before you had her, you never really loved anyone. You didn’t love your daughter’s dad, not really. He was just a guy you grew up with, someone who could give you what you really wanted in life, to be a mother.”
I close my eyes. I want to put my hands over my ears.
“So this daughter, she’s everything to you. Even when you have another daughter, who you love, you know you’ll never love anyone like you love this girl. When you finally divorce the husband you never loved, you focus everything you are on the girls.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
Lee is silent for a minute. “And then you lose her,” she finally says. “Even though six years go by, you never allow yourself to give up. You keep her room the same as it always was. You set a third place at the table. When you go to the movies with the daughter you have left, sometimes you even buy an extra ticket.”
“She did that?” I ask.
“Actually I set the table,” Lee says. “She made me do it.”
We are silent.
“Do you think she would have liked to know that, Amy? That Mom believed she was coming home?”
“I don’t know,” I say. And I don’t. What difference would it make, when she could never get there? Maybe it would have made things even worse. But maybe it would have given her hope. Knowing what I know, I wish I could go back and tell her.
“I’m not saying this to make you feel bad,” Lee says. “I just want you to understand. Mom freaked out in the courtroom. She screamed and cried and had to be carried out by the bailiff. Now she’s asleep thanks to a ton of pills. Before you came back, her hope almost wasn’t real. She hoped Dee was alive, but she didn’t expect her to come walking through the door. Now she does. It’s like right after she was kidnapped all over again. You gave her hope, Amy, and it’s making her crazy. It’s killing her.”
I wipe tears out of my closed eyes, but I say nothing.
“Amy, please look at me.”
Slowly, I turn my head. Her eyes are so sad, even though they’re barely wet.
She picks up the Stacie doll from where I must have let it drop when I fell asleep. “This doll is always wearing pink, an
d you wanted the pink beads,” she says. “I know what this means. It means this doll represents Dee.”
I kind of nod and shake my head at the same time.
“It means you loved her.”
I reach for the doll, but she holds it away from me.
“She wouldn’t want her mom to suffer, would she? To not know? I thought it would be better for all of us. I thought the woman who cooks every night for two children would never be able to handle the truth. But this is worse, Amy. It’s worse.” She’s squeezing the doll so hard that her hand shakes. She realizes she’s doing it and eases up. She looks down at the doll and smoothes its pink dress. “I didn’t come here to say that. I never wanted to push you. I know whatever is going on with us, what happened to you must have been worse.”
Not what happened to me, I think. But that truth isn’t what Lee wants to know. She thinks there’s only life and death, staying away or coming home. She doesn’t know about the difference between Stacie and Dee, between being whole and being shattered.
“I came here because I just wanted to talk about her. That’s all. I won’t try to pressure you, I promise.” She looks down at the doll as she speaks. She probably means what she’s saying. Everything she’s done so far has been to help me. But she also wants to know the truth. And she’s going to learn it. It has a life of its own, now that it’s out there. Vinnie knows, and soon everyone else will, too. I can’t stop it, but I can’t let it happen either.
I don’t know what to do, so I sit perfectly still.
“And I want to do something to remember her,” Lee says. “I want to help you, but I need to remember her. I can’t pretend she never existed. That’s what you want, but I can’t do it.”
“I don’t want that,” I say. But that’s the result, I realize. So few people really knew her in the short time she had. If no one can ask me about her, then I’m wiping the rest of her away. She wouldn’t want that. She always wanted to be included. She’d want us to remember.
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