The In-Between

by Stewart, Barbara

  Me: Where’s the box cutter?

  Dad: Kitchen counter.

  Me: First-aid kit?

  Dad: Check the bathroom.

  “What do you think of this?” Madeline asked. She was sitting on the bed, a pad of paper in her lap, sketching. She turned the pad around and showed me two upside-down v’s, side by side, next to two lazy v’s stacked one over the other. I loved it. It was simple and perfect. No ampersand separating us. No plus sign. Our sum is greater than our parts:

  “Take off your shirt,” she said.

  I flinched. Even with all the weight I’ve lost, I’m still fat in the middle.

  Madeline rolled her eyes. “You have to. It’s nothing I haven’t seen.”

  I peeled my shirt over my head and stood there shivering in my bra. Madeline pressed the ice-filled towel to my chest, over my heart. The cold took my breath away.

  “I promise it won’t hurt,” she said, raising the blade. I lifted my face to the ceiling. I couldn’t watch. I still feel sick when I remember cutting my wrists—the raw, hot suddenness of steel slicing through skin. I locked my knees and dug my nails into my palms, bracing for the kaleidoscope of pain. I didn’t want to jerk and screw it up. I was breathing hard, still wondering what she was waiting for, when she pressed a gauze pad to my skin and said, “There. Done.” I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen the bloody letters seeping through the white square.

  “I told you I wouldn’t hurt you,” she said, handing me the silver blade. “Don’t hurt me.”

  * * *

  Madeline is sleeping over again. She’s lounging in bed, flipping through a book my English teacher assigned for the poetry unit last year. I liked it so much, I borrowed it—forever. Madeline just read me one by the guy who uses all lowercase letters. He’s one of my favorites. I’ve read it before. I love the last line: i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart). Madeline pulled down her collar and showed me her bandage. I showed her mine.

  She read a few more and then scooted down under the covers like a little kid waiting for a bedtime story. I told her to pick a poem and I’d read it to her, but she wants to hear something by me. She wants to hear something from my journal.

  “What do you write about?” she asks.

  How can I answer her truthfully? I write about everything. My dead mother. My messed-up father. My messed-up brain. Love. Scilla. The horror of dying. Busted windshields and leaky ceilings. Betrayal. Stone angels. Canned soup. Car wrecks. Monsters and black holes and gods.

  The list goes on and on.

  I don’t ever read my own words. Because I never get it right, what I’m trying to say. It always falls short. I know good writing when I read it. Good writing makes my heart feel like a soda bottle that’s been shaken, the pressure building and building, until I think I might explode into a million tiny pieces. The poet who stuck her head in an oven makes me feel that way. I’ll read something from her instead.

  thirteen

  This morning I went through a box marked MINE. It was all my mother’s personal things, stuff she didn’t just leave around the house, stuff she kept separate from my stuff and my dad’s stuff: her high school yearbook, a dried rose from her mother’s casket, my baby teeth, a ticket stub from a concert in 1988, a bunch of letters and postcards and homemade Mother’s Day cards, and two grainy black-and-white photos on thin, filmy paper. I put everything else back carefully except the photos. Those I kept.

  They were ultrasound images of me in my mother’s womb, but in the first photo—the one labeled 8 WEEKS—I wasn’t alone. The images were eerie, almost alien, with two black voids in a sea of variegated gray. In the first one, both voids contained a single white bean. In the second photo, the bean on the left had grown but the bean on the right was missing. The right void had shrunk to a pinhole, crowded out by the void on the left.

  “What are you doing?” It was my father. He’d appeared out of nowhere, startling me. I hid the pictures in my pocket.

  “I’m looking for the camera,” I said.

  “It’s not in there.” He stormed over and closed the flaps. Obviously my father isn’t ready to have me nosing through my mother’s things. He hefted the box and marched off.

  “Do you know where it is?” I called after him.

  “Try the blue tub.”

  The blue tub was next to the couch. My father had been using it as a nightstand. The top was cluttered with drinking glasses and used tissues. I pried off the lid and peered inside. The camera bag was buried in a nest of Christmas lights.

  It isn’t a very good camera. It’s cheap plastic and the directions that came with it suck. Mom was always accidentally deleting pictures. I pressed the power button and the preview screen lit up. There was my mom and me packing up our old house. Then this house—the one in Pottsville—taken back in June when the Realtor had given us a walk-through. There was my dad posing on the front porch, and me with a wicked case of red-eye, looking possessed. And then there was the picture I’d taken of Mom in the yard, kneeling beside an overgrown rosebush, the sun framing her hair in gold. She hadn’t noticed me standing in the driveway, trying to get the stupid zoom to work. She looks so happy in that picture, so peaceful, lifting a yellow bud to her nose. But was she? Life had failed her in so many ways. Correction: We had failed her in so many ways.

  Madeline was still in bed, exactly as I’d left her: curled on her side, arm under her head. I’d spent the last hour studying her face. I couldn’t pull my eyes away. It was how I used to get around Scilla’s father when he didn’t have his shirt pinned around his stump. I felt that if I looked long enough—if the light was right and I could get closer—I’d see how she was created, I’d learn the secret of what made Madeline Madeline. Is that weird? Probably. That’s what I was thinking when Madeline’s eyes fluttered open. She smiled at the camera and shook her hair and rolled out of bed.

  “Delete that,” she said.

  “I want a picture of you,” I said. “A nice one. Not one of those crappy school ones.”

  Madeline pulled on a skirt and a top and went and stood in front of the closet. “Is this good?” she said. I was about to press the silver button when … I don’t know what. I guess I blacked out. I was getting ready to take the picture, and then I was slumped on the bed. I don’t know how long I’d been like that. Madeline was curled up in the corner, shivering and wild-eyed. Her pupils were huge, like the two black voids in the ultrasound. She looked like she’d seen something terrible. From behind her back she pulled a black-and-white composition book—this journal. She’d been reading my journal.

  “Doesn’t this mean anything to you?” she said, peeling back the bandage over her heart. The letters were a bloody brown. The surrounding skin looked burned. The cuts on my chest began itching and stinging.

  “Of course it does,” I said.

  “Then why didn’t you tell me?”

  Tell her what? What was in my journal that I hadn’t told her?

  “The stuff about your mother.”

  My ears burned. I jumped up, knocking the camera to the floor. The flash went off. I started stuttering like an idiot.

  “It’s just—It’s true,” I said. “Not in some cheesy metaphorical way. She really holds my hand. Sometimes she kisses my forehead. Sometimes she plays with my hair. I didn’t know how to tell you that her ghost—” I stopped. I hadn’t ever used that term to describe my mother. Not even in my head. It’s not the right word. I don’t know what to call her.

  “I wanted to tell you,” I whispered.

  Madeline crawled across the floor and sat on her knees. She looked down at her lap and said, “This changes everything.” At first I thought she was angry. But it wasn’t anger. It was fear. Her voice was full of deep concern. Panic, almost.

  “It’s not a bad thing,” I said. “Having her around makes me feel better.”

  “You miss your mother. I understand. But you can’t cling—”

  “No. It’s probably nothing. Just my screwe
d-up brain.”

  Madeline covered her face, but I just stood there next to her, staring down, afraid to open my mouth and make it worse.

  “You don’t understand,” she said. “It’s just … there’s a plan. Never mind. Sit.” She patted the rug and reached for my hand—my mother’s hand—and calmly folded my fingers.

  “Everything will be all right,” she said softly. “We’ll figure this out. Concentrate. Concentrate.”

  Clutching my fist, she squeezed. Gently at first, but then hard, harder.

  “Madeline’s crying,” she chanted. “Elanor’s dying. Concentrate. Concentrate.”

  Her grip tightened. I winced but she kept squeezing.

  “Madeline’s dying. Elanor’s crying.”

  Her hands were a vise. Tighter and tighter, she squeezed. Like she was trying to halt the blood pouring from a wound. Like she was trying to fuse us together. My knuckles popped like bubble wrap. A sickening shifting of bones. I gritted my teeth and blinked back a wave of tears.

  Something snapped. My stomach lurched. Madeline felt it, too, and dropped my fist like it was toxic. “I can’t feel her,” she whispered. “I have to go.”

  My hand has stopped hurting, but everything else is on fire—my head, my stomach, my heart, the initials I let her carve into my flesh. It feels like the gauze is infested with ants, biting and stinging, tunneling into my chest. What is wrong with me? What was I thinking? Why didn’t I tell her about my mother? This is what I wrote, this is what she read:

  I’m not ashamed or embarrassed, it’s just this feels incredibly private.

  Incredibly stupid is more like it. I spent The Worst Year of My Life aching for someone who’s honest and loyal and sees things the same way. Someone who loved me for me. Someone who made me feel whole. Just when I thought my life would never change, Madeline comes along, appearing out of nowhere like some guardian angel (my stone angel), and this is how I repay her? By keeping secrets?

  And now I have another one.

  I pull the two crumpled photos from my pocket and smooth them out on the desk.

  I don’t know what it means.

  fourteen

  I have two settings: hot and cold. My mother used to say that no one can accuse me of being lukewarm. I’m up and down like a yo-yo. Life is all rainbows or it’s a stinking heap of garbage.

  Today it is rainbows.

  “Look who I found,” Madeline said, dumping an orange-and-white cat—my cat, Lucy Cat—on the rug. I dropped to my knees and scooped her up and tossed her over my shoulder. I buried my nose in her fur and smelled her Lucy smell—dust and canned food and saliva. I thought only old people cried tears of joy. I guess I’ve never been this happy.

  We’d lost her in the Poconos, over a hundred miles from Pottsville. I’ve heard of animals traveling farther, but Lucy’s old and she’s a house cat. How did she survive? You’d think a cat who had crossed mountains and rivers and a state line would come limping in all bloody paws and matted fur, ribs sticking out—but she looked perfectly healthy.

  I asked Madeline how she found her.

  “I have my ways.”

  I wiped my eyes. My nose was running, too. “No, really,” I said.

  “About yesterday,” she said. “I’m sorry. I guess I’m a little possessive. Okay, a lot possessive.”

  My mother was right about so many things. (Hear that, Mom, you were right.) I give up too quickly. I get that from you-know-who. Last night I cried myself to sleep thinking Madeline hated me, and that I’d never see her again, and then she comes here asking me to forgive her. The same with Lucy. I could’ve found her if I’d tried. Madeline did. It wasn’t magic. There’s this thing called a newspaper. There’s this thing called the Internet. I just figured she was dead. Why do I find hope so difficult? My answer to everything is to curl up into a little ball and wait for the world to end. Good things do happen for Ellie. Not always, but sometimes.

  I just fed Lucy a can of tuna for her homecoming dinner. Now she’s racing around my room, stalking a pen cap. I wonder when my father’s coming home. That was another surprise: My father left the house. He’s been gone all day. This morning, before it was light, he came into my room, kissed the top of my head, and said, “I love you, Ellie. I’m going now.” Where? I don’t know. Work, I guess. He was wearing a suit and tie. His breath smelled like ashes. Is he smoking again? I want to show him Lucy. I want to ask him about the ultrasounds, too, before I show them to Madeline. It’s dark and he’s still not home.

  fifteen

  I don’t remember seeing my father today. It doesn’t mean I didn’t—I just don’t remember. I’m sick. Lucy’s sick. My body is fighting something, a cold or the flu. I’ve been asleep more than I’ve been awake and feel prickly all over. There’s also this weird hot fluttering in my chest, like a tiny flaming bird trapped behind my ribs. I tried taking my temperature, but the thermometer’s broken—I can’t get a reading. And my cuts might be infected. They itch like crazy. It takes all my willpower to keep from clawing at the stupid bandage. Then there’s my psycho cat. She’s been crouched at the foot of the bed all day, making that strangled calling noise she makes when she can’t find me. “Hello?” I wiggle my toes. “I’m right here, dummy.”

  All I want to do is sleep, but Madeline won’t let me. It’s like she’s afraid I might slip into a coma and never regain consciousness. Every time I close my eyes, she asks another question.

  The last one: “Are you happy right here, right now?”

  “I feel like crap,” I said. “But yeah. Why?”

  “I’m afraid part of you wants your old life back. Your life before the accident.”

  Why would she say such a thing? For the first time in a long time, I am truly happy. I don’t want to die. I’d give anything to be with my mother again, but my mother is dead and I want to live. Madeline wants me to prove something. I don’t know what. It’s some kind of test. If I could reverse time and save my mother, I would. But I can’t.

  There’s only one answer: “No.”

  “Good,” she said. And then like one had something to do with the other, “I want you to go somewhere with me.”

  “Sure,” I said. I’ve been shut up in this house—what?—fifteen, sixteen days. I need to buy clothes for school. I’d kill to see a movie. But that’s not what she meant. She wants to run away. The two of us. Far from here. She said it’s time to start over. Everything’s ready. Our new life is waiting.

  “Where?” I said.

  “A different world. One where we can be together forever.”

  This is my chance to prove how much I love her. It’s an easy choice. I’ll still have my mother. She’s more alive to me than my father. He won’t even notice I’m gone.

  Madeline won’t let me in on any of the details. She said it’s a secret. I don’t know what she’s planning. She said I can’t bring anything. Not a bag. Not my journal. Not even Lucy.

  sixteen

  Lucy’s been making that calling noise for two days. Now her voice is gone. Her mouth moves but nothing comes out. It’s funny and sad at the same time. I think she feels my mom’s presence and it’s got her all freaked out. They say animals are sensitive like that, to things people can’t hear or see or feel.

  Whatever I’ve got is getting worse. I’m weak. Too weak to write. We’re leaving tomorrow. Or the next day.

  seventeen

  I’m not taking this with me. Maybe my father will find it someday and understand.

  I’ll never know what happened to the baby.

  (People crying. Babies dying.)

  Elanor’s dying. Madeline’s crying. Madeline kisses me on the lips. Not like a boy. Closer. We are meant to be forever. Something flutters at the window. Birds. Blackbirds. Black as ash. They think I am trapped, but I’m not. We’re leaving. It’s raining. Won’t our feathers get wet?

  The ceiling is leaking. The house is crumbling. The birds are lurking in the trees, rattling the windows, pecking my brain. My brain is shr
inking. Everything’s shrinking. I’m shivering. I’m shivering silver stars. It’s raining metal and plastic.

  I’m drowning. My lungs are bursting. Madeline wants me to follow her, but it’s dark where she’s going. I must brave the darkness to enter the light. She’s building a nest with twigs and sticks. I hear the charred birds in the charred trees, calling: Mine. Mine. Something tugs at my ankles. The ground is slipping. Everything is slipping.

  Madeline’s dying, Elanor’s crying.

  I fear black. I fear light. Birds calling: Mine! Mine!

  part ii

  the pegasus journal

  All we are not stares back at what we are.

  —W. H. Auden

  eighteen

  The doctor said I’m a fighter. He said I had one foot in the grave. The force of the impact caused a subdural hematoma. (Translation: a bruised brain.) He said that’s why I’m seeing things, these weird shadows. I’m lucky I’m not a vegetable. If I follow orders and don’t have any setbacks, I can go home on Monday. But what home? I feel like I’ve been asleep forever. Everything is still pretty sketchy. I’m in a hospital in the Poconos. An RV swooped down like some giant terrible bird and destroyed our car. I asked my mother if my father went on to Pottsville, to start his new job. She said I should try some Jell-O.

  “Daddy’s dead,” I said. “Isn’t he?”

  My mother pinched her nose like she was stifling a sneeze. She nodded.

  “Lucy, too?”

  Another nod. A sniff. She wouldn’t let herself cry. Not in front of me.

  I leaned back against the pillow and closed my eyes, trying to picture my dad. But I just kept seeing him buried beneath a pile of blankets on the couch in our new house. Not our old house. Not behind the wheel of our car, joking about locking me in the cat carrier. Not at the last stop before the accident, when I’d pinched him for taking a big bite out of my ice cream. That’s how I wanted to remember him, but I couldn’t. My heart hurt worse than my head. I wanted to scream, but I felt someone hovering, leaning over me. I opened my eyes. A shadow wrapped me in its arms, drawing the pain from my chest. I tried to hold on, but it slipped over the side of the bed. The black shape rose up against the door—a girl, definitely a girl—and then she was gone.