by Anne Heltzel
I just need to ask him something, sir.
Tom! he shouts. Some girl here to see you!
A skinny kid a few years older than I am walks out of the back, wiping his hands on a dish towel that’s draped from an apron at his waist. He has a goatee and freckles. Before he can say he doesn’t know me, I jump in.
Hey, Tom, I say. Sam says hello. I watch as Tom’s eyes flicker with understanding, and I wonder where Sam knows him from. He motions me to the side, and luckily another customer, a middle-aged woman, walks in just as he does. She looks at me with pursed lips and sniffs quickly before turning toward the old man, who busies himself taking her order. I am relieved for the distraction.
So you’re Sam’s girl, Tom says, like it’s a fact.
Abby, I tell him.
Well, Abby, I’ll tell you what. Go wait out back, don’t let the old geezer see you, and I’ll be out in a minute. I nod and walk back toward the door.
Nice seein’ you, Abby! Tom calls loudly in my direction. Thanks for stopping in. I wave quickly before shutting the door behind me and heading around back, where the trash cans are. This all seems so strange. I had assumed that all this time Sam was going to the grocery store, bringing back our supper. But now I wonder if he was getting most of our food for free. I never thought much about it before — how we got our food and our furnishings. Everything was just there and perfect and there was no real need to question it. I don’t remember feeling hungry at all until now, although I don’t remember having had food for days. Did we always have food? It seems that way, but now I’m not sure. I massage my temples; my thoughts are getting cluttered again.
I wait five minutes, then maybe ten, already more than Sam said I should. Where is Tom? My eyes automatically dart toward the funny horseshoe-shaped sculpture on the front lawn of the high school. I commune with it for good luck. I watch as the doors to the high school open and kids begin to stream out of its iron gate, and suddenly I’m excruciatingly uncomfortable. They all split up and head in different directions. One little group of four girls is heading toward me. I turn my back to them and lean against the wall, facing the other direction. I am praying they don’t notice me. I hear them enter the store and come back out with their food, and still no Tom. Now the girls are sitting on a long picnic bench near me. I can hear them whispering and giggling. I glance at the one girl, a pretty blonde, and see her looking at me the same way the woman in the store did: with her lips curled and her nose turned up. I look away again just as her friends burst into a fit of laughter.
What smells around here? says one of the others in an unnaturally loud voice. The blond girl snorts with laughter, and I feel my face heating up.
Seriously, says another, hold on to your purses, girls.
My eyes are welling with tears, and I am just about to give up and run home when Tom comes out, finally, with a plastic bag. He hands it to me and sends them a glare.
Thanks for your order, miss, he says to me. I am feeling too anxious and upset to give him more than a grateful nod, then I take off down the street. I’ll need to enter the woods from another direction now that people might be watching me. I silently curse Sam for sending me out right at the end of the school day. I turn back just as I’m nearly to the end of the street, and as I do, I notice another figure has joined the girls at the deli. The blond boy is sitting with them, now, talking — but his eyes are trained on mine. He lifts his hand in a small wave. I turn stiffly without returning his wave, run down the street the rest of the way and turn the corner at the end, blocking the scene from view. My heart is thudding rapidly. I’ve attracted too much attention; now I’ve seen this boy enough times for him to recognize me — even wonder about me, if he wanted to. Sam was right; it was so stupid of me to ever go to the library that day.
When I’m safely into the woods, I take a look inside the bag: two enormous sandwiches, stuffed full of ham and turkey, each as long as my arm. Little Styrofoam containers of macaroni and potato salad. My mouth is watering, but I will wait for Sammy. My stomach is so used to being needy that it long ago stopped growling for fuel; but I feel its vengeance now in my faltering limbs. I begin sprinting back the rest of the way, painfully aware of the burning in my chest and the weakness in my legs. When I stop running, it is only because I feel as if I might pass out.
The cave is dim when I enter. The candle next to Sam’s bed has burned low, and only the skylight illuminates the room. Sam’s fast asleep with one hand draped over the side of the bed. It was silly for me to be nervous; he isn’t strong enough to be angry. I shake him gently, and he stirs, rolling over. I gasp. The front of his shirt is caked in dried vomit, and he is so pale.
Sammy?
Eat without me, Abby.
Can I do anything?
No, babe. I just want to sleep.
So I begin to eat, and my food tastes better than anything I’ve had in ages. And it doesn’t turn into a tenderloin, or a roast pig, or anything more than what it is. But I enjoy it all the same, maybe even more, because I know that my brain is steady. As Sam sleeps, he dreams something horrible; he is awash with nightmares — it’s obvious by the way he thrashes and roars in his sleep. But by now, I am used to it. I wrap the other sandwich to save for another day.
I have discovered that the roaches were not just in my soup. And I don’t think their presence in my soup was a trick of my brain. Now that I have found roaches everywhere — below our mattress, in the plastic bag with our food, under our desk, skittering, lounging, running pell-mell — now I think that maybe the chicken was the foreign presence in my soup, mustered up by my fickle brain. I wonder when the last time I even had chicken was. It’s a frustrating revelation.
Ever since I registered the presence of the roaches in my life, I have been cleaning. I have been cleaning and cleaning like a maniac for two days now. Sometimes the walls sparkle; sometimes they’re draped in filth. Sometimes I think there is no real reason for me to scrub as I do because everything looks immaculate — better than immaculate: shining and splendorous. Then other times I see the filth, the rot. And I clean because I figure, better safe.
I have an old broom Sam brought back long ago. I’m not sure where he got it. I use a T-shirt of mine and water from the creek for scrubbing. But it takes buckets and buckets; the water turns a filthy black in just minutes, and the T-shirt is useless after a while. I feel as though I’m scrubbing dirt in rather than off. So instead I begin to tidy up, bundling up as much garbage as I can into the bag left over from the sandwiches.
When I finish with that, I sort through Sam’s and my small collection of shirts, underwear, and jeans. I strip off what I’m wearing and walk to the creek with my arms full of clothing, wearing only a tank top and underwear so I can wash as much as possible right now. Then I dunk everything in and begin to scrub, using nothing but the water.
As I’m washing, it hits me how alone I am, but what’s even more startling is that I don’t mind being alone. When Sam used to go out to Sid’s, or go out for our food, or whatever it was he did with Amanda all the time, my heart would ache. My nerves would be on edge until he returned. It was as if half of me had gone with him and the other half was in pain, missing what it needed to function. But now I am fine, almost peaceful, on my own. And in fact, Sam is at Sid’s right now — not in bed, where he’s been continuously for the past week.
When Sam pulled himself out of bed around noon or so, he looked no less weak.
I can’t stand it any longer, he told me. I’m getting worse, not better.
So let me go, I’d said.
No. His reply was firm, almost angry. In it, he sounded strong again. No. You’re never going to that place again. I’ll work it out myself. I was relieved. My last and only trip to Sid’s was a big haze that left behind only bad feelings, no tangible memories. But even so, when I look back to it, I feel sick. So now Sam’s at Sid’s. I feel hopeful, almost happy. All I want is for him to be OK again.
I finish the wash, even doing the s
heets, until the trees around our home look like the victims of a bad Halloween prank. Colorful shirts, jeans, sheets — they’re draped from every sturdy limb. It’s a strange, beautiful sight. I smile at my work. Maybe I will sketch it later so I’ll always remember it.
I walk back in, surveying the rest of the room. Our room that once looked cavernous is indeed still cavernous but not in size. As I stare, the edges of my vision become blurry and I see one cot and one mattress, each covered in Swiss-cheese holes. One dirty basin, a few tin cups, an upside-down crate, scraps of paper — my sketches — and garbage littering the ground. I close my eyes and open again and try not to focus too closely. I glance quickly at everything, keep my eyes moving, and see two beds, an oak writing desk, a kitchen stove, a sofa, my art framed and hung on the walls. I want it to be that way, so I hang on to it. I don’t look too closely. I’m afraid that if I do, I’ll see something else, something worse. And that Sam will be right: I am crazy. I’m terrified of what it might mean to be crazy.
I walk toward Sam’s and my bed. The mattress looks like it needs a good flip. A good flip. There’s something in the phrase that feels warm, that conjures up an image of a kind-faced woman struggling with a mattress in a bright, canary-yellow room. She asks for my help; together we flip it.
But here I’m on my own. I put both arms under the unwieldy thing, and I was right: dust billows from its trenches into my nose, nearly suffocating me. Perhaps instead of a flip, it needs a beating, the way women beat rugs with brooms outdoors in some of Sam’s books. But I don’t think I’m strong enough to carry it outside myself, so a flip will have to do. I’ve nearly got it up on its side when I hear something slide across the floor and hit the wall. I allow the mattress to fall with a thud on its other side, sending waves of dust up into the air. Coughing, I drop to my knees and feel under the edge of the mattress.
I find an object, small and square and leathery. I pull it out. A notepad. Not just any notepad: my notepad. I had forgotten all about it until now. But why was Sam keeping it? He told me he would get rid of it, that it was no good. Even stranger, why was it hidden under our mattress?
I collapse to the floor. I am more exhausted than I’d thought, and it’s as if this discovery has wiped away any last energy. Just as I’ve begun to feel safer with Sam, to feel like maybe we are a team again, I find this. I feel all my old doubts and suspicions bubbling to the top of my throat. I feel the old anger, helplessness, frustration. Why would he do this? What does he want with my old notepad?
Nevertheless, I am glad to have it. It is possibly the one link I have to the girl I used to be. I thumb through its pages carefully, examining the sketches I’d forgotten. I wonder where these images came from, what kind of a girl I was when I drew them.
As I’m absently looking, lost in my imaginings, something slips from the back.
A picture. The class photo kind, posed and rarely valuable to anyone.
But this one, to me, is worth my life.
It is unmistakably, irrefutably, the girl from the newspaper, necklace and all, smiling up at me. My breath catches in my throat. The pain in my forehead bowls me over and fades again just as quickly. Hands trembling, I turn the photo to its back side.
For you, sister-pie. xo, Katie
Katie. Katherine James.
I tear to the back of the notepad, because how could I have missed this before? I flip through the whole thing, quickly, then more quickly, for suddenly all the time in the world has diminished to practically no time at all, since I have no idea when Sam will return. Sam. Sam, who knew about this all along. Sam, who knew the truth but tried to convince me I was crazy.
Finally in the back I find it: the little attached envelope that must have only contained this one photo, because it’s empty now. But it doesn’t matter; this photo offers me the only proof I need. The girl from my dream, the girl who died in the fire, this girl — they’re one and the same. This girl was once someone very close to me, someone Sam wants me to know nothing about. I am Addison, not Abby. I must be. My mind races. The fire, that night — it must be the same. I was there the night Katie James died. I am Addison James.
I clutch my chest. My heart’s frantic beats threaten to propel me into a state of panic. As calmly as I can, I place the photo back in the tiny envelope sleeve and put the whole thing back underneath the mattress. Sam won’t be able to tell the mattress is flipped. Even to me, it’s obvious that the “fresh” side is just as filthy as its opposite. I wiggle the notepad back under, about where it fell, hoping against hope it’s in the same approximate spot Sam hid it originally. I only have one option now: to act as though nothing has happened. It will be no easy task if my head continues to spin the way it is.
I busy myself pulling our clothes down from the trees, where they have mostly dried in the sun. If I leave them overnight, they’ll be damp with dew in the morning, and it’s already beginning to get dark. My mind is awash with the knowledge that now, with what I have discovered, I must leave Sam. But the thought of leaving him while he is ill tortures me with guilt, and the thought of being without him at all is still too difficult to really confront. Maybe he will come back from Sid’s with his medicine, and then he will be well, and I won’t have to worry about leaving him, and maybe once I find out the truth about that night, I can return to him and he will forgive me for leaving, even understand. My body feels light with hope.
It has been dark for an hour, and I have just started wondering if something bad has happened when Sam drags in. One eye is half-closed, there is blood all over his face, and he is clutching his side as he staggers inside. I shriek and run up to his side just before he collapses altogether. He is racked with silent sobs. I help him move to the bed, but with my every touch, he howls in pain.
Oh, Sam, what happened?
I didn’t get it, Abby, he wails in the voice of someone who is tortured. I didn’t get it, he says over and over. What will I do? What will I do?
For a fleeting moment, I wonder if my thoughts of leaving him, my planned betrayal of him, brought this pain upon him, and I feel guiltier than ever before. But I know that can’t be. I dab at his face with a T-shirt (I am beginning to run out of them) and am glad to see the blood made him look worse than he really is. He has a black eye and a broken nose, maybe a broken rib. My heart, so vulnerable from its ups and downs of the day, drops once again as I realize that one thing is certain: I will never be able to leave Sam like this.
We’re nestled up in the tree, laughing, Katie and I. Her round little face is beautiful. I adore her, purely and truly.
Hey, she says, look, quick! Look out there! I peer through the branches and see the deer she’s pointing to. It pauses, ears alert, its fawn behind it, before scampering off beyond the cemetery, back and back to wherever it came from.
What do you think’s out there? I ask. The forests seem so vast and frightening, and Mama’s always warning us not to wander into them.
I don’t know, Katie says. But don’t look so scared. It can’t be bad, if that little deer lives there.
No, I agree. I bet it’s magical in the forest.
Of course it is, says Katie, pressing her cheek against mine, her hot peppermint breath filling the space in front of my nose. We’ll go there someday, when we’re older. But for now, this tree is our magic.
And it does look magical. We’re concealed by its thick branches, unknown to anyone but the birds that sit above and around us. Even the squirrels don’t seem to mind us by now. But then we come here almost every day. It’s as if we’ve become a part of nature.
Katie has a pen out and is pressing its point into the bark of the tree.
Stop! I cry. You’re hurting it!
I’m not, silly. Don’t you want us to be a part of it forever? I nod slowly, unsure. It looks painful, the way she digs that pen into the bark.
There, she says when she’s finished, we’ll have to do it again soon, or the bark will heal.
Like skin. This tree, like me, is
a living thing. I wonder if maybe we should leave it alone. I don’t tell Katie this, because she’ll be mad. Instead, I lean my back against hers, where she’s perched behind me in the crook of the largest branch, and we stay there, back-to-back for support, until it’s time to go home for dinner.
It hurts, Abby! Sam’s voice is urgent, and he shakes my shoulders hard.
Can’t you feel it? It hurts! What’s happening to me? Now he’s itching all over.
He stalks across the room, scratches his ribs until long red streaks cover his chest, bangs his head once, twice on the wall. I am afraid to enter his radius. He’s been suffering worse than ever since he came back from Sid’s a few days ago without his medicine. It’s as if he’s begun to give up. He looks like a whirling dervish, a beautiful god-creature with sparks emanating from his mouth. But his violence is too familiar to be glorious.
I see only the beauty. I want to go embrace Sam and lie with him on our canopied bed of purple and green and gold, but I know it isn’t safe. The other world — the one we hate, the one we call Circle Nine — is breaking through Sam’s protective armor and turning him into someone else.
That is why, even though I feel light and safe right now, I know I must offer. I look at him, and he meets my eyes, and I know he is thinking the same.
What can I do? I ask it quietly.
He pauses. Then, through gritted teeth and streaming eyes: You could go back there. You could go back to Sid’s. Like we did before. His head jerks back and forth as though he’s shaking the words off, a dog in the rain, even as he says them.
A cold feeling grips me, followed by a wave of heated revulsion so strong it makes me blind. I would do almost anything to help Sam. I thought I could do this. But when I think of that night at Sid’s, think of actually going back there, my body turns off completely. It refuses to work. It refuses to obey my mind. As long as I consider going back to Sid’s, my body will stay rooted to this spot. My body and Sid are opposing magnetic forces. Sid repels me.
