Saving Meghan(96)

“I thought about coming to see you,” Becky said matter-of-factly. “How’s Mom?”

“She’s alive, nothing new there.”

“Tough old lady,” Becky said coldly. “What’s she hanging on for?”

“I don’t know. Maybe she’s waiting to see if her youngest daughter is going to spend twenty years in prison for kidnapping.”

“Does Cora even know what’s going on?” Becky asked.

“Thankfully, no. She’s too out of it to understand much of anything these days. But everybody else in the country knows what you’ve done.”

“They didn’t give me a choice,” Becky said. “They took my daughter. Took her illegally and then took my rights as her parent.”

“As I understand it, they took her quite legally,” Sabrina said, always the logical one. No wonder she had gravitated toward a career in numbers, Becky thought to herself.

“That’s not the point,” Becky said. “The point is, they had no business taking her in the first place. I’m her mother. I know what’s best.”

“They obviously felt otherwise.”

“She needed a second biopsy,” Becky protested. “But Carl paid off the Court Investigator so the judge would rule against me.”

“You have proof of that?” Sabrina asked. “The bribe, I mean.”

“No. If I did, I’d have gone to the police instead of going on the run with my daughter.”

“Point taken,” Sabrina said. “So what now?”

“Did you see the news conference?”

“The one where the doctor told you to bring Meghan back to the hospital because they found something?”

“Yeah, that one,” Becky said. “What do you think?”

“Is that why you called? To get my advice?”

“Yes, and to ask about Mom.”

“You know what I think.”

“That I should meet with Dr. Fisher?”

“That you should turn yourself in,” Sabrina said succinctly. “Throw yourself on the mercy of the court. Tell them you were temporarily insane. Apologize profusely. Do something, but you can’t stay in hiding.”

“Because Meghan might be sick,” Becky said, feeling encouraged by the thought that maybe Dr. Fisher hadn’t betrayed her.

“No!” Sabrina shouted. “Because what you’ve done is wrong. It’s wrong for everyone. You have to undo this, Becky. You have to undo it now!”

“Why? And let them stuff Meghan back in that psych ward? Have them not treat my daughter for her disease?”

“What disease?” Sabrina said, exasperated. “There’s been no diagnosis. None.”

“She has mitochondrial disease,” Becky answered defiantly, “or are you forgetting that? And she might have something else now, something Dr. Fisher found. What I need help with, what I’m asking your advice about, is if I should try to get to California and find a new doctor for Meghan, or if you think I should get her seen by Dr. Fisher right away. But I’m worried it might be a trap.”

“Your mind, Becky, is the trap,” Sabrina said cuttingly.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” There was rising anger in Becky’s voice.

“It means that you grew up with a mother who faked her disability for years, who didn’t give you the attention you craved, that you deserved, except when you were helping support her scam.”

“Same applies to you. What’s your point?”

“My point is that I think something in your life changed, that you became deeply insecure, needy, something, and the only way you knew how to fill that void was to bring sickness back into your life. You’re reliving your childhood through Meghan. She’s not sick, Becky. You are.”

“No, no,” Becky said, her voice sharpened. “You haven’t been here, Sabrina. You haven’t come to see us, not once since Meghan became ill. I’ve been dealing with this for years.”

“I haven’t come, because I can’t stand to see it,” Sabrina said in a shaky voice that sounded on the verge of tears. “It hurts me, it physically hurts, to see what you’ve become. You’ve turned into Mom. Don’t you get it?”

“No, I have not,” said Becky assuredly.

“Our mother was very damaging, and you learned at her feet. For God’s sake, Becky, you learned to make up illnesses to please her. Yes, she did it to feed us, but she did it to feed herself as well. She craved the attention that she got. She needed it. She used it to try to fill some bottomless hole in her. And you’re doing what she did because it’s what you know how to do and it feels right and rewarding. But it’s not right. Not even a little.”

“I am not making up anything. Meghan is sick. She’s been diagnosed. She’s here with me, in this apartment, sleeping twelve, fourteen hours at a time. Does that sound healthy to you?”

“No, it sounds like a girl who’s craving her mother’s attention and getting it by acting sick. She sounds like someone I used to know, a little girl who’d do anything for her mother’s love.”

“That’s not fair.”

“You’re not well. Ever since Sammy—”