Don't Look for Me(43)

Alice grows cold. She slowly drops Hannah to the floor, thinking carefully about what to say to me.

“I know what you’re trying to do,” she says.

I answer as Suzannah. “What?”

But she reaches through the bars and grabs the doll from my hands. She throws her against the wall behind us, then picks her up to make sure she hasn’t been damaged.

I make a note—Mick will not be pleased if she has broken a toy.

“I can’t do any of those things because of my allergies and you’re using the dolls to make me feel bad!”

I don’t let her anger touch me, though it is so hot it radiates from her skin.

“That was not my intention. I was just trying to make Suzannah be a normal girl,” I say. And you are not normal, Alice. Why do you think that is?

She folds her arms and scowls like a two-year-old. Eyes pinched together. Lips pursed tight. It makes me want to laugh the way I would when my own children would do this. The memory comes and goes, but leaves behind a residue. It’s sticky and sweet and I don’t know what to make of it. I don’t know if I like or dislike it. Still, it lingers.

Nicole was my biggest scowler. There was a drama to it that was so extreme it felt like a parody, like a skit on a television show that was supposed to provoke laughter.

Now comes a memory of John. Being with John. Two young parents with an unruly toddler. Just one precious child in our perfect little family. His love for her bounded past his love for me, but I didn’t mind. It made me love him even more, watching him love our child. When she scowled at us over something that displeased her, having to go to bed or not getting more cookies, his laughter was so big he would have to flee the room to stifle it, leaving me to swallow mine while I talked her through it.

These memories come every day now. Memories of my family. My love for them. I don’t know if they come because I am finally being punished for what I have done. Or if they come because I spend my days with Alice, in the mind of a nine-year-old girl.

They leave me with the residue which I cannot identify.

In this moment, I decide that I like it. Its sticky sweetness covers the thoughts of the log in the fireplace and Nicole’s angry words and Evan’s eyes, turning away.

Alice takes the dolls and leaves.

“I’m not bringing you any lunch!” she says.

“Alice,” I call after her. “Please don’t be angry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

My voice is calm. I don’t care about lunch. I may be a prisoner, but I am not an animal. I am not one of John’s dogs waiting in the kitchen for my bowl to be filled. I will not beg. I would sooner starve.

This defiance is another thing that is unfamiliar, but has become a part of me.

Bring it, I think now. Bring on the punishment. The angry little prison guard. The starvation.

I go to my bed and lie down. I begin to think about my next move, the next game I will play and how I will be less obvious. I think that maybe I will watch her shows with her so I can laugh and comment in places that will provoke the same thoughts—recognition that she, too, is a prisoner. And that I am her only way out.

But then she returns. I hear the latch turn on the small panel of the metal grate and the tray scrape the floor as she slides it to my side.

“Here!” she says. “Don’t say I didn’t do you any favors.”

She learned that expression from a TV show and I continue the thoughts of my new plan even as I get up from the bed and walk back to the doorway.

I sit before her.

She has made me a peanut butter sandwich and a glass of milk.

“Thank you, Alice,” I say. “You are very kind.”

“Eat it,” she commands. And I do as I am told. I do not mind this small humiliation.

She watches me eat, the peanut butter sticking to my mouth so I have to drink the milk. She knows I hate milk. I think about going to the bathroom to get a cup of water. To prove a point. I still have some control. Some power. But then I decide to suffer and suffer big. I gag when I drink the milk and I watch her face change. She cannot stop the need to empathize.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I forgot that you don’t like milk.” This is a lie, but it doesn’t matter.

She leaves and returns quickly with a glass of lemonade.

The milk was an intentional act of cruelty. It provoked the intended response—pain and discomfort. That gave her the opportunity to fix it. To make it better. To bring me comfort. And that makes her feel powerful and important. She has few chances to do that, living alone in this house.

She made me suffer so she could get her empathy fix.

Thank you, Alice. Thank you for this piece of information.

She looks at me and smiles. I see tears well in her crystal-blue eyes. Tears of joy that she saved this mongrel with a glass of lemonade.

“Do you want to start your schoolwork now?” I ask her.

She nods. “We’d better or he’ll be angry.”

“Don’t worry—we’ll get it done before he gets home.”

The man comes home at different times, so this promise is a lie. Sometimes he comes home during the day. Sometimes he stays home late in the mornings. And sometimes he’s gone all night. On those nights, he locks Alice inside the room with me with her iPad and food. She seems to like those nights, the nights when we are prisoners together. This is good and this is bad. I need her to like me, but I need her to crave our escape. And I need Mick to want to be with us.