Don't Look for Me(47)

She liked blueberry muffins and we would make them together. I still know the recipe by heart. It never leaves me. Two cups of flour. One cup of sugar …

And John, the memories of John … they reach back and unearth feelings that live more in my body than my mind. His hand on the small of my back. The rush that would follow. I thought they were gone forever.

It doesn’t change what I did. I do not feel it should commute my sentence. To the contrary. I see now that this sentence, being forced to live here with this man and his child, has scratched an itch. The guilt recedes a little every day. The rock I carry gets lighter.

I suffer now to keep Nicole safe. And possibly Evan. This man could know about him. Maybe he covets him as well. In the suffering, I make amends. And the amends bring a kind of healing.

“Alice,” I say with a smile. “I know that face! What are you thinking?”

Alice looks up at the monitor in the corner at the end of the hallway. She positions herself so her back faces it. She lowers her voice as well, for good measure, I imagine.

“I know where the key is,” she says.

Her words reach out and choke me with surprise. But I manage a little smile, the smile of only a tepid curiosity.

“You do?” I ask.

She nods slowly, Coy Face firmly lodged.

“In case I really, really need you,” she says.

I sit back a little and uncross my legs. They have started to tingle.

It’s not easy to sit on the floor all day at my age.

I consider my options now. I could start to cry. Say how hungry I am and how much I need her to help me. But she does not seem to be wanting that. She already saved me once with a glass of lemonade. Her daily fix has been had.

She craves other things, though, as I have come to learn.

Hannah gave it away one day when she was talking to Suzannah.

What do you want to be when you’re older? Suzannah is always asking questions.

I want to see a doctor who can help me go outside without my mask. And then I will go everywhere in the world.

Can I come? Suzannah asked.

No, silly. Only my mommy can come.

Only her mommy. She wants to be out of this house, free of these walls. And she knows Mick won’t be the one to save her.

Only her mommy can save her.

Her first mommy is dead. The one with the real blond hair and the lean body.

She’s stuck with me. And I can only help her if she gives me power over Mick.

“What kind of situation would that be—when you really, really need me?” I ask.

Coy Face recedes, and now comes Sad Face.

“I don’t know,” she says. I can tell that she means this. Confusion makes her sad. Uncertainty makes her sad. She needs to know the rules so she can keep her house in order. So she can keep another mommy from leaving.

I reach through the bars—something I rarely do—and touch her folded knee.

“It’s okay,” I say. “Let’s figure it out together.”

I continue.

“Do you think he just meant if you were hurt or sick?”

She shrugs.

Then comes Happy Face.

“I think if I did something in the kitchen that was dangerous. Like maybe if I burned something.”

I go with this idea.

“Like if you burned something and didn’t know how to stop the smoke? Like if you tried to boil some soup but maybe there was some butter on the coils of the burner? That kind of smoke?”

She thinks about this. “Yes,” she says.

“I’ve done that so many times back home!” I say. “Butter smokes a lot, but it doesn’t catch fire like oil. Still, it’s scary.”

Alice looks at me carefully. Then she turns her back around so she is facing the monitor.

“I can make us soup!” she says. “Since he’s not home and it’s so late. We need to have dinner. I’ve seen him make the soup. I know how!”

She says this loudly. She gets up and walks to the kitchen.

Ten minutes later I hear her feet running down the hall. I return to the edge of the grate and strain to see through the metal bars.

She runs toward me and she can hardly hold back a smile.

“I think I started a fire!” she says. “Cooking the soup!”

I stand now, look alarmed. We both speak loudly.

“Oh no!” I say. “Do you know how to put it out? Did he ever teach you?”

“No! I really, really need you!”

She reaches the grate. Happy Face belies the urgency in her voice.

In her hand is a metal key.

A million things run through me as she puts it into the lock, turns. As I hear the metal click and the bolt release. Thoughts. Emotions. Instincts. There are too many to sort out. I feel dizzy with excitement. The possibilities seem endless, and yet I know there is only one choice that is right. I know there is only one chance.

I step outside my prison cell and run with Alice to the kitchen. The key is still in the grate, the grate that now swings open on its hinges.

In the kitchen, I see the burner coils smoking. I take the pot of soup off the stove. I turn off the heat and go to the sink to get a towel. I wet the towel, then carefully wipe down the burner until the butter comes off, and the heat cools. The smoke stops.

I let my eyes move around the room, looking for one of Dolly’s eyes. I don’t see one, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there.