The Elizas: A Novel(81)

“To being strong,” Dot answered, touching her glass to her aunt’s. She tried her hardest to take a hearty sip of the minty-smelling liquid, but Dot had always thought stingers tasted like the gum one chewed to cover up the bite of bile.

“Your mother is prejudiced about my time at Bridgewater,” Dorothy went on. “And then, when I left you, she thought it was just a further example of something wrong with me. She said to me, You’re breaking her heart if you leave. And then, a few years later, If you come back, you’ll just confuse her. You’re a bad influence.”

“Wait,” Dot interrupted. “You spoke to her while you were away?”

Dorothy blinked. “Just to see how you were doing. To make sure you were doing okay. She owed me that.”

“And you didn’t want to talk to me?”

Dorothy set her drink back down and placed her hands flat on the table. Her rings glittered. “Darling, your mother wouldn’t let me.”

“Why not?”

“Because . . . well, it’s complicated.”

Dot jiggled her legs under the table. Restraining order, restraining over. The document was real, all right. But were the reasons it was drafted real? How could she even think such horrible things? Dot’s throat caught as she swallowed.

When Dot looked back up, her aunt’s smile was composed and endearing. “You look so overwrought. You might want to go to the bathroom and freshen up.”

“I’m fine,” Dot insisted. She wasn’t sure her legs would hold her if she stood.

“Take my word for it,” Dorothy said firmly. “You need a little break. Go compose yourself, and then come back and let’s have a nice dinner, like we always do.”

Like we always do. Dot opened and closed her fist. Maybe this was an opening. An opportunity—for both of them. She shut her eyes, knowing what sort of courage she needed to summon. It was now or never. Slowly, surreptitiously, she lined up her cocktail glass so that it was even with the M initial on the M&F dinner plate. Then she stood, trying not to give anything away in her expression. Her heart was pounding so hard.

“Okay, I’ll be back,” she said, gathering strength.

The bathroom was a long hallway of black-and-white tile and old-fashioned bronze sinks. Dot grabbed a mint from a bowl on the counter and banged into a stall, slumping on the seat, sucking on the mint until it became a flat, sharp disc. She thought about Dorothy out there, alone with both of their drinks. What was she doing? Nothing . . . or something? In a twisted way, did Dot want her to be doing something? After all, a normal aunt wouldn’t suit Dot any more than a plain cotton T-shirt from the Gap. Was she fulfilling her own fantasy? But that was silly, too—she was fulfilling no fantasy, because Dorothy wasn’t going to follow through with it. She loved Dot. They were soul mates.

A stall door banged, a toilet flushed, and then Dot’s mind tipped again. Thomas fluttered into her thoughts. Yes, it was after Thomas died, Dorothy had just said about the Bridgewater Hospital. I just felt so empty. So alone.

But did Thomas have to die?

All of a sudden, Dot pictured the little boy from the photo she’d seen playing baseball with his friends, pretending to make a toy airplane fly by hurling it across the lawn. Then she remembered what Dorothy had said once about how she was sure there was something wrong with Thomas’s brain, but the doctors wouldn’t listen. She pictured him in a hospital bed, slowly wasting away, slowly growing more and more bipolar. “Doctors are all morons,” Dorothy always said. “Morons and crooks. I knew he was going to do something like take his own life if we didn’t get answers. And then, look—he did.”

She almost choked on the mint in her mouth. The similarities were so clear. Dot couldn’t believe she’d never seen it before. All this time, she’d felt sorry for Dorothy for having lost Thomas. Maybe it was Thomas she should have felt sorry for instead.

She rolled back her shoulders and emerged from the stall reenergized. Her pupils were very small in the bathroom mirror. Her chest heaved up and down. She used her shoulder to shove the door open and walked into the back hallway. It was empty, but all of a sudden, she thought she heard the tiniest wisp of a breath behind a defunct phone booth. She stood on her tiptoes. The shadows were opaque. Nothing moved.

“Hello?” she called out.

The only sound was the low hum of voices in the dining room. The hair stood on the back of Dot’s neck, but she couldn’t make out anyone hiding in the depths of the hall. Swallowing hard, she whirled back around toward her table.

Dorothy had her hands folded in her lap, but even from far away, Dot could tell her glass was no longer lined up with the M on the plate. A voice inside her head begged that it could be nothing—maybe Bernie had moved it. But she was starting to ignore that voice more and more.

“Well, you look much better,” Dorothy purred as Dot sat. “I always say taking just a moment to freshen up in the restroom does wonders.”

Dot nodded and eyed her drink. It didn’t look tampered with as far as she could tell, but what was she expecting? Metamucil-like granules floating on top? A color change?

“I ordered for you,” Dorothy breezed on. “The burger, mushrooms, no bacon. Medium-rare. Is that okay? Did you want a salad? I got you fries.”

“No, fries sound great. Hey, doesn’t that guy look exactly like Salman Rushdie?”