The Elizas: A Novel(85)

“Clearly you’ve been listening to your mother. This is exactly the kind of thing she would say. I nursed you back to health, dear. It’s not my fault you can’t hold your liquor.”

“So why not take me to a fucking hospital? Why hide me in your room and bring in creepy Doctor Singh whenever I need an IV?”

“Doctor Singh is an old friend, and—”

“Stop talking!” Dot roared. “Just stop, okay? I know what’s going on. I’ve tried to put this puzzle together a million different ways, hoping that this isn’t the answer, but it’s what I keep coming up with every time.” She felt tears come to her eyes. “How long have you been hurting me? Did you come back just to hurt me some more? Did you hurt Thomas, too? Did you give him something to make him crazy? Were you the one who shot him?”

Dorothy stepped away from her, her footsteps clumsy and heavy. She had a pinched, cruel smile. “So many questions.”

Dot’s blood turned cold. Just like that, she knew she was right. “How could you shoot your own child?”

Dorothy rolled her eyes, then turned on her heel and ran across the alley. Her fur trailed behind her like a tail.

“Hey!” Dot cried, running after her.

Dorothy crossed the avenue. On the other side was a little bridge that overlooked the busy freeway below. Under the streetlight, her skin looked gray, and there was a sheen of sweat on her forehead. Dot had never seen her aunt sweat before. Dorothy was also clutching her throat as though she was choking. Her eyes were bulging out, too. Dot was pretty sure she was doing it for show. She’d never felt that way all the times she’d been drugged.

“You were going to kill me, too?” Dot cried. “You gave me something to bring on those seizures. Something to make my condition worse. Something that would get you on the cover of Los Angeles as the saint who saved her niece’s life.”

“I can’t believe you’d say such a thing,” Dorothy sputtered. Her vocal cords sounded pinched. “I would never do that. If it looked like that, it was set up that way.”

“By whom?”

“The doctors. Those nurses. And your mother. Oh God, most definitely your mother. They all had it in for me. They had it in for me from the beginning.”

“No, they didn’t.”

Dorothy staggered to the overpass barrier. She curled her fingers over the ledge, peering into the traffic. “They hated me. All of them hated me. Wouldn’t let me in. No one would let me in. But I had one over on them. They were all so stupid.” Saliva spewed from her mouth. Her head lolled on her neck. Maybe this was the real, true Dorothy, Dot thought with a pang. Maybe the woman she’d seen and known had been an elaborate act. A look-alike.

“It’s why we’ve had to be incognito,” Dot persisted. “You’re not supposed to be here. You’re not supposed to be out with me. You could get arrested.”

“Yes, because of your moth-er.” Dorothy rolled her eyes. “Have I told you that she was a pill even as a child?” She broke off and clutched her throat, making a gagging sound. Her mouth opened wide. Dot watched as she tried to draw in a breath. The color began to drain from her face. Dot wasn’t sure how Dorothy could fake that.

“Dorothy?” Dot asked tentatively, taking a small step toward her. Now her aunt was gasping. Her eyes rolled back toward her skull. She staggered backward toward the overpass railing. Her legs started to crumple as though her bones had been removed. She grappled for her throat. She was just supposed to pass out, Dot thought. Like Dot always did. This poison wasn’t supposed to make her lose function. It wasn’t supposed to kill her.

Dorothy slumped against the guardrail and gagged. This time, bile came up—Dot could smell it. Her aunt spit a long string of stomach juices and saliva all the way down to the moving traffic. Horrible sounds emerged from her lips. She burped raucously, then gagged again, then threw up some more. Even in the dim light, Dot was pretty sure it was blood.

“Dorothy,” Dot whispered, trying to pull her up by her waist. Her aunt wouldn’t budge. Out of options, Dot reached into her pocket and found her phone to call 911. She didn’t look forward to the aftermath of this—her mother finding out again, the doctors testing Dorothy’s blood, a police investigation, a finger pointed at Dot, and then, of course, Dorothy herself going to jail. Maybe both of them going to jail. But she couldn’t let her aunt die out here.

Her fingers trembled as she pressed the buttons on her phone’s screen. Light illuminated against her face, and she pressed the 9. Then, the overhead light burned out. Dot looked up, staring at the streetlight, willing it to flicker back on.

“Dorothy?” she called nervously. She could barely see a few feet in front of her. She heard footsteps, someone breathing.

A hand shot forward and grabbed her wrist, knocking Dot’s phone away. Dot felt her hipbone smash against the guardrail. She could smell her aunt’s perfume and bile breath, so close. With surprising strength, Dorothy pushed Dot against the metal barrier and held her there.

“If I’m dying, then you are, too,” Dorothy growled. It didn’t even sound like her voice, and it barely looked like her face. Someone else had taken over her body. Someone possessed.

Dot felt her hips tip over the edge of the guardrail. Her head twisted, and she stared woozily at the traffic below. The cars swept by so obliviously. If they happened to look up, all they’d see was blackness.