The Elizas: A Novel(88)

I scuttle away from him. “Leave me alone!”

But Bill is quicker, and he scoops me up under my arms. I kick my legs, trying to get free. “Eliza. Honey. Stop, okay? Please stop. It’s me. I’m not going to hurt you.”

“How do I know that? How do I know anything?”

“I knew this was going to be too much for you. Your mother and I both said. We’re going to get you help, okay? You’re going to be fine.”

He drags me past the craft services table, where about twenty more people who work on the show stare at us in astonishment. “But she’s here,” I say. “I know it. And she’s going to follow me out here. She’s going to follow us.”

“Just . . . come on. Let’s not talk about this here.”

Still holding me, Bill drags me away from the set and down a leafy path. The sun bores down on my head. In the distance, I can hear the audience applauding. It’s strange to think that Dr. Roxanne has gone on as though nothing is amiss. Meanwhile, my life is crumbling before my eyes.

Bill takes me through a pool gate and sits me down on a lounge chair. The pool area is empty. Every table offers a neat stack of towels. A hot tub burbles to the left. It’s tranquil, but the desolation unnerves me. As soon as I sit down, I start to tremble from head to toe. “Why are you here?” I ask Bill. “What are you doing?”

Bill sits next to me. “I was afraid something like this might happen. Gabby told us what she told you about the pool. We had a feeling you might start putting the pieces together.”

“What pieces? What are you talking about?”

“How about you start by telling me who you’re afraid of? And maybe I can explain.”

There’s a lump in my throat. So he does know who she is? Part of me wants to bolt, but his voice is so trusting and gentle. I want to believe he won’t hurt me. “This . . . woman. She looks just like me. I’ve seen her everywhere. I think she wants to hurt me. For real, Bill. Not like the other times. At least I don’t think so.” I peek at him. “You know who she is, don’t you? And you’re not telling me. No one is telling me. Am I right?”

Bill’s hands loosen from my legs. A look I can’t decipher at first floods his face. Regret, maybe. Devastation. He takes a long breath. “You’re right. I do know her. I believe you’re talking about your aunt. But . . . she’s dead.”

I recoil. “What aunt?”

“Your mother’s sister. Her name was Eleanor. Eleanor Reitman. You two look exactly the same.”

I jolt away from him. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s natural you’re terrified of her. She’s been trying to kill you for years—in the hospital, when you were young, and then after. But she’s dead, Eliza. She really is. She was hit by a car when you pushed her over that overpass.”

I rear back. “No. No. That was Dot and Dorothy. From my book. That was in my book.”

“Eliza. Calm down, okay? Calm down. She is Dorothy. And you are Dot. You’re the exact same, just with different names. You disassociated. You created Dot and your book as a way of dealing with what happened to you. Don’t you understand? This is why we were so upset about your book when we finally read it. This is why we don’t want you to publish it. This is why your mother unsuccessfully tackled you in that parking lot. She was hoping . . . well, I guess she hoped you would come with her willingly. And that she could convince you, somehow, to call your editor yourself and pull the book. We hadn’t really planned it all out. We just knew we had to do something.”

I feel like my whole body is tumbling down a deep, deep well, its sides slick and full of spiders, its bottom miles away. “None of this is possible. I can’t have forgotten a whole fucking aunt.”

“But you did. It’s understandable, Eliza. Explainable. Horrible things happened a year and a half ago. Horrible things we should have stopped, had we known. All we could do was try to cover it up after the fact and protect you from further damage—hide what you did from the police, try to find you a treatment. We all understood why you did it, honey—we knew what she was doing to you unfortunately when it was too late. So we sought out a doctor to remove those memories. He had this method that he used on PTSD patients, a mix of drugs and a whole lot of psychotherapy—it was supposed to work. What it did instead was shove the memories into a bottom drawer. They were always there, though. And the emotion was always there, the fear. It broke through in your book. And now it’s breaking through for real in other ways, too.”

There’s suddenly a tinny taste in my mouth. “What happened a year and a half ago?”

“Everything in your book. Aunt Eleanor hurting you in the hospital. Aunt Eleanor coming back into town. That dinner out. Her . . . death.”

I stare at him. “Are you suggesting what I wrote is true?”

He looks pained. “Yes.”

“Even the part where Dot . . . where I . . . ?” I can’t even say it out loud.

Bill’s hands grip mine hard. “It’s why you kept diving into those pools. You felt guilty. Responsible. And unsettled—there was no body for the service. You kept thinking she was still alive, and that terrified you. So like I said, we got you help. You couldn’t go on like that. We had to do something.”