Just Listen(15)

My mother did not acknowledge any of this, at least not out loud. Instead, as I let go of Whitney, she stepped forward, smiling, and pulled her close. "Oh, honey," she said. "You've had such a hard time."

As she leaned down over my mother's shoulder, Whitney slowly closed her eyes. The lids seemed almost translucent, and I felt a shudder run through me.

"We're going to get you well," my mother said, "starting right now. Go freshen up, and we'll sit down for dinner."

"Oh, I'm not hungry," Whitney said. "I ate while I was waiting for my plane."

"You did?" My mother looked hurt. She'd been cooking all day. "Well, surely you can at least manage some vegetable soup. I made it specially for you, and it's just what you need to get your immune system up."

"Really, I just want to sleep," Whitney said. "I'm so tired."

My mom glanced at my dad, who was still looking at Whitney, his face serious. "Well, okay, then maybe you should lie down for a while. You can eat when you wake up. Okay?"

But Whitney didn't eat. Not that night, which she slept straight through, not stirring each time my mother came in with a tray. Not the next morning; she was up at the crack of dawn, claiming to have already eaten breakfast when my father, the earliest riser in our house, came downstairs to make his coffee. At lunch, she was asleep again. Finally, at dinner, my mother made her sit down with us.

It started the minute my dad began to serve. Whitney was sitting beside me, and as he started to carve the roast beef, putting pieces on plates, I was distinctly aware of how she was unable to sit still, twitching nervously, pulling at the cuff of her baggy sweatshirt. She crossed and uncrossed her legs, took a sip of her water, then tugged at her cuff again. I could feel the stress coming off of her, palpable, and as my father put a full plate in front of her heaped with meat, potatoes, green beans, and a big hunk of my mother's famous garlic bread, she lost it.

"I'm really not hungry," she said quickly, pushing it away. "I'm not."

"Whitney," my father said. "Eat your food."

"I don't want it," she said angrily, as across the table, my mother looked so hurt I could hardly stand it.

"This is about Kirsten, isn't it? She told you to do this."

"No," my mother said, "this is about you, honey. You need to get well."

"I'm not sick," Whitney said. "I'm fine. I'm just tired, and I'm not going to eat if I'm not hungry. I won't.

You can't make me."

We all just sat there, watching her as she tugged at her cuffs again, her eyes on the table. "Whitney," my father said, "you're too thin. You need—"

"Don't tell me what I need," she said, pushing back her chair and getting up. "You have no idea what I need. If you did, we wouldn't even be having this conversation."

"Honey, we want to help you," my mother said, her voice soft. "We want—"

"Then leave me alone!" She slammed the chair against the table, making all our plates jump, and then stomped out. A second later, I heard the front door open and shut, and then she was gone.

This is what happened next: After doing his best to calm my mother down, my dad got in the car and went out to look for Whitney. My mother took up a position in a chair in the foyer, in case he somehow didn't find her, and I quickly finished my dinner, then I covered all their plates with plastic wrap, put them in the fridge, and did the dishes. I was just finishing up when I saw my dad's car coasting back into the driveway.

When he and Whitney came back in, she wouldn't look at anyone. Instead, she kept her head low, eyes on the floor, as my father explained that she was going to eat some food and then go back to sleep, in the hopes that things would look better tomorrow. There wasn't a discussion of this deal, or how they had come about it. It was already decided.

My mother asked me to go upstairs then, so I didn't get to see Whitney eat her dinner, or hear if there were any more arguments about it. Later, though, when the house was so quiet I knew everyone else was asleep, I went downstairs. There was only one plate left of the three I'd wrapped up, and while it looked like it had been poked at since, it was nowhere near clean.

I got a snack, then went into the TV room, where I watched a rerun of a reality makeover show and some of the local news. When I finally headed back upstairs, it was that weird time of night when the moon was shining really brightly through the glass, lighting everything up. There was always something strange about seeing so much moonlight inside, and as I passed through it, I covered my eyes.

The hallway that led to my room and Whitney's was lit up as well, the only shaded part in the middle, from the chimney. As I stepped into that sudden dark, I smelled the steam.

Or felt it. All I knew was that suddenly, it was like the very air changed, becoming heavier and more moist, and for a second I just stood there, breathing it in. The bathroom was all the way at the other end of the hall, and there was no light beneath the door, but as I moved toward it, the steam got thicker and more pungent, and I could hear the sound of water splashing. It seemed so bizarre. I could understand leaving a faucet running, but the shower? Then again, Whitney had been acting weird ever since she got home, so anything was possible. I finally reached the half-open door, pushing it open.