Pretend She's Here(20)

When I was finished, she examined the stitches on the side of my head. Then she undid the support boot and gently prodded my bruised ankle. She was making sure I was healing. Then she took my plate and empty glass. She didn’t say good-bye or ask if I wanted anything else or whether I was ready to send that email.

But she turned, gazed at me with pure love, and shut the door behind her.

I sat very still on the bed for a long time after she had gone.




Five more days of silence. That seemed to be the pattern: If I did something out of line, they’d stop speaking to me. The food came, the empty tray went, and as the days went by, Mrs. Porter would barely look me in the eye. I started to wonder if I was real. Was this a dream? One night she brought me an orange. I sat on the side of the bed, holding it in my hands. I lifted it to my face, smelled the citrus tang. If the orange was real, then wasn’t I? But the scent faded, and I put the orange back on the tray, and the feeling of unreality came back.

Also on the tray was a small white container holding green contact lenses along with a note: No more blue eyes. Practice putting these in and taking them out, please.

I couldn’t believe it: another way for me to not look like myself. Touching my own eyeball made me blink like crazy and feel like throwing up. The contact lens was squishy. The fact that tears were spilling out didn’t help. I was shaking and stopped after two tries.

I took a shower. The water felt warm on my skin. It trickled down my back; I stared at my wet arms, how they glistened. When I washed my hair, some shampoo got in my blue eyes, and the sharp sting was a reminder that I was still human, I was still alive, not floating between worlds. My fingernails were growing back, my scabbed, raw fingertips starting to heal. That wasn’t all good, because it meant I hadn’t tried to claw my way out lately, that I was somehow getting used to the horror of being held prisoner in a basement, and I turned up the water as high as it would go and screamed.

Then, one morning, Chloe brought my breakfast. She entered the room with the tray, but instead of locking the door behind her, she left it a few inches ajar. I noticed the food was different this morning. Instead of the super-healthy farm-fresh eggs, whole grain toast, and bowl of cut fruit that Mrs. Porter had served every day since I’d gotten here, this tray contained a bowl of Frosted Flakes and a glass of orange-mango juice.

“I’m supposed to eat this?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“You probably poisoned it.”

“I didn’t,” Chloe said. “And I thought you’d like something sweet instead of the usual organic whatever. Besides. It was Lizzie’s favorite cereal. When Mom wasn’t looking.”

“I thought I was Lizzie.”

Chloe gave me the fishiest look ever. She raised her eyebrow. “You’re Emily,” she said.

I felt this huge swoon of emotion—a combination of relief and despair that rushed through my skin and bones. “If you know that, how can you keep me here? Why are you helping them?” I asked.

“You don’t know what it’s been like,” Chloe said. “Since she died.”

“I do,” I said. “I lost her, too.”

“It’s not the same. She was my sister, your friend. But she was my mom’s favorite daughter. Yeah, I know Mom loves me, blah blah blah, but, Lizzie … oh my God. Without her, my mother might die herself.”

“But she won’t. Not literally.”

“She’s draining away, Emily. My dad sees it, too.”

“Your mother was … like my second mom. I cared about her, I always did,” I said. “I still do, in a way. Because she has to be sick to be doing this. Really sick. She needs help, and you should get it for her.”

“You’re her help,” Chloe said.

“If you think that, you’re as insane as she is! Lizzie wouldn’t want you to be doing this. I can practically hear Lizzie begging you to stop, to let me go.”

“See?” Chloe asked. “That’s why they want you here. Because you loved Lizzie so much, you can still get right into her head. They are making you part of Lizzie World. Actually you are pretty much the whole thing.”

My skin crawled. Did she mean that ironically? Or was her family literally creating something called Lizzie World? It sounded like a theme park, but the opposite of the Magic Mountain of Mom. There was nothing exhilarating here, only a dull and creepy basement dollhouse filled with furniture, objects, and clothes from Lizzie’s past. My eyes were on the half-open door.

“But I have a life,” I said. “With my own family.”

“You can say that all you want,” Chloe said. “But that’s over.” She paused, as if she knew that sounded harsh. “You feel it, right? You know they’re serious?”

“But I’m serious, too,” I said. “I’m a Lonergan. I’m stubborn.”

Chloe shook her head sadly. “That’s the problem, and why you’re still in the cellar. They won’t let you out until they’re sure you’ve let go of that dream, of ever going back. Don’t you get it?”

“What?” I asked, but I wasn’t really listening for the answer. I was just making conversation. In a minute I’d distract her and bolt.

She ruffled her hair, and I saw: Her roots had started growing out. There was a half inch of reddish brown showing along her part and forehead.