Pretend She's Here(71)

“How are you today?” she asked.

“Fine,” I said.

“Really?” she asked.

“Kind of,” I said.

“I’m Dr. Daniela,” she said. “I’m a psychiatry resident. Do you mind if I ask you about how you feel? Maybe you can tell me what happened?”

I watched her pull a stethoscope out of her pocket. With one hand, she warmed the round metal piece they put on your chest. But she didn’t press it against my heart. She just stood there holding it.

“Start from when the Porters took you,” she said. “What was it like?”

“Well,” I said, feeling uncomfortable. “I didn’t expect it.”

“I can imagine! Tell me more.” She moved closer. I looked into her eyes and had the weirdest feeling: She looked hungry but very excited, as if she had just come upon some delicious food, as if I were her meal.

“Where’s Dr. Dean?” I asked.

“Oh, she’s busy with other patients,” she said. “Now, what part did Chloe play? Is it true she lured you into the van? Did they drug you?”

I’d had therapists after Lizzie died. I’d seen a psychiatrist. They always asked you about how you felt—not about what actually happened. Also, why was she holding a stethoscope? Why was I getting such a creepy feeling?

“Um, is my mother outside?” I asked.

“She’s getting coffee,” she said. “Now, about Chloe. I’m hearing that she was every bit as guilty as her parents, and …”

The door opened. My brother Tommy walked in. He stood between me and the woman, glowering at her. “I’m studying journalism and I appreciate that you need to get the story,” he said. “But you can’t bother my sister.”

“The story?” I asked.

“This is Daniela Starkey,” Tommy told me. “She’s a reporter for a local station. She’s been trying to interview the family, just wanting to do her job, but she can’t do it here. Do you understand, Ms. Starkey? Don’t bother my sister again.”

“I’m sorry,” the woman said. “I truly am. But if you want to talk, Emily, when you’re ready, I’m here.”

“Got it,” Tommy said, his voice hard, leading her to the door. “But I swear you’ll be sorry if you come back.”

“You’re threatening me?” she asked, holding her tape recorder toward him.

“I’m telling you we’ll call your editor. We’ll get you fired for harassing a very badly injured girl.”

She clicked off the recorder and scuttled away.

Tommy returned to me, sat on the edge of my bed. “What a sleaze, trying to trick you. She must have missed the part about respect in journalism school.”

“What does she want with me?” I asked.

“Em, you’re the biggest story in the country right now. Every single TV station and newspaper wants your story. Have you looked outside?”

He put his arm around me, helped me out of bed. My chest was bandaged. My breath was shallow, because it hurt every time air went in or out. Just a few steps to the window felt like a mile on the track, but Tommy held me up.

Lining the street and filling the hospital parking lot were more trucks than I could count. They all had logos painted on the side—TV stations from NBC to the BBC—and satellite dishes on the roofs. People were standing outside the vehicles, bundled up against the Maine winter cold, staring up at my window. As soon as I leaned my forehead against the glass, a bunch of flashbulbs went off. Tommy eased me away, closed the curtain.

“I bet Daniela’s stethoscope was a microphone,” Tommy said. “She was trying to get the dirt on Chloe and the Porters. You can talk whenever you want, but we’ll help you. The whole family’s behind you, Em. These reporters are sharks, and …”

“I’m shark food,” I said. “I get it.”

I certainly felt like it.

*

I had seven surgeries within the first three weeks. The knife had nicked my left lung, barely missed my heart. My ribs were cracked. The wounds and incisions contributed to a lot of pain, way too much anesthesia, and, yes, opioids. I wasn’t quite allergic to the drugs, but they made me really sick. I was always throwing up. Casey could visit me lots more now that I wasn’t in intensive care, and it was great, but what wasn’t great was having the dry heaves with him sitting there.

“It’s okay,” he said, grabbing for the little curved plastic pail on my tray table.

“Not in front of you,” I said.

“Em,” he said just as I let go and spewed into the pail.

“That didn’t happen,” I said.

“Already forgotten,” he said.

Tears began leaking from my eyes. He wiped them with his thumb. The worst part about trying not to be emotional was that I always wound up emotional. He was kind of the best. No, he was the total best.

*

It turned out the reason I wasn’t getting better faster was that I had “confusion”—that was an actual medical term. It meant I had tachycardia—a too-fast heartbeat, over one hundred beats a minute—and dropping blood pressure. Dr. Dean did another sternotomy—she cut straight through my sternum—to find that Mrs. Porter’s knife had actually touched the left ventricle of my heart. Only the very point of the blade had penetrated, an almost microscopic incision, but that was enough to cause internal bleeding. My blood oxygen level had dropped, so they had me on oxygen again.