17 & Gone(63)

might

still

be

out

there

somewhere. It’s possible. I can’t give up hope on that.

She’s hesitating, so I really do begin to think it’s about to happen, the truth, the end of the story, the end. And will I be allowed to be sad about my friend while in here, will they let me have that emotion? Will they even let me call her my friend?

But my mom shakes her head. “No news,” is all she says.

“Do you want to call them and ask, maybe? For me?”

I think she might agree to it. Then she veers around and completely changes the subject. “So I called Jamie. I thought he should know.”

“About Abby?” I ask, confused.

“About you,” she says. “I called and told him you were here.”

My real mom would have called Jamie. That’s something she actually would do. This is her, isn’t it? This is my mother, and this crazy girl is me.

“He picked up your van from that party for you. He said he found your keys.”

“Please tell him thanks for me,” I say.

“He might visit. I hope that’s okay.”

I don’t want Jamie to see me like this; it’s bad enough he knows, and I don’t know how much my mom told him, so I can’t be sure how much he knows. It could be all; it could be every awful thing. He’s probably so relieved right now that we broke up; he’s probably eternally grateful to be able to stay out of this. Away from me.

— — —

Soon it’s time for good-byes. There’s the hug, never-ending so I feel like I can’t

breathe,

and

there’s

the

remembered scent of my mother’s hair, which brings me back to childhood, and I’m thinking randomly about the wasp sting and the frozen peas, and I feel worse again for doubting her. I don’t know what’s happened to me. To my head.

I let her go without standing up, as my legs weigh twice as much as they did just minutes before and my left arm feels too weak to lift. Only my right arm can be made to move, and I wave that at her until she disappears down the hall.

It isn’t until she’s gone that I think to raise my right hand to my throat. I feel the exposed skin at my collarbone, tracing my fingers around the base of my neck like I’m aiming a guillotine. I let my hand go lower, feeling for it. The pendant isn’t there.

I don’t remember seeing it here, in the hospital. I don’t remember feeling it, against my skin, all those days I spent in bed. Was it on me when they brought me in? It should have been around my neck, but what if something happened when they carried me out on the stretcher?

What if it fell off? What if it got caught on something and it broke? I have to go after my mom and get her to look for it at home.

I stand up.

I try to remember which direction my mom went down the hall.

It takes me a moment and then I see the exit—of course, that’s the only direction she could have gone; that’s the one exit. There isn’t another one on this whole ward.

I walk toward it, but the walking is a difficult thing to manage. I feel sure I’m being faster than I am, except the tiles under my feet are changing too slowly and the window in the wall is the same window that was there before.

It takes me a long time to make it even a quarter of the way down, and it’s here that I come upon the sounds of them talking. There’s an open, unguarded door and two voices thrown out into the hallway. The first voice, the one I recognize, belongs to my mom, and the other voice, the voice that sounds only barely familiar, must be one of the doctors. They’re talking about something that confounds me at first: They’re talking about my dad. The last time I saw the guy, I was three years old, which for all intents and purposes means I have no memory of ever seeing him at all. And yet here’s my mom telling some random doctor all about him.

“And he wouldn’t come to the phone,”

she says. “And I’ve called around, but I haven’t been able to find where he’s staying since. I mean, I have no idea. He could be out on the streets again. He could be sleeping under a bridge. He probably is. I don’t know. It’s not like anyone would tell me.”

“So was there ever any diagnosis?

Did he tell you?”

“He didn’t.” She sighs and stays silent for a long while.

I’m hovering just outside the door and I wonder if she can sense I’m here. Then she starts talking again, starts saying these things she never bothered to tell me. Her own daughter. About my own dad.

“He never said anything to me about it. But there was the medication he was taking when I knew him. He left an old prescription bottle in the house when he took off, and I found it after. I remember seeing the label. Thinking, What are these for? So I looked them up.

Antipsychotics. I mean, schizophrenia, could that have been it? How could he not tell me? I know it can be hereditary.

Doctor, with Lauren, I mean she’s too young yet, but do you think—”

I lose track of the rest of it when an orderly takes my elbow and says, “Are you confused? Do you need to go sit down?”

The orderly spoke loudly enough to bring my mom to the door, and the doctor, and there’s a nurse, and there’s a shuffling patient coming this way, and some other hospital person in hospital clothes, and they all see me and they all know I heard.