Amy Chelsea Stacie Dee (14 page)

“She could have gone to Stanford,” Vinnie says. “She was smart.”

“She didn't even like to read,” Lee says. “She couldn't stand sitting alone and being quiet.”

“She would have been in every club,” says Vinnie. “Wasn't she in a play over the summer? Maybe she would have been a star.”

“She would have tried,” Lee says. “Even if they didn't give her the part she wanted, she would have kept going back. She never gave up. Never let all the shitty things about life get her down.” Lee folds a Red Vine and chomps through it. There were days, even weeks, even months, when I'd forget that Dee used to be like that. The kind of person who kept trying, who cried easily but then smiled. The person who would love a doll named Poopa and a little girl learning to say
brilliant
. She was buried inside Stacie, but she didn't disappear forever. Maybe not until Barbie was born, maybe not even ever. If it had been her who came home, she might have recovered. Even after everything, she still could have had a chance.

“She deserved to go to college,” I say. It's just one of a million things she deserved, one of a million things that Kyle took.

Vinnie holds up two Red Vines. “To Dee Springfield, superstar,” he says.

“To Dee.” Lee lifts her candy.

“To Dee,” I say. Across the parking lot, a car turns in. It drives slowly toward us and pulls into the nearest parking spot.
A man gets out and heads for the Publik Mart while the woman sits in the passenger seat, checking her phone. Ordinary people are living their lives. All around town, people are sleeping through a regular, mild summer night. Tomorrow morning, they'll wake up and go about their days. In the morning, Aunt Hannah will wake up, too. Lee will tell her that I admitted that Dee is dead, and there will be more questions. I know I can't keep my secrets forever.

I watch the woman get out of the car as the man returns. He hands her a pop, and she twists the top off. I haven't had a pop in six years, and now I may never have one. Now I know that the life with candy and pop and family and friends isn't something I can ever have.

My knuckles are bleeding, and the door is closed. Kyle won't let me back in. Not tonight, maybe never. It's not until I reach the edge of the tree line, until I pass the place that was the end of our world, that I realize I'm free. Kyle has let me walk away. And I was from a town called Grey Wood.

I didn't know where else to go. But I should never have come back here.

•   •   •

Once Kyle found out Stacie was pregnant with Lola, he began bringing home dresses. They were pink and frilly and looked like they cost money. Stacie wore the dresses, but she wore her sweatpants under them. Stacie hadn't been eating very much, but now Kyle made her sit at the table until she ate every single thing on her plate.

“Come on, Stacie,” he said to her. He picked up her fork
and stabbed a piece of chicken with it. “Don't you want our little angel to be strong?” He said it with a soft voice and a weird cadence, like he was already talking to a baby.

She ate mechanically, whatever he put in front of her, and she barely ever said a word.

Kyle began taking us both out for walks, because fresh air was supposed to be good for the baby. He held Stacie's hand like she was his precious little girl who might get hit by a car while crossing the street, even though there were no streets because we were in the middle of nowhere. He held my hand tight because he was afraid I'd run away. He held my hand so tightly that he was cutting off the circulation.

But I had been inside that cabin for months, and I was so happy to be outside that I was about ready to laugh and also about ready to cry from joy. I didn't care that Kyle was holding my hand, because we were getting close to the river, and it wasn't that different from the river back in Grey Wood. I pulled them forward, trying to race for the riverbank. Kyle followed me, gripping my hand, and Stacie shuffled, almost letting herself be dragged.

We started going out every day, and I felt like a weight that was on my chest had lifted, and I could finally breathe. Kyle bought a couple used picture books, and he started reading them to Stacie's stomach. He ordered me to get firewood and cook dinner and clean the whole cabin, but as long as I did it, there was less chance he'd hit me.

He talked to the baby like he already knew it was a girl.

“Heeeey, little sweetie pie,” he said to Stacie's stomach.

Sometimes I saw tears leaking out of Stacie's eyes when Kyle talked like that, but he didn't seem to notice. I was just so glad I wasn't locked up inside anymore.

•   •   •

When Stacie was maybe eight months along, Kyle had gone out into town, and so, as usual, we were locked inside the cabin. This was a few months after Stacie had the breakdown where she drank soap. She said she wasn't going to try it again, but I didn't trust her. Whenever Kyle left, I was terrified she would do something I couldn't stop. Now she was lying on the little bed, facing away from me, crying.

I climbed onto the bed, sat next to her feet, and pulled my legs into my chest. “It's not going to be that bad,” I said.

She kept sobbing.

“Mom had two babies, and she's fine.” I had only the vaguest idea of what having a baby was like. I had only seen it on TV, where there was a lady in a hospital bed, and she screamed for a while, but then everyone was standing around looking at her while she held the baby, and she looked happy. I also once saw a show where a lady had a baby in the backseat of a Jeep, but that didn't look so bad either.

“I hope I die,” she said.

“You won't die,” I said.

“People die,” she said. “Sometimes the baby won't come out, so they have to cut it out, but he'll never take me to a hospital, so I'll just die.”

“No,” I said. I threw myself on top of her. “No, no, no. I'm not going to let that happen.”

“I wish it would,” she said.

I hugged her tighter.

“Get off, you're squashing me,” she said. There was a hint of lightness in her voice when she said it.

“See, if you don't want to be squashed, then you don't want to die,” I said, and I sat up again.

“Okay,” she said. She kicked me with one foot. And I knew that even though she was really sad, she didn't want to die yet.

But now that she had made me think about it, I couldn't stop. I thought of a thousand more ways that she could die, like if she started bleeding, or if she got sick, or if the cabin caught on fire. Even when I was outside by the river, it started creeping into my brain. What if she died? Then I would be left all alone with Kyle.

I HEAR MY MOM
on the phone with Aunt Hannah. My mom keeps saying that I haven't said anything, but Aunt Hannah is screaming. I can't hear the words, but I can hear the noise from where I sit in the living room. Jay sits next to me with his arms crossed. He is still, but tears leak from the edges of his eyes. I want to tell him again that I'm sorry, or reach over and hug him, but the chasm is still between us. Nothing I do or say will help.

My dad is in the kitchen with my mom. He has his hand on her shoulder as she talks.

My mom turns around and looks at me, and I know that there's no point in denying it, now that Lee knows. Lee has told her that I admitted it, but Aunt Hannah won't believe it until she hears it from me.

“Tell her that Dee is dead,” I say.

Jay puts both hands over his eyes and takes a deep, halting breath.

My mom can't tell her. She hands the phone to my dad.

“Hannah,” my dad says. “I'm so sorry.”

Aunt Hannah is still screaming.

“She wanted everyone to have some hope,” he says. “But she realized that it wasn't fair to you. It was hard for her to tell us, but she did.”

Aunt Hannah is asking how. She is asking when.

“It's hard for her to talk about,” my dad says. “She's been through something none of us can imagine.” He pauses. “We'll find out before too long, Hannah. We'll find this guy. I promise.”

This is what I was afraid of. Now they'll expect me to tell them where he is so they can arrest him. But he's not going to let himself be arrested. Now that they know about Dee, the rest of it will come out. And I can never let that happen.

•   •   •

About a year after Kyle took us, I washed tiny, newborn Lola in the sink. She was kind of ugly, kind of shriveled. But she had her mother's blue eyes, and she was waving her arms and legs, and she was warm and alive. She didn't know that this was a sad place. She didn't know that her mother was kidnapped and raped and sad or that her father was a monster. She didn't know about the town of Grey Wood and the river there and all the people who had stopped looking for us.

“Hey,” I whispered. “Hey.” I held her in both hands, wet and dripping. I was afraid that if I did anything else, I would drop her.

Kyle laid out a towel on the counter.

“Here you go,” he said. He took the baby from me and set her down, and then he dried her off with the towel. He patted her gently and leaned his face in close to hers. “Aren't you just the most beautiful little princess,” he said. “Your name is Lola, yes it is.” He picked her up, wrapped in the towel, and he took her over to Stacie, who was curled up in a ball. “Here is your beautiful daughter,” he said to her. He set the baby down in the circle between her head and her knees.

Stacie reached out a hand and touched Lola's, but she didn't say anything.

Kyle got down on his knees and touched the baby's other hand. “Lo-la. Lo-la.”

Stacie rolled over so that she was facing away. The baby waved her arms and let out a loud wail.

I went over to the bed. “Stacie?” I asked.

But she didn't answer.

“Mommy is tired from having you, yes she is,” said Kyle. He poked the baby in the stomach.

I cooked food, and Kyle made Stacie eat it. He cooed at her like she was a baby, too.

At first, we put Lola's crib next to my cot. Pretty soon I started to talk to her. I didn't talk in baby talk; I talked in whispers. Even though she didn't understand yet, I started telling her stories. I told her about a river where there was no one around, and there were fish and birds and snails and crawdads. I explained how to bait a hook with a worm and where the best place on the river is to fish. I remembered the plots of some of the books I used to read, and I told her what I could
remember. I didn't tell her about anything real. I decided that she didn't need to know about that other world, the world before. If she didn't know about it, then she wouldn't miss it. She would never be sad the way Stacie was.

•   •   •

Kyle only waited about a month.

He told Stacie he loved her.

I took Lola into the bathroom and sang to her. I sang all the church songs I could remember, and I sang the songs from the boy bands and everything else I could remember from the radio. I sang, and she giggled, and pretty soon she was making noises like she was singing, too, and we were alone in the world, and nothing that's true was really true.

•   •   •

“Would you like to talk about your breakthrough?” Dr. Kayla asks during our session Monday.

“I didn't mean to tell anyone,” I say. I'm holding the Stacie doll and also the book that has the girl with no head on the cover. I haven't started reading it yet, but I've gotten through half the graphic novels.

The police have stopped poking around as much now that they know they aren't going to find Dee. But I know they've traced my bus ticket. They've figured out where I got on the bus, and so they're out there looking for him. But they've been out there looking for three weeks, ever since I've been back. They've probably looked everywhere by now and not found him. They don't know who they're looking for. All they know
is that he's tall and white. There are thousands of men in Oregon who look like that.

“How did you feel when she died?” Dr. Kayla asks.

“She was my best friend,” I say.
I am sitting by the river. Two-year-old Lola is with me, and Barbie is about to be born. Lola understands that something big is about to happen. She knows that Mommy has a big belly and that there's going to be another kid, but I don't know if she really understands what that will mean. I hold on to her because if I don't, she will just run down to the water. She will go anywhere there is a path and pick up anything not nailed down.

“Chel!” she says. She picks up a rock and taps it on the ground.

“Rock,” I say.

“Rock!” she says. She tries to wriggle out of my hands, but I won't let her. I am not going to let her go.

“If you tell me how you feel, then I can help you work on how to deal with your feelings,” says Dr. Kayla.

“I think maybe she wanted to,” I say.

“You think maybe Dee wanted to die?” Dr. Kayla asks.

“She was sad because he raped her,” I say. I can feel my breath going in and out. And I hear something like a river. I can't really see Dr. Kayla's face.

“How did that make you feel?” Dr. Kayla asks.

“I was glad it wasn't me,” I say.

“That is a normal way to feel,” says Dr. Kayla. “It's okay to want to be safe. Every person on this earth wants to avoid being hurt.”

“But she was my best friend,” I say.

“You deserved to be safe,” Dr. Kayla says. “You didn't hurt her; he did.”

“But I could have shared it,” I say. “I could have taken it half the time, and then maybe she wouldn't have been so sad.”

“Take a minute to think about it this way,” Dr. Kayla says. “If Dee was really sick, and she was in the hospital, you would be sad for her, wouldn't you?”

“Yes,” I say.

“But then if you got sick, that wouldn't cure her, would it?”

“I don't know,” I say.

“Yes, you do,” says Dr. Kayla. “You know that when you get the flu and you give it to someone else, you don't magically get better. Now you're both sick. What the man did to Dee is just like that. If he also did it to you, it would not have made her better.”

“If he was doing it to me, he wouldn't be doing it to her,” I say. “He can't do it to both of us at the same time.”

“Do you think that would have made Dee happy?” Dr. Kayla asks.

“Maybe,” I say. “Maybe for a few minutes.”

Dr. Kayla purses her lips and gives a little half smile with sad eyes. She's trying to tell me that it's not my fault. She's trying to tell me to blame Kyle. And I do blame him. He is a monster. I hate him with every single piece of my heart. I could have killed him in his sleep. We had a knife in the kitchen, and I could have done it with that. I would lie awake and think about it, but then I would think about Lola and Barbie, and I would imagine what would happen if Kyle woke up and killed
me instead. And then they would only have Kyle and Stacie for parents, and neither one of them could handle that. If I tried to kill Kyle, it might be like killing them.

And now they're alone with him.

But they aren't dead. Not yet.

But I don't really know that. I won't know if they're still alive and if they're safe until I see them again. The cops will think they can protect them, but they didn't see the way Kyle's big hand curled around Lola's tiny neck. They haven't felt the hardness of Kyle' hand, the swiftness of Kyle's kick. The only way to protect them is to make sure that no one finds them. I have to go back and convince Kyle to take us all away to somewhere far from that bus stop, somewhere no one will ever find us.

•   •   •

I let a few more days go by. If I stay in my room, I think, I can have these days. I can hold out for a little while without talking to anyone, without any chance of giving any more information away. I read all the rest of the graphic novels, and then I read the book with the picture of the girl with no head. The book is about a regular girl who lives in a small town that is not that different from ours, and she falls in love with two boys, and her father has a drinking problem. In the end she picks the right boy and goes away to college with him, and she also gets her dad into rehab. I don't quite understand the part about the boys. I don't see why they were so attractive, and at the part where they have sex for the first time, I skim. I don't understand why she wants to do that.

Nobody pressures me for more information. I hear my
dad on the phone with the police. They talk quietly, but I can tell that they haven't found him. I want to know how close they are, but I don't want to ask. Anything I say might give them away.

I also hear my dad talking to his wife, Beth, and Liam and Beatrice. My dad says that he misses them, but he doesn't know yet when he'll be back. There's a smile in his voice when he talks to them, and it reminds me of how he used to be. He's really trying to have a do-over, and I want him to have it. He deserves a family that won't fall apart.

It's probably good that I'll never meet Liam and Beatrice. It hasn't been good for Jay to be my brother.

As I think this, Jay knocks on my bedroom door. I can tell it's him because it's kind of loud and kind of restless. His fist goes
tap-tap tap-tap
.

“Come in,” I say.

He steps into the room and looks around.

“Hey,” I say.

“Hey.” He sits down on the floor, because there's nowhere else to sit except the twin bed, and that's where I am. I'm sitting with the book next to me, closed. While I was thinking about my dad and his family, I was also thinking about the girl in the book. She had sex, but she didn't get pregnant. She didn't get sad, and she went away with the boy on purpose.

“Hey,” I say again.

“Lee called,” he says. He fidgets with his hands and doesn't look up at me. He's so tall now that he kind of slouches while he sits. His bony shoulders poke through his T-shirt. The
brown hair on the top of his head sticks up. It's the same color as my hair.

“Oh,” I say.

“She wanted me to tell you that she's sorry she pressured you. I guess she didn't want to face you, if you were mad.”

“I'm not mad,” I say. “She's right. Dee was her sister. She deserved to know the truth.”

Jay shrugs.

“She went through a lot, too,” I say. “You both did. I know that.”

“It's not about us,” he says. He's still not really looking at me, but at least he's talking. These are the most words he's said to me in days.

“It's okay,” I say. “I know Dad left because of this, and Mom was sad. Lee made me understand—it's not all about me. You have a right complain and be angry and talk about how much things sucked.”

“What really sucked was that you were dead,” he says. “I missed you.”

“I missed you, too,” I say. Lee is right. I need to tell him, before it's too late. Before I leave again and he thinks I never cared at all.

“Lee made me understand some things, too,” he says. “I've been a total asshole.”

“It's all right.”

“No, it isn't. She said . . . I mean, I can guess what happened to you. We all can.” He fiddles with the carpet, still not able to look at me. I know what he thinks, and I can't tell him
he's wrong. It would lead to too many more things. So I pick something true to say, something I hope he can understand.

“I couldn't leave,” I say. “I never wanted to be there. Not for a single second. I thought about you all the time. You, Mom, Dad. I wasn't supposed to, but I did. There wasn't a day or a night or a minute—” I can't finish because I'm about to burst into tears. I don't want to break down now. I want to have a minute with my brother. “I want things to be the way they were. More than anything.”
Just for today,
I think.
I want this one day.