Elena Vanishing (13 page)

And the next day, Chip got so bad that Mom had to take him to the vet and put him to sleep.

That pretty much told me where I rate with God.

Home. I disappear into my room. It's huge, my room. It's like a whole house by itself. It's upstairs, right under the roof, so it has a sloping ceiling of tan-colored wooden boards and two big clear windows that look out over the red roof tiles of the neighbors' houses.

I made up my bed before I left for school this morning, and the sight of the maroon satin bedspread dotted with colorful sequins lifts my spirits. My old cloth cow lies in the exact center of its six decorative pillows. Two purple couch cushions rest in identical positions on each side of my burgundy pleather loveseat, and the red Chinese-pattern rug in front of the loveseat is free of fluffs. Two identical night-stands frame the bed, with lamps and bright knickknacks arranged in appealing patterns on top of them. By the door is my desk, with my journals in a line on the shelf below my keyboard. A tall curio cabinet between the windows displays Venetian masks and costumed dolls.

I feel a glow of satisfaction and relief at the sight of these orderly possessions. I saved up and bought this furniture myself with my baby-sitting money. It's clean, bright, and modern. And it's mine.

I set my schoolbooks down on the desk, but I can't persuade myself to study. I ache all over now, my injured chest throbs with pain, and my brain feels empty. My stomach is starting to grind into my backbone and send shivers of nausea up to my teeth and jaw. The good feeling at the sight of my immaculate room ebbs away.

I walk to a window and look out at the gathering storm.

Our neighbor raises racing pigeons. In the twilight outside, I see his birds rush by in the same two loops of a figure eight as always, like there's an invisible racetrack laid out in the sky just for them. This evening, the strong, gusty wind is plucking at them and blowing them off course, but they still whirl by my window in the same wild hurry.

No matter how fast they fly, they never get anywhere.

I go back to my desk, fire up the computer, and go online to my forum. It isn't pro-ana. It's just a place where eating disorder patients can talk. We don't teach newbies any tricks or help them diet, but we support one another as we struggle through our days.

Most of the time, I feel closer to my forum friends than I do to my own family.

As I scan the new threads, I realize that it's been a bad day for most of us.

I just feel so helpless
, writes one.
I wish I could bore a hole in my heart and let all the hurt flow out.

I start to write back. Then I realize I have nothing to say.

Instead, I start up the DVD of the American Ballet Company's
Swan Lake
on my computer, as I do almost every night. Immortal, enchanted women in gossamer white weave an intricate dance to the delicate music. The injured White Swan is ageless and timeless. She's translucent, floating grace. Beauty in pain: she dances the entire story with a shimmer of red blood down the center of her chest.

Her cavalier is faithless. Her lover is a monster. Her face is drawn and pale. But the White Swan triumphs over everything. She doesn't miss a single magnificent step. She's forced to show off in front of a mocking crowd, even though she doesn't want to. But she leaves the crowd stunned with admiration. She outshines them all.

Beauty in pain. As I watch, transfixed, I feel the throb of my own injured chest.

Death saves her in the end, clean and splendid. The credits roll. I stop the DVD, pull up my email and find that Barbara has sent me Mr. Burke's assignment. It's an essay:

In 300–500 words, describe an object that provokes an emotional response in you.

Emotional response? I can't think of one. I don't feel much of anything anymore. I'll write the essay later. I add it to the neat list of things that still need to be done. The sight of that list holds me together.

I'm wiped out. Time for bed. Without my dog, of course.

You were stupid to get so dependent on him
, says the voice in my head.
Bad things happen when you let yourself need others.

Even though I'm exhausted, I can't turn off the light until I've read two pages each in two different books. Twos protect me. They help me close my eyes and hope for sleep.

But pain comes instead, from the acid eating my esophagus. Pain comes from the cartilage cracking around my ribs, from each and every vertebra of my improperly curved spine, from my hip bones, from my neck. Pain throbs behind my eyes. Pain churns in my furious stomach. Each aching part of my body settles into the mattress independently from every other aching part.

With my eyes closed, I mound a pillow into the size and shape of my dead dog, Chip. I snuggle into it, clutch my old cloth cow, and drop into a doze.

Bolt upright!

I sit bolt upright, with a shriek in my throat. My heart is pounding! I can feel it galloping inside my chest.

I reach out blindly. No Chip. No Valerie. No one to save me from the monster in my dreams.

There was a hand over my mouth. Pain. Pain! And a voice yelling in my ear . . .

I've heard that voice yell at me in so many nightmares.

Shivering, teeth chattering in my head, I slip out of bed and make my way to the window. My steps are unsteady. I hold on to the furniture I pass to keep from falling to the floor.

Behind the ghostly curtain, darkness smothers the world. I lean my head against the cold window frame. The pulse pounding in my head lights up a strobe-light pattern of orange sparks behind my eyes that flickers on and off against the blackness outside.

You were stupid! Stupid!
fumes the voice in my head.
You were a stupid, stupid little bitch!

I close my eyes and lean my head against the cold window glass until my heart slows down. I'm so tired, I'm on the verge of tears. I wanted that sleep. I wanted it so badly!

But there's no way I'm going back to sleep now.

It's late. No, it's early. It's early, and that's good. I can get a head start on the new day. There's plenty of homework to keep me busy. There's a whole list of things that need to be done.

I fire up the computer and check my email. I've got one message. It's from an unknown address.

hey, lani, mom said youve been sick. so i just wanted to say sorry, i know youre mad at me but i did what i had to do. anyhoo mom's not mad anymore, so write me back okay? i miss you. love, val

I stare at the message. It doesn't make sense at first. Then it does, but it's too late to matter.

The craziest patient I had burned a smiley face into her arm!

Yeah. That was my sister.

I delete the email. Then I pull out my journal and try to write. But instead, I find myself reading old entries from two years ago. I could have written them yesterday.

I got to start eating again. I got to start sleeping again. This is not my problem, not my life, not my
burned wrists, not my freaking mental outbursts. I am me, and I need to let this go.

Elena, she is messed up. Read what you are writing. She is having problems and you can't change that ever. Ever. Ever. Ever. No matter how hard you want to. No matter how bad your heart hurts.

It's almost two years later. But my heart still hurts.

So, at 3:17 in the morning, I write Mr. Burke's essay about an object that evokes an emotional response.

Good-bye to the door downstairs. The door that is always locked now. The door that we pass by hurriedly, eyes focused straight ahead. The door that hides away the room and memories of the other daughter, the sister, the inky black sheep who lost her way. So many memories of that door but not so many of her. Sometimes I think my mind blocked them all, but then a crystal-clear image of her hits, fractures my thoughts, paralyzes me with hate–anger–fear–pain–loss–love. And sometimes–which is even worse–I feel nothing at all.

Images of her hang in my mind, framed by the strong wooden doorposts like pictures in an art gallery. A fleeting glimpse, and she would be gone. On the other side of the door was her space, her womb, her world. We were not a part of that and could never hope to be.

Her emotions were released on the door. It was a shield, blocking the waves of pain and accusations from crashing into us and knocking us over. At night,
I would wake up to the sound of the door slamming, the grating of the metal key turning in the lock. Sometimes the door was not thick enough, and I could hear her cry.

Scuffed by heavy boots, covered in cigarette burns, graced with tiny drops of rust-colored blood, the door held it all, from the beginning to her end. Like a sponge, it soaked up our memories and feelings. It buffered her rage, it filtered our pain. It sheltered her from her fears of the world, it protected us from seeing too much. In months of confusion and grief, it remained constant.

So, for one last time, I turn the key in the lock. The door makes a soft sound of recognition as I push it open. The room is cool, the colors, subdued, the carpet faded and stained. Shadows flit over the empty bed, the empty chair, empty dresser, empty me. Memories are pungent here, like rotting oranges.

I have an urge to take the door and shred it, gut it open, decipher every sliver of wood. Spread out all the splinters like a giant puzzle, until it tells me why.

Why she left me.

Why she left us.

Why she left.

Why.

College, first semester. I'm back in the States in a big auditorium-style
classroom in a big featureless university in a state big enough to swallow up the whole country of Germany—twice.

We've been in Texas for three months now. Mom and Dad moved into their old house across town from the university, the house where Valerie and I played when we were kids. I moved into the dorms here, with enough AP credit to polish off almost one full year of college before I even opened a textbook.

Halfway to finals, fall semester. It's the last class of the day.

The professor's teaching assistant trots up and down the risers of the semicircular room and hands back essays. She lays mine on my desk facedown, and I peel up a corner as if I'm in a poker game.
A
, reads the corner, so I flip the paper over.
Excellent analysis—nice examples!

Good. Good! After the first two quizzes, the first test, and the first essay, I have an A.

That's because this class is too easy
, says the voice in my head.

Fifty minutes grind by. Finally, class ends. With a sudden buzz and bustle, two hundred students turn and stretch and rise to their feet. Now, off to the Social Sciences building, where the Intro to Psych test grades should be out.

I stand up and reach for my backpack.

A wave of blackness rushes in and turns the bright, busy classroom into a hushed world of underwater gray.

No! Not today. Not ever!

While students file past, I grip the back of my chair and fight. I've been here before. Breathe. Just breathe. Find the knot of pain in your chest.

Count: one, two. One, two. One, two, three, four.

The darkness retreats. Like a volume knob turning, the noise and chatter of the big classroom returns. I locate the pen I've dropped, check for my cell phone, and pick up my backpack.

Now I'm just another student, heading down the hall.

Out into sunlight and whipping wind. It isn't white-hot anymore like it was a month ago, but it isn't comfortable, either. After seven years in Germany's cool, rainy climate, it'll take more than a few months in Texas to make me feel at home.

Is this home?
says the voice in my head.
Do you have a home?

As if in answer, a witch in a tall black hat and green face paint whirs by me on a bicycle.

It's Halloween.

I hurry over to the Social Sciences building, climb an open staircase with limestone banisters, and head down to the end of a long, straight hallway.

Yes! The grades are up. I scan the list. Pretty bad for the most part: Cs and Ds. A scattering of Fs.

Then there's my student number, and there's my grade:
89
.

An eighty-nine? I studied so hard for that test!

You're not smart enough
, says the voice in my head.
You'll never get into nursing school like that.

I walk back across campus, through asphalt parking lots still shimmering with heat. The trees are changing color right now in Germany. I think about the yellow birches and fire-red flames of beech
trees and thick layers of rust-colored leaves carpeting the forest floor. Homesickness floods through me. No leaves seem to change around here. I'll be lucky if I get to wear a coat before January.

The sidewalk is blocked by construction fencing. I walk beside orange plastic webbing down the dirt path, between clumps of ragged Bermuda and tall, wispy Johnson grass.

Two zombie frat boys in torn T-shirts and ripped shorts are hogging the path in front of me. I debate passing them, but I'm too tired.

“My girlfriend's really pissing me off,” says one.

“Why?” asks the other.

“I don't know.”

A little silence.

“That sucks.”

“Yeah.”

They turn toward the older dorms, and I head into the newest housing area, then up the outdoor cement stairs to my unit.

The sight of the cute, tidy, two-bedroom apartment lifts my mood. Sandra, my new roommate, and I share a comforting streak of OCD. I step into the neat little kitchen and drop my backpack onto our breakfast table next to the fake plant, ceramic pumpkin, and set of matching napkins. Beyond is a living room as elegant as our student incomes will allow: framed Japanese calligraphy and balls woven out of twigs in the living room, Hello Kitty posters and colorful pillows in the bedrooms.

I unlock my bedroom door. My old cow lies on the bed, washed-out purple and dirty brown, her white stuffing peeking through holes and rips. I drop onto the satin bedspread next to her, burrow my face into her side, and fall asleep within seconds.