The Boarding House (36 page)

“So Luther, is there anything you need before I go?”

Luther paused then turned around. “Your tire is going flat.”

“What? My tire is—?” Charlie took a deep breath, then turned around and left the room.

Luther sat down at the table, removed the cover from his plate of food and began to eat.

Out in the parking lot, Charlie had already taken the spare from the trunk of his car. He didn’t want to think about how Luther had known this. He was just glad he knew it now instead of at quitting time.

Ellie ate the bacon,
but couldn’t down anything more. Her heart was broken and her world was out of control. She knew what she was supposed to do, but knowing and doing were two entirely different projects.

She tried one last time to call Sophie to her, but it was to no avail, and that baby’s wails, while faint, were constant. She crawled back into bed, pulled the covers up over her head and cried herself to sleep.

Cinnamon sat on one side of the bed and Wyatt on the other, keeping watch over Ellie. They knew, like Sophie, that their time was growing shorter. And unlike other alters who had no desire to leave, they both loved Ellie too much to demand their existence continue beyond her need.

“I wonder what it will feel like?” Cinnamon asked.

Wyatt frowned. “It?
It
what?”

“Dying.”

He shrugged.

“Are you scared?”

“I’m scared for Ellie,” Wyatt said.

“We just won’t leave until we’re sure she can handle life on her own.”

“Right.”

“In the meantime, what can we do to help her grieve for Sophie?”

“According to Luther, we need to quit helping her, right? She has to learn how to grieve and heal on her own.”

“Wyatt. That’s brilliant.”

“I have my moments.”

“That you do, my brother
 . . .
that you do.”

“I’m not your brother.”

Cin laughed. “In a manner of speaking, yes you are. We’re all a part of Ellie, so that makes us kin.”

“Shit. Just when I thought things couldn’t get worse.”

Had anyone been passing in the hall outside Ellie’s room, they might have thought it strange to hear laughter coming from a place that, only an hour earlier, had been a place of despair.

Working with people who were short on reality and long on mania was harder than she’d expected. She had a piece of green felt taped to her butt where a pocket should be, and a red felt bow glued to her bleached blonde hair because one of the patients wanted it there, and she’d been too afraid to tell her no. She kept watching the clock, praying for her last hour to soon be over.

Across the room, Ellie was at the window chasing sunlight. She scooted her chair a little to the south to catch a better angle on the rays coming through the window, and when she was satisfied with where she was sitting, made herself ignore the crying baby and settled in to discuss her latest concern.

I hope you’re not busy, God, because I have something I want to talk to you about. Every time I look in the mirror, and I do this quite often to brush my hair or my teeth, all I see is Ellie Wayne, the victim.

Dr. Tyler says I’m progressing, but I’m not so sure. Back home, I wore my hair a certain way because Daddy liked it that way. I didn’t wear any makeup for the longest time because of the same reason. Sometimes I wear lipstick now, but it’s almost gone and I can’t go to the pharmacy to buy more, and my hair just keeps getting longer and longer. I feel like I’m stuck in a time warp. If I changed my appearance, would it change me inside as well?

She closed her eyes and waited.

Moments later, she heard a voice, but it wasn’t from God. It was Wanda, the craft volunteer. “Ellie? That’s your name, right? Wouldn’t you like to come to the craft table and make something?”

Ellie answered without opening her eyes. “No thank you, Wanda, I would not.”

“Why not, sugar? It’s lots of fun.”

“I don’t have any friends or family, therefore I have no need to make a gift. Now if you don’t mind, I need to be quiet. I’m waiting for a message from God.”

Wanda stared for a moment, wondering what had happened to such a pretty young girl to make her so dad-blamed nutty. But since she didn’t know how to rebut a statement like that, she took herself back to the glitter glue and pieces of felt.

Ellie sighed.
“Sorry about that, God. It was Wanda, but she’s gone. About my appearance—?”

Change is growth.

Ellie smiled.
“Thank you, God. That’s how I felt. I’ll let you know how it goes.”
She got up and headed for the craft table.

An older man named Dewey, who had a tendency to walk around with his fly unzipped because he claimed it all needed airing it out, had discovered the red felt bows. He decided one of them would make a good zipper pull and was trying to glue it onto the zipper in the fly of his pants. Wanda had already called for an aide and was on the verge of tears.

Ellie could see she was in something of a state, so instead of bothering her by asking for the scissors, she just took them out of Wanda’s apron pocket and walked out of the room.

Wanda missed the scissors within a couple of minutes and let out a shriek that brought both nurses and aides running. “My scissors. They’re gone,” she screamed.

Her panic sent the room into an uproar as the search for scissors began.

In the meantime, Ellie had gone back to her room, then into the bathroom. She left the scissors on the counter while she went to look for something to put up her ponytail. After she found a ponytail band, she brushed all her hair into a topknot at the crown of her head and fastened it off.

At that point, Cin came in. “Hey. New hairdo? You look kinda like the I-Dream-of-Jeannie girl on Nickelodeon.”

Ellie turned sideways, then faced front again.

“Kind of
 . . . at least the hair does . . .
What are you going to do?” Cin asked.

Ellie picked up the scissors. “Make a change.”

Cin shrieked, but it was too late.

Ellie was already making a cut through her hair about three inches above the band. The scissors weren’t meant for hairstyling and Ellie’s hair was thick, but she didn’t give up. Eventually, long lengths of it began to fall at her heels and when she was done, there was more hair on the floor than she had left on her head.

Cin groaned. “You have ruined your hair. Now they’ll for sure think you’re crazy.”

Ellie undid the rubber band and then finger-combed her hair back into place. It fell around her face in a wispy, pixie look that made her smile.

Cin’s despair turned to glee. “Holy crap, Elizabeth Ann, that’s actually cute.”

Ellie smirked.

“How did you know to do that?” Cin asked.

“One of those makeover shows on TV.”

“Now you need some makeup.”

“All I have is lipstick.”

“I have some mascara and eye shadow.”

Ellie frowned. “Have you been holding out on me?”

“No. I didn’t know you wanted makeup.”

“I have to make a change,” Ellie said.

“Who said?”

“God said change is growth. I need to grow to get better to get out of here.”

Cin said nothing in return, which for her, was unusual.

“What?” Ellie asked.

“Nothing. Are you looking forward to leaving here?”

“Yes. Aren’t you?”

Cin laughed, but it was a very happy sound. “Honey, it’s not up to me. You’re the one with too many people living in your head. The sooner we’re gone, the sooner you’re out of here.”

Ellie froze. “But—”

“No
buts
. The bottom line is you have to let go of us to get out.”

Ellie’s eyes filled with tears. “Why do I have to give up the only things that were ever good in my life to be free?”

“Oh, sugar
 . . .
do you hear what you just said? Do you know how sad that is to hear?”

“Yes, I heard myself, but I don’t know what you mean.”

“If Wyatt and I are the only things you consider good about your life, and we’re not real, then what does that say about you?”

Ellie suddenly shivered. “That there’s nothing good in my life?”

“Pretty much, but there can be good things you have yet to discover only you can’t find them in here.”

“I don’t want to lose you and Wyatt.”

“You can’t lose what’s inside you.”

Ellie sat down on the toilet seat and thought about what Cinnamon had said. It was frightening, but at the same time she wanted out. She didn’t belong in here with old crazy people. She needed to go to college and figure out what she wanted out of life for herself—not have doctors who knew nothing about her telling her what to do.