Flying in Place (16 page)

She nodded again. “Talk to me,” he said. “Pam?”

She shook her head. When he reached out to knead her shoulder, she pulled away from him.

“Pamela!” He took her by both shoulders and turned her around so that she had to look at him. “Pam, for God’s sake, don’t tell me Donna has you believing that crazy story. I
did not
try to seduce your sister. I didn’t. Never in a million years would I do that. Do you believe me?”

“Yes,” she said. She was looking at me over his shoulder, and she looked terrified.

“Good girl. Tell me you love me.”

“Stewart—”

“Just say it. Say ‘I love you.’ Come on, Pam.”

“Stewart, leave me alone!” She pulled away from him and huddled against the counter again, and my father shrugged and turned to me.

“And you,
chère enfant
? Getting your soap opera fix? We don’t even need a television here, do we? How are you feeling, anyway?”

“Fine,” I said, “I’m going over to Jane’s house now.”

“No,” he said decisively, “I don’t think so. I want to take your temperature.”

“I’m going to—”

“Emma, you’re ill. The Hallorans may not be good neighbors, but I can’t in good conscience have you giving them the flu. If you
don’t
have a temperature, you can go over there. Okay? Deal? Now wait here.”

He left the kitchen. “Mom,” I said, “Mom, please—”

“Shhhhh. He’s right about the fever. Come here, Emma.”

“But—”

“Come here,” she said, and I did and she hugged me, put her arms around me and held me. It would have felt wonderful, if it hadn’t been so useless. All the times I’d wanted her to hug me, and she was doing it now, when it wouldn’t do any good in the world.

“Mom—”

“I’ll talk to him.”

“
No
! You can’t—”

“Hush,” she said, just as my father came back into the kitchen carrying an oral thermometer and a small plastic bottle.

“Emma, open your mouth. Pam, sit down and take one of these—”

“Stewart, I don’t want to.”

“I know you don’t, but it’s important. You didn’t get any sleep last night. Everything will seem much more manageable when you’ve had some rest.”

I stood with the cold glass rod in my mouth, watching helplessly while my father guided her to the table, while Mom docilely swallowed the pill he’d given her. How could she let him give her a sleeping pill? She was just running away, running away from the truth the same way I’d run away. She wasn’t going to do anything.

My father took the thermometer out of my mouth. “A hundred and one. That’s about what I thought. Okay, kid: two aspirin and into bed.”

“I want to go to Jane’s.”

“Absolutely not. You’re sick.”

“Mom—”

“Do what he says, Emma. Go up to your room and change into your nightgown, and don’t forget to clean out your pockets. I don’t want melted bubblegum in the dryer again. Go on, sweetheart.”

I didn’t have bubblegum in my pockets. How could she sit there and talk about laundry? I wanted to bolt out the back door, but my father was between me and the hall. If I went to my room, could I climb out the window? The lilac tree would never hold me. How many bones would I break if I jumped? Too many for me to crawl to the Hallorans’, probably.

Clean out your pockets, I thought bitterly as I climbed the stairs. Great. Maybe she put a parachute in your pocket when she was hugging you, so you can escape from the second floor. Sure. My mom, secret agent. Faster than a speeding couplet. Able to leap tall tombstones in a single bound. Dream on. She wouldn’t be able to do anything, once the pill started working. She’d be passed out like the Lady of Shalott.

I put my hand in my pocket and nearly tripped, missing a step, A folded piece of paper. Old notes from math class? A Tennyson poem to comfort me? I pulled it out; it was dirty, and there was something hard wrapped inside it. Money? But it was the wrong shape.

On the second-floor landing, I stopped and unfolded the piece of paper. There was a key inside, and only one room in the house had a working lock.

I was afraid the door
wouldn’t open after twelve years, but the key turned easily enough. I made sure the lock was bolted securely behind me before I looked at the room.

I don’t know what I’d expected—skulls and skeletons maybe, a pot of gold in the middle of the room, a shimmering gateway to the Neverland; but it was just a room, not much larger than mine, covered in a gray, furry blanket of dust. The shades over the windows blocked out a lot of light, but enough came in around the edges for me to make out a small bed, a dresser, bookshelves, a closet door slightly open. Two shelves on the wall held trophies and a collection of dolls, frozen in their foreign clothing.

Struggling not to cough from the dust, I took a step forward. The floor slid and wavered when I moved, but that must have been from the fever. Trapped and helpless, the dolls stared at me from their shelf; their painted eyes pleaded, although I didn’t know for what. To be taken down, maybe, dusted off, admired, carried out into the world to be played with and cherished. I wondered if Ginny had played with them, or if they’d been dusty even when she was alive. They looked like the kind of dolls people bring you as gifts: ornate, expensive dolls suited only for display. On the shelf above them, the trophies gleamed dully through their dust. There were ten of them, in different sizes, many crowned with tiny acrobats as frozen as the dolls.

I turned to examine the top of the dresser, and gingerly reached out to dust off a small silver hand mirror, a comb, a beaded baby bracelet that spelled out “Ginny” in faded letters. It had been the first thing she remembered after I said her name. I tried to put it on, but it was far too small for me.

The bookshelves, then. Books only came in one size.
Peter Pan
, of course, and
The Little Mermaid
and
Little Women
and
A Child’s Garden of Verses
, Mom’s choices, but next to them were
Black Beauty, Bambi, The Call of the Wild, The Yearling
. Ginny had loved animals. I wondered if she’d known about Mom and Donna’s dachshund.

Next to the animal books were books about gymnastics, a book about the Olympics, a thick volume entitled
The History of the Circus
. I pulled it off the shelf. On the title page, Mom had written in her clean, elegant script, “For my dearest Ginny on her eleventh birthday, with love always.” I put the book back; the Atlas was next, but I didn’t want to touch it. It held too many places where Ginny had never been able to go.

The closet. I nudged the door further open with my foot, wondering if I’d find the yellow Snoopy pajamas, but all I saw were dresses and jumpers and blouses, plaids and flowered prints, clothing that had probably been pretty once but now looked only dingy and out of fashion. There was a skirt with a poodle on it that must have been a museum piece even when Ginny was still alive. All of the clothing looked as if it would disintegrate if I touched it. Well, of course. No one had worn it for—

Twelve years. My knees weakened, and I sat down on the bed. No one had been in this room for twelve years. If Ginny had lived she’d be twenty-four now, out of school, living somewhere else, and this room would be very different, like the rooms of the Hallorans’ grown children. There’d be college pennants on the walls, photographs of proms, graduations, football games. There’d be textbooks and yearbooks; there’d be more trophies. Ginny would have a job and maybe I’d visit her on weekends, or she’d come back on weekends to see us, and she’d bring me presents and take me shopping and teach me things. We’d have slumber parties in this room, just the two of us, and talk all night without being afraid of dawn, without being afraid of hearing—

A key turn in the lock. I froze, as paralyzed as the dolls. Did Mom have another key? But Mom was surely asleep by now, lulled by drugs.

It was my father. When I saw him my stomach shriveled and I cowered back into the dusty coverlet. “You forgot to take your aspirin,” he said, holding up a glass of water. I didn’t move; he shrugged and put the glass down on the dresser, wiping a space clean for the two white tablets. Then he shut the door, locked it, put the key in his pocket and smiled at me.

“So, what do you think of Ginny’s room? It needs a good dusting, wouldn’t you say?”

I didn’t answer him. I couldn’t. He shrugged, beginning to look annoyed, and said, “Really, Emma, I wish you’d stop staring at me like that. I couldn’t very well let your mother put a lock on this door without having a key made for myself, could I? What if she’d locked herself in here and gotten sick? What if she passed out in here and no one could get in to help her? That would be terrible, wouldn’t it? She might die in here, and no one would be able to get inside.”

I swallowed. Was she dying downstairs? If she were dying he’d be trying to help her, wouldn’t he? But if I asked him to check, he’d know I’d told her. “Where is she?” I said instead.

“Sleeping downstairs on the couch,” he said. “She didn’t even make it upstairs to the bedroom. That was a good strong sleeping pill I gave her. She needed to rest. She was very upset. Do you know why?”

“Because of Donna,” I said. It came out in a whisper.

“Is that why? I thought it was strange that she was so upset when I got back. I thought she’d be happier once Donna was out of the house.” He took a step closer and said, “What were you talking about while I was gone?”

I couldn’t back up any farther; I was already pressed against the wall. “Nothing.”

“Really? You didn’t say anything to upset her? Are you sure?”

“Yes,” I said, but the lie stuck in my throat, and I felt my eyes filling with tears. I ached with fever and exhaustion.

“Really? Why did you come in here, Emma?”

“I wanted to see what was in Ginny’s room.”

“Yes, of course you did. You must have been very curious about it. I understand that. But I don’t think you should have stolen your mother’s key, do you?”

The tears spilled over. “I didn’t steal it, Dad!”

Stupid, stupid. I was reacting exactly the way he wanted me to, like an animal being driven towards a trap. I’d have stolen the key in a minute if I’d known where she’d had it hidden. But if I admitted to stealing, he’d have a reason to punish me. My nipples began throbbing, and I drew my knees up to my chest and hugged myself.

My father raised an eyebrow. “No? You didn’t take it? She
gave
you the key? I find that very difficult to believe. She hates this room. Why would she give you the key, Emma?”

Because I’d told her about Ginny. But I couldn’t very well tell him that. And if I said she’d given it to me of her own free will, he might figure out that she’d wanted me to be safe in a locked room, and then he’d know I’d told her. I swallowed, trying to think through my fear, and said, “Because I asked her for it.”

“You
asked
her for it? When you know how she feels about this room? No wonder she was so upset when I got home. That wasn’t very sensitive of you, Emma, was it?”

Trapped, trapped: the steel jaws sprung. He was making it all my fault. He took another step towards me, his breathing deepening almost imperceptibly, and said, “You played on her emotions, didn’t you? She was too upset to refuse you anything because she felt guilty about Donna and Ginny. And so you went and asked her for exactly the one thing that would remind her of both of them, all over again. You were listening to the argument in the kitchen, weren’t you? Pretending to be sick. Pretending to be asleep. Little faker. Is that what happened?”

“Yes,” I said. I had to get past him. I had to unlock the door. “I’ll tell Mom I’m sorry,” I said, standing up. “I’ll go tell her right now.”

“No, you won’t. She’s asleep. She wouldn’t hear you.” Another step; the breathing got louder. He was too close to me, and something was growing under his belt. “You’re a very sneaky, selfish little girl, Emma. You’ve upset your mother very badly, and her health suffers when she’s upset.”

For a moment anger flared through me, consuming my fear in a sudden, welcome hatred. “So did Ginny’s,” I said. “But that one’s your fault, isn’t it?”

“
My
fault? Would you like to tell me what you mean by that?”

My throat constricted again, the brief bonfire replaced by ashes and choking fumes. What had I said? How could I have said that? He was bigger than I was. I tried to dart around him, but he grabbed me and threw me back onto the bed, holding me pinned by both arms. I lay there, paralyzed, unable even to struggle. “Answer me, Emma. What did you mean?”

“Nothing, Dad. Nothing, I didn’t mean any—”

“
Answer me
.” His hands tightened on my upper arms. “Who’s been telling you lies about Ginny?”

I went numb, then. I wanted to leave my body, but I couldn’t. It was as if I was stuck half in and half out, unable to get safely away because the part that stayed behind, that remained under my father’s hands and answered his questions, had forgotten how to run. It had discovered that it could answer his questions and still tell the truth; and it stayed there, entranced, like a child who persists in mastering the fatal art of lighting matches. “Nobody’s been telling me lies about her,” it said proudly.