The Murmurings (4 page)

“Right,” I say, this time keeping my eyes fixed on his. “Because their safety is your number one priority.”

He pushes the box toward me again, gently but firmly.

I slide my fingers through the holes in either side of the cardboard and stand to go.

The box is even lighter than I thought it would be. I turn my back on Dr. Keller and open the door.

“Ms. David, we’re not done just yet.”

I turn around to find him leaning back in his chair, his fingers interlocked across his flat stomach.

“There was another matter I was hoping to discuss with you,” he says, crossing his legs as his chair emits a tiny groan. His face retains its plastic composure.

“My mom’s not available,” I say, hoping my voice doesn’t quaver with anger at having to make excuses for her.

“It’s not your mom I wanted to speak with,” he says, his gray eyes staring at me so intensely, I momentarily forget where I am. “It’s you. Sophie, Nell shared some conversations with me. Conversations between you and her.”

Dr. Keller holds his palms up, as though easing my anger down from a ledge.

“I don’t want you to be upset. She told me in a safe space. She felt comfortable talking to me. She said it reminded her of talking to you, actually.”

I shift my weight from one foot to the other. I’m feeling sort of achy. Tiny prickles of sweat form around my hairline, like when I have a fever. “She talked about me?”

“She talked a lot about you. I get the sense that you two had a lot in common. That you . . .
saw
things in very much the same way.”

“I don’t see anything,” I say a little too quickly. Nell wouldn’t have told him anything. She
couldn’t
have. Unless she really was that angry.

“I meant that metaphorically, of course,” he says, his tone easy, conversational, as if we’ve known each other a long time. Suddenly, his familiarity makes my stomach turn over.

This box, this is all I have left of her. These are the last things that Nell touched in this place.

“Nell was the poet, not me. A really good one, too. She wrote about things you didn’t even know you were feeling, that you didn’t even know
were
feelings until she put names to them,” I blurt.

I try to say more, but my words get caught in my throat, and my eyes start welling up, and I can feel my breath stop and start. I want Dr. Keller to know that Nell was more than
whatever’s been left behind in this weightless box, whatever was or wasn’t found hanging from that tree, that she was more special and complicated than he could ever understand. I want him to say he’s sorry. But his gray eyes just look concerned, and I let the door close behind me.

By the time I reach the front doors, the sun has set.

The orderly behind the front counter doesn’t see me at first, so I snap, “Can I get out of here?”

She jumps at my voice, then lazily makes her way to the little room to open the inner Plexiglas door. The man is still playing with his Legos in the corner. We lock eyes, and for the first time since I got here, I’m scared. Maybe it’s because, of all the people here, his gaze is the only one I can’t read. Then his eyes shift to the box I’m holding, and I can see my sister’s name on his lips as he reads silently. He looks up at me again, his hands shaking above his Lego tower, which is higher than I’ve ever seen it before.

“We were the last three.”

He looks sincere, earnest. His chin quivers, and a single strand of spit closes the gap between his upper and lower lips.

What he says doesn’t make any sense, but he looks lucid. I open my mouth to say something in return, but all I can picture are the initials my sister used in her journal to describe
him: LM. Then, the Plexiglas swishes open, beckoning me into the antechamber between the first and second doors. The orderly in the button room is waving me along. I take one more look at the man with the bald head before stepping through the doors. He’s looking at Nell’s box again, his mouth open, lips shaking.

I step toward the second doors, waiting for them to open, and catch a glimpse of my reflection. I look skinnier than I did even a month ago, my shorts sitting lower on my hips. But it’s my face that startles me. Because it’s not my face anymore.

My eyes are gone, sunken into vast caverns above jagged cheekbones. A mouth moves, forming a circle, then stretching into a thin line. Cracked lips pull over long, flat teeth that look too big for their mouth. The mouth keeps moving, but I can’t hear what it’s saying.

That’s not me.

I step backward, dragging my eyes from the reflection. I look behind me, but there’s nothing there.

The annoyed orderly knocks on the window, waving me forward. But I just keep looking at her. I can’t scream. I can’t even move.

Why isn’t she coming in here to help me? Can’t she see . . . ?

But then I realize she can’t. I turn to the sliding doors. My reflection looks just as it should. Only now there’s a hair
line crack in the glass just above my head that I swear wasn’t there before. I can hear blood pounding in my ears. A voice from some staticky speaker above me says, “You’ve gotta walk forward.” The orderly holds the head of a gooseneck microphone in front of her face. “Walk toward it,” she says slowly, as if I’m a child she’s sick of babysitting.

I keep expecting my reflection to change back into that hideous thing, but I step toward the door, and it swishes open. The smell of sweet desert air conjures memories of playing beauty parlor with Nell on the porch at night, cicadas hissing as we moved scissor fingers over each other’s hair and begged Mom to let us stay up a little longer.

I walk back to the car and gingerly place Nell’s box in the trunk before sliding into the driver’s seat. Evan stops bobbing his head to the Bob Marley song on the radio, looking embarrassed at being caught.

I make myself laugh and roll my eyes. “Sorry that took so long. Bureaucracies and all.”

“Yup, they’re the worst.”

Something about the way he says this makes me think he wants to say more. It’s like he’s trying to see if I can read his mind or something. Evan stares at his lap, but every couple of seconds he ventures a look at me.

I keep my hands on the steering wheel, but I’m not ready
to start the car yet. It feels like there’s more to say, only I’m not sure who should do the talking.

I want to tell him what just happened. All of it. Part of me thinks he’d listen, maybe believe some of it. But then I remember everyone else. Nell’s friends from school, who now call me a freak. Dr. Keller, with his confidence and fake empathy. Even my mom, who had her own daughter locked away. I bet Nell thought all of them would believe her, too.

So I start the car and back out of the parking lot. Neither of us says much on the way home.

T
HERE’S AN OLD YELLOW
G
EO
Metro sitting in my driveway as we round the corner onto my street.

“Wow,” Evan says. “I’m impressed. That thing’s bordering on vintage.”

I smile and silently thank him for acting like everything’s normal. I basically ignored him the whole ride home and he doesn’t seem to be taking it personally.

“It’s my aunt’s car. She’s had it since, like, the dawn of time.”

“Well, she’d be crazy not to keep it. I mean, they don’t make ’em like that anymore. What is that, a three-cylinder engine?”

I can feel him smiling at me from the passenger’s seat,
and I know my ears are burning red. I just hope my eggplant hair is hiding them. I smile and nod, then roll Mom’s old blue Buick into the driveway beside the yellow Geo.

Evan is by his car before I can even close the driver’s-side door. So much for everything being normal. He probably had his hand on the handle the entire drive home from Oakside. Not that I could blame him. So I plaster on my best easy-breezy-it’s-cool-if-you-don’t-want-to-hang-out-with-the-class-freak-anymore look and tuck my hair behind my ear (which I’ve confirmed in the side mirror is,
indeed
, bright red).

He gives me an awkward wave and swings his door open.

“See you in Sweep,” he smiles, but I’m too exhausted to know if he’s making fun of me.

“Yup. Same time, same place,” I say, waving back.

He’s down the street and around the corner before I can get my key in the lock of the front door. I tuck Nell’s box under one arm and brace myself for the onslaught of the usual questions from Aunt Becca. I know she’s concerned about Mom, but I just don’t feel up to dealing with her on top of all that’s happened today.

When I open the door, the smell of garlic and basil practically knocks me over. I can hear the kitchen faucet running and something clanging against one of our big cast-iron pots. I hover in the kitchen doorway and watch as Aunt Becca—
clad in Mom’s
Nosh Now, Kvetch Later
apron—brushes fat brown curls from her shiny face and maneuvers a wooden spoon around a steaming pot of what smells like lentil soup. Our cutting board, which I haven’t seen in months, is covered with green stems and onion skins. A tight knot of guilt wrenches my stomach. She’s cooking for us. Mom and I haven’t made an actual home-cooked meal since Nell died.

Aunt Becca turns toward me and jumps backward, splattering soup on Mom’s apron.

“Jeez, Sophie, you scared me! I didn’t hear you come in. What’d’ya have there?”

I’d forgotten about the box. “It’s not important. Aunt Becca, you didn’t have to do all this.”

“It’s nothing. Your mom’s asleep.” The look on her face is worried, and I can tell she wants to ask me about my mom’s drinking, my mom’s job (or lack thereof), my mom’s depression. But I keep quiet and wash the cutting board instead.

“It smells good,” I say, not bothering to keep my voice down. I’m not concerned with waking up Mom.

“Lentil soup, garlic bread, fruit.” She lists the menu like it’s a roll call, sounding pleased with herself. She’s not the greatest cook, but I’m dying for something besides pizza or Chinese.

“I could try to get Mom,” I offer, even though I don’t mean it.

Aunt Becca looks like she might venture down the hallway. Her body leans in that direction. But at the last second, she changes her mind. “No, let her sleep.”

When we sit down at the breakfast bar, just the two of us, Aunt Becca chews quietly while I stare down at my bowl and slurp my soup. That’s the thing about my aunt. I feel like I can be myself around her, like I don’t need to try to be anything special. At least I used to feel that way, before Mom started going downhill. Now it’s like Aunt Becca expects me to be the parent.

The day rushes over me. The murmuring in my ear at school. The random phone call from Evan. Dr. Keller’s awful smile. My reflection in the sliding doors. It feels impossible that this could be what my life has become.

Aunt Becca tugs my earlobe. She’s done it for as long as I can remember. It’s what she does instead of saying “I love you.” If I didn’t think it would make her worry even more, I’d lean against her right now and cry. But I just twirl my spoon in my bowl instead.

•  •  •

After Aunt Becca leaves, I grab Nell’s box and head back to my room. I pass Mom’s room on the way and am surprised to see her door open. I almost don’t stop, but I’m startled to find her awake and sitting on the edge of her bed, staring
at something off in the distance, her eyes glazed like she’s daydreaming. The towel that was wrapped around her head is in her lap now, and her hair is lank around her jaw. I can smell her shampoo from where I’m standing—something sweet like apricots. That scent used to comfort me. Now I just associate it with her showering far too late in the day.

Mom looks up and meets my gaze. “Are those her things?”

She hasn’t said Nell’s name in a very long time. I nod in response, my voice lost somewhere in my throat.

She nods back. Her eyes linger on the box for a moment, then come back to me. For some reason, I can’t seem to catch my breath.

“It doesn’t look very heavy.”

I shake my head; no, it’s not heavy.

“You should get to bed,” she says, sounding defeated. “It’s late.” Whatever strength propped her into a sitting position is beginning to fail. I don’t tell her that she couldn’t possibly know what time it is. She hasn’t bothered to reset the blinking alarm clock since our power was shut off two months ago. It took a rushed payment to the electric company and some sweet talking from Aunt Becca to get it turned back on.

I hang in the doorway, then start to leave without a word. I wouldn’t be able to find one anyway, at least not one that
would come out sounding nice, and I can’t stand to see her cry anymore.

“I’m trying, honey. I swear to God I am.”

And then that mean word almost surfaces from the pit of my gut, and I almost can’t suppress it this time. I walk away before I say something I know I’ll regret. I walk right past my room and straight into Nell’s, closing the door behind me.

I stare at Nell’s mirrored closet doors. I haven’t opened them since she left for Oakside. I always used to borrow her clothes without asking. After she died, the thought of wearing her clothes made my hands tremble.

Because Nell’s door stays shut most of the time, her room’s cleaner than the rest of the house and definitely more organized. Her knickknacks remain on her dresser: a seashell she pocketed on our trip to San Diego when I was ten and she was twelve; a ratty drawstring purse she used all the time even though it was out of style; a makeup tray glittery with the sprinklings of eye shadow and blush; a tube of soft-pink lip gloss too light for her olive skin, but which she wore nearly every day.

I lift the lid and upturn the box on her bed: the jeans and T-shirt she’d been wearing the night she was admitted (the blood gone, probably laundered by Oakside); a few pairs of underwear and bras; Oakside-issued scrubs in light
blue (though not the ones with the frayed hem that she was wearing when I saw her); and Babs, the cloth doll Aunt Becca gave her before I was even born. As I figured, no sign of Nell’s silver ring. I’m still disappointed, though.

I scoop the contents back into the box and put it on her dresser, then lie on the bed and reach underneath the mattress. My fingertips find what they’re looking for, and I slowly ease my treasure from its hiding place.