I nodded, glanced down at the ground, then caught myself and forced myself to make eye contact. “Carla,” I said. “And yeah, maybe I’ll give her a call.”
The truth was, there had been no therapist. Carla was a work of fiction. Therapy was something Mark had pushed hard for a couple of years ago when I wasn’t sleeping well, when I felt the whole world was looking at me and my life and seeing a cheerful, Christmas-loving woman who baked cookies and was the art lady at her daughter’s preschool. “I am a hoax,” I’d said to Mark back then.
“You are a successful artist and children’s book author, and an amazing wife and mother,” he’d countered.
“It’s all a carefully constructed lie,” I’d said. “I’m an imposter.”
That was when he’d insisted I see someone professionally. I had no intention of baring my soul to a stranger. I’d been there and done that years ago, and it hadn’t gone well.
But I needed to appease my worried husband, so I made up Carla and drove to Burlington every week and sat in a café having coffee. I came home from my supposed therapy appointments refreshed, with tales about how much progress I was making and how very helpful Carla was.
Give people what they want to see, I’d told myself.
Another survival skill learned from childhood. Show up at school in nice clothes, get good grades, don’t make friends or enemies with the other kids, raise your hand in class and smile at the teachers. No one will ever suspect that the reason you won’t change in front of the other girls in the locker room for gym class is because you have deep scars on your back made with the tip of a knife, that your arms and legs are covered in bruises. The other girls and the gym teacher will watch you go into thebathroom stall to change and think you’re a modest girl, a good girl. A bit shy, but is that really so terrible?
THE MALL SMELLEDlike floor wax, artificial balsam, pretzels, burnt sugar from the fudge shop. Every store, every kiosk, every column was dripping with bright lights and tinsel. I felt like I needed sunglasses to protect me from all the shine and glitter.
15 DAYS TO CHRISTMASblinked a big red digital sign in front of a card and stationery shop: a warning.
I hated malls and shopping almost as much as I hated Christmas. Put them together and it was my own private idea of hell on earth. Leave the seasonal merriment to Mark, and to Penny too, who had bonded with my husband over their shared enthusiasm for this festive time of year.
But Mark had instructed me to shop. Said it would be therapeutic. So I would shop. I would not think about demons or possession or my mother or what had happened to Paul. I would not think about the email I’d just gotten from my agent, Sarah, begging for sample artwork for the next Moxie book because the publisher refused to push back the deadline again.
I would lose myself in the crowd of shoppers, in the bright lights and festive music, in theho-ho-hoof the jolly mall Santa in his polyester suit.
And lose myself I did. It was all too much. Overwhelming. I felt panicked. My shoulders and neck were tense. A headache was beginning to pulsate at my temples. I had to keep looking at my list to remind myself what I was even doing there.
Christmas shopping. Buying items and checking them off after purchase. People did it all the time. Many people claimed to enjoy it. I looked down at what I’d written:
A quirky tie and book of poetry for Mark
An iPad Pro for Izzy
SomethingNutcracker-themed for Olivia
A nice journal and fountain pen for Penny
A tart pan for Louise
Mother—?
No idea there. But I was hoping something would jump out at me.
First, before doing any actual shopping, I needed some coffee. Maybe a little caffeine would help with my quickly blossoming headache. And my eyes felt tired and gritty—I’d had another lousy night of sleep.
I made my way to the food court, ordered a latte with an extra shot of espresso at the coffee kiosk (the barista was dressed as a sexy elf in a low-cut green velour dress), and took a seat near the thirty-foot-tall artificial Christmas tree complete with absurdly oversized presents wrapped in colored foil and piled onto a blanket of rolled-up white fluffy cotton. The fake layer of snow was littered with empty soda cups, receipts, a crushed pack of cigarettes. One of its edges looked singed, like someone had tried to set it on fire.
Tinny Christmas music was being piped through the mall sound system: “Walking in a Winter Wonderland.” The coffee tasted like scorched sugar and melted plastic. I sipped it, desperate for the caffeine as I watched shoppers come and go, laden with bags, carrying trays of greasy mall food: pizza, General Tso’s chicken, corn dogs, and curly fries. I saw a few people smiling and laughing, but most of them looked distinctly lacking in holiday cheer. A winter wonderland it was not.
I opened my purse, took three ibuprofen with a big gulp of coffee, then grabbed a pen and started doodling on my list, sketching a little Christmas tree, of all things.
MY CRAPPY LATTEhad gone cold. And I was still sitting and had made no progress with my list. I blinked at my watch, disbelieving—an hour had passed since I’d arrived at the mall.
I looked down at my drawing. The Christmas tree—which had grown(magically, I thought, like the tree inThe Nutcracker) and now ran the entire length of the page along the right side—was covered in strange ornaments that weren’t really ornaments at all: bees, flies, and wasps seemed to crawl over it. I could almost hear them buzzing. And there, at the top, where the star should go, rested a macabre version of Mark’s glass angel: half-human, half-insect, its compound eyes staring out at me.
I picked up my list with the tree drawing and stood up, determined to get this shopping done, when my phone rang in my purse. Maybe Mark was calling to check on me. Had he texted while I was drawing and I hadn’t heard the familiar ping, and now he was worried?
I pulled my phone out.
