What does Alice know of the real world? Did her first mommy tell her things about it? How many times has she left the house, wearing her mask?
I want answers to these questions so I can understand my captor. But I also want my little blond prison guard to wonder about the life that Mick keeps from her. I want her to taste it. And to feel angry about it. Angry at him.
I am the one who can give that to her. I am the one who can save her.
Alice grows cold. She slowly drops Hannah to the floor, thinking carefully about what to say to me.
“I know what you’re trying to do,” she says.
I answer as Suzannah. “What?”
But she reaches through the bars and grabs the doll from my hands. She throws her against the wall behind us, then picks her up to make sure she hasn’t been damaged.
I make a note—Mick will not be pleased if she has broken a toy.
“I can’t do any of those things because of my allergies and you’re using the dolls to make me feel bad!”
I don’t let her anger touch me, though it is so hot it radiates from her skin.
“That was not my intention. I was just trying to make Suzannah be a normal girl,” I say.And you are not normal, Alice. Why do you think that is?
She folds her arms and scowls like a two-year-old. Eyes pinched together. Lips pursed tight. It makes me want to laugh the way I would when my own children would do this. The memory comes and goes, but leaves behind a residue. It’s sticky and sweet and I don’t know what to make of it. I don’t know if I like or dislike it. Still, it lingers.
Nicole was my biggest scowler. There was a drama to it that was so extreme it felt like a parody, like a skit on a television show that was supposed to provoke laughter.
Now comes a memory of John. Being with John. Two young parents with an unruly toddler. Just one precious child in our perfect little family. His love for her bounded past his love for me, but I didn’t mind. It made me love him even more, watching him love our child. When she scowled at us over something that displeased her, having to go to bed or not getting more cookies, his laughter was so big he would have to flee the room to stifle it, leaving me to swallow mine while I talked her through it.
These memories come every day now. Memories of my family. My love for them. I don’t know if they come because I am finally being punished for what I have done. Or if they come because I spend my days with Alice, in the mind of a nine-year-old girl.
They leave me with the residue which I cannot identify.
In this moment, I decide that I like it. Its sticky sweetness covers the thoughts of the log in the fireplace and Nicole’s angry words and Evan’s eyes, turning away.
Alice takes the dolls and leaves.
“I’m not bringing you any lunch!” she says.
“Alice,” I call after her. “Please don’t be angry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
My voice is calm. I don’t care about lunch. I may be a prisoner, but I am not an animal. I am not one of John’s dogs waiting in the kitchen for my bowl to be filled. I will not beg. I would sooner starve.
This defiance is another thing that is unfamiliar, but has become a part of me.
Bring it, I think now.Bring on the punishment. The angry little prison guard. The starvation.
I go to my bed and lie down. I begin to think about my next move, the next game I will play and how I will be less obvious. I think that maybe I will watch her shows with her so I can laugh and comment in places that will provoke the same thoughts—recognition that she, too, is a prisoner. And that I am her only way out.
But then she returns. I hear the latch turn on the small panel of the metal grate and the tray scrape the floor as she slides it to my side.
“Here!” she says. “Don’t say I didn’t do you any favors.”
She learned that expression from a TV show and I continue the thoughts of my new plan even as I get up from the bed and walk back to the doorway.
I sit before her.
She has made me a peanut butter sandwich and a glass of milk.
“Thank you, Alice,” I say. “You are very kind.”
