I turn, coming face-to-face with an older woman, wild white hair tumbling over her shoulders, hanging down almost to her waist. Her grip is tight on my wrist, and in the dim light coming from my phone, I can see veins protruding on the back of her hand.
“Florence,” she says, “can you ever forgive me?”
“Florence?” I echo. My heart thumps in my chest. I try to remember the last time I heard my mother’s name—her real name—spoken aloud. Naomi never says it. If she must mention Georgia, she refers to her only asyour mother, as though anything else she ever was no longer matters.
“Georgia. I know. You wanted us to call you Georgia, and we refused. We said it was part of your therapy. Like taking your phone, when really we just needed to keep you quiet. What if you’d made a statement that contradicted ours? No, no—we had to take it, even you can understand that. And who’s to say it didn’t benefit your therapy?”
This woman participated in my mother’stherapy? I compare her to Dr. Mackenzie, to what Edward has told me about his doctor. I can’t imagine her sitting on one of the cottages’ white couches, crossing her legs and asking Georgia,And how did that make you feel?
“It was a good deal for you, too, you know. You got to benefit from our facility almost for free, the best care money could buy.”
I look down and notice that the woman’s bare feet are bleeding. She must have walked through the shattered glass I left by the front door.
Again, she says, “Georgia.”
“I’m not Georgia,” I murmur, unsure whether this will calm or agitate her. The woman simply shakes her head. I try to pull my arm away, but her grip holds fast.
The truth is, I look like my mother. Not just the nose I wasn’t supposed to inherit, the pale skin. I didn’t see it until after she was gone: the way my upper lip thins when I smile, the way my hair frames my face.
“My husband wanted to take the business for himself,” she says. “You know, Georgia, what it’s like to have a husband like that. He gets the credit while you do all the hard work.”
The woman wears a stained nightgown beneath a too-big flannel robe with frayed cuffs. Her mouth hangs open, slack, her teeth blotchy and stained. I smell alcohol on her breath.
“He only wanted to calm you down. He didn’t know what he was doing. He gave you too much.”
Blood drips from the cut on my arm onto her pale skin, snaking between her fingers.
“I was trying to save my son. You understand, don’t you? You’re a mother, too.”
The woman squeezes my wrist so tight that I think I may never be free of her.
“Your body was so heavy,” she says.
57Georgia Blue
My mind is racing. I wonder what kind of sedative Andrew gave me, blunting my body but not my brain. Then I think maybe it’s that my brain knows something is wrong, knows I’m not safe, so despite the drug fighting to put it to sleep, it’s wide awake, trying to work out how to get away from these awful people.
Andrew slides his hands beneath my armpits, and Evelyn holds my ankles, her skin smooth and soft against mine. I bet she uses expensive lotion that smells like roses made by some company that’s been around for a hundred years. The sort of scent that would smell rotten if I tried it, clearly not meant for someone like me.
Andrew heaves like I’m an enormous burden he can’t wait to unload. I want to beg him to put me down, let me go, but he holds firm. Unlike Evelyn, his hands are rough and his grip hurts.
I feel the chill when we move outside. Through my barely open eyes, I see plumes of steam coming from their mouths, the stars overhead, snow flurries in the moonlight. My head lolls to one side and I see dead leaves crunching beneath Andrew’s feet, his brown boots, his long steps.
“This way,” Evelyn says firmly. She sounds sober now, determined. She has a plan, though she’s yet to say it aloud.Share it with the class, Evelyn.
I can feel Andrew resisting. He tries to pull me in the opposite direction, and it feels like they’re pulling me apart, wrenching my body in two.
“Andy,” Evelyn says, and for a moment, I hear how she must have sounded when he was a little kid. The nickname should be a sign of affection, but her tone is exasperated, impatient, weary. I can still hear my mother calling meFloin exactly the same tone. “Thisway.”
What must it have been like to be raised by Evelyn, her unblinking eyes assessing every bad grade or broken curfew? Did she and her husbandtherapize their son at the dinner table? Or were they too busy with their patients to notice the little boy who wanted to be a star?
The air is getting saltier now. I can feel my hair growing knotty in the breeze, having long since fallen out of the messy bun I tied it in hours ago. I was going to sing. I was going to put on such a show.
“Now what?” Andrew asks, out of breath. His hands are growing slick with sweat despite the cold. He squeezes me tighter, like he thinks he might lose his grip.
Please,I think,lose your grip.
I imagine myself running away, then remember I can’t. Besides, Evelyn’s hands are still dry, her hold firm. I should’ve guessed she’d be the strong one between the two of them.
