He squeezed my hand. “You’ve got this, Maeve Moore.”
I took a ragged breath and started toward her room.You got this.
I didn’t think I did.
I found the room. The door looked exactly the same as all the other doors – grey with a thin window of safety glass. A big, clunky metal handle. I felt as though it should look different somehow, more terrifying. Perhaps what was behind it was terrifying enough.
I sucked in a deep breath and pushed open the door. The first thing that hit me was the smell. Acrid, sterile, bleach. Cold grey walls. Four beds, separated by faded blue curtains, only one of which was drawn.
My sister had the bed in the far left corner. She lay still, her face turned toward the window, which only showed a view across a tiny courtyard to the cancer ward of the hospital. I swallowed the lump in my throat and managed to croak out her name.
“Kelly?”
She jerked her head around. “Maeve? It’s really you?”
“Of course.” I rushed to her bedside, throwing my arms around her. Her body felt tiny, bony, not like Kelly at all. And she didn’t smell right. The Kelly I’d grown up with always smelled fresh and sweet, like roses. This Kelly smelled of disinfectant. “I heard what happened and I jumped on the very next plane.”
“It was horrible. They fed this gross stuff down my throat, and I threw up, and now all my poo is black.”
“It’s charcoal,” I said, remembering something I’d read about feeding patients charcoal to make them throw up.
She wrinkled her face. “Gross. Why would they do that to a person?”
“To save your life.” Tears burned in the corners of my eyes. “Kelly, talk to me. What happened? Why did you do this?”
She turned her head away and took a breath. “I can’t…”
“You have to. Kelly, I’m so worried about you.”
“You aren’t though, not really. And I don’t blame you.” She continued to stare at the ceiling, but her voice took on this high-pitched tone, like she was struggling to keep herself chipper. “You’ve got your castle and your hot guys and a real chance at a future. I know you’re sad about Mom and Dad dying. I’m not saying you’re not. But you did all right out of it, you know? I’m sleeping on a leaking air mattress in a cold bedroom with bars over the windows. I live with people who truly believe our parents were neglecting us because they let us have our own thoughts. I’m not even allowed to eat refined sugar! Uncle Bob threw out all my makeup the other day and every skirt in my closet cut above my ankles. Every Sunday on the way to church we drive past our old house. And last week, last week…”
I remembered the dream I had the other night, where I’d huddled in fear while Uncle Bob loomed over me, his face twisted with righteous anger as he raised his hand.
The truth slammed into me. “Uncle Bob hit you.”
Kelly whipped her head around. “How did you…?”
No.
Oh, Kelly. I’m so, so sorry.
“I’m your sister. I’ve known you my entire life, and when I think about what it might take to make you think about doing something like this, I just draw a complete blank. Except whenI remember Uncle Bob’s eyes that Christmas when he yelled at me about evolution and ‘the gays,’ and I wonder what it might be like to live with him.”
“He’s horrible,” Kelly sobbed. “He wants everything to go back to biblical times, where women raise babies but not their voices. I’d only been with them a day when I saw him slap Aunt Florence because she slightly overcooked the steak. He was trying to force me to quit working at Ruby’s, and when I said I needed the money for college he got all smug and said he’d taken care of that for me. That’s when I found out I was going to this super-conservative bible college to learn how to be a good pastor’s wife. It’s one step away from a nunnery.”
“Oh, Kelly.” Tears streamed down my face. The dream was real. It wasreal,and I hadn’t helped her.
“I don’t even know if I really meant it. I saw Aunt Florence taking those pills and I guess I thought that maybe that’s what got her through. So I stole them, but then they made me go to that stupid camp and it was all about how to glorify God and be the best Christian and I just kept thinking about how Mom and Dad were a hundred times more Christian than Uncle Bob, and they were dead, and everything good about my life died along with them. I just got so angry and so sad, and I wanted to see them again. Why not, right? No one cares what I do.”
“Oh, Kelly, I care. I wish you’d told me you felt like this. I would’ve…”
My words trailed off. I had no idea what I would’ve done. This wasn’t in any of my astronomy textbooks.
“I tried, Maeve. I didn’t have the time zones messed up. I called you, but you either didn’t pick up or you were busy. And I know I should have said something anyway, but I just…couldn’t.”
My heart dropped to my knees. I remembered Kelly’s phone call, how her voice had sounded drawn, strained. I’d put itdown to the unreliability of international calls, but she’d been depressed.
She needed me and I’d brushed her off.
