My stomach churned. I thought I would heave up what I had eaten, but I lowered my head quickly and turned away.
“I’ll make the bed,” I said.
I could feel him still standing there watching me. Surely he was wondering if I was sincere or not. Then I heard him slap his hands together. “I’m off,” he said. “This is going to be better than either of us imagined.”
“Wait!” I cried, and he paused. “Please take the boards off the windows like you said you would. I’d like to have some sunshine today.”
He looked at the windows hesitantly. If there was no one close by, why would he be afraid? Someone must come here, I thought, maybe the gas man or the electric man to check a meter, or perhaps a mailman did come to the house occasionally.
“I don’t know if I like the idea of your face in that window, looking out as if you wanted to get away,” he said, thinking aloud.
“Oh, I wouldn’t put my face in a window. That would be silly.”
“Maybe later,” he said.
He might be mad, have some mental illness, but he wasn’t stupid when it came to keeping me trapped. It was so frustrating and discouraging. Was I smart enough to defeat him? Of course, nothing I had done in my life was as challenging as this, my battle to survive. How silly and insignificant to me now were all the little intrigues Haylee and I had gotten into when we entered public school and began to socialize. Even placating and confusing Mother so we could get our way didn’t begin to compare.
And besides, Haylee was far better at these sorts of things than I was. She knew just how to slip past a rule, fly under the radar, whether it came to something Mother wanted or something the school enforced. She always made sure to grab my hand and drag me along with her. Mother was more reluctant to punish us for something if we both did it, especially when we were older.
She had tried her best to ensure that Haylee and I would always be alike. She wanted us to cherish our similarities, cling to them more than we clung to anything. Both of us began to rebel against that, Haylee far more determinedly than I, but in so many ways, I tried not to follow her, tried to avoid making the same choices. I wanted to be free to own my own smiles, my own tears, my own thoughts. I didn’t want to be as cynical and selfish. She was stingy when it came to spending her sympathy. When someone in our school got hurt or was in trouble or had family misfortune, she would sneer at those who showed compassion and look for ways to blame the victims. They were stupid or clumsy or certainly wouldn’t “shed a tear over you.”
Could I be as cynical and selfish now? Could I be hard enough to endure whatever Anthony did to me, imposed on me, so that I could eventually fight back? Haylee put me here. Now could I in every sense, even ironically the way he insisted, become Haylee after all? I hated her for what she had done, but I envied her for what she could suffer and yet still grow stronger. I needed her confidence, her ego, her narcissism. If she were the one here, no matter what Anthony did, she would overcome.
All right, then, Mother, I’ll see if what you wanted, what you predicted and dreamed for us, will come true, will be true. I’ll harden my heart. I’ll smother my tears. I’ll dig a hole in a corner and bury my self-pity. I’ll become my sister and survive.
What was Haylee doing now? Was she becoming more like me in order to keep Mother happy? Even if she was, I was sure it would be short-lived. We would have switched places. She would be the one shedding tears, suffering openly, draped in mourning, refusing to smile or laugh, curling herself up in a ball, and inviting the sympathy she so disdained and hated to spend on someone else. How many hugs and kisses would she welcome in my name?
“I want my sister!” she would cry out, and stop everyone from talking. Dozens of hands and arms would reach out to her. She’d bathe in their comfort, and then, one day she’d turn to someone offering condolences in school and say, “She was stupid to be so trusting. I can’t cry over her anymore. I’ve got to go on with my life and do what I can for my mother and father.”
And she would leave it at that, the memory of me swept out onto the doorstep to blow away in the wind.
All these thoughts raced through my mind as I watched Anthony go to the door. Forget to lock it, I prayed. Be too excited for us, and don’t pause to insert the key in the lock. I waited anxiously when he closed the door, but my heart sank. I heard the lock click into place. He didn’t trust me after all. I didn’t have him convinced, but I understood that wouldn’t matter to him anyway. He wouldn’t mind my pretending as long as I was pretending what he wanted. I was at a crossroads. I didn’t know which way to go, whether to fight him in subtle ways the way Haylee probably would or be submissive and hope that soon he would be satisfied and convinced and let down his guard.
For now, I had to do the latter. Despite how much I wanted to be like my sister and confront him as hard as she would, I saw his temper. He could kill me in an instant or punish me severely. I had to strengthen myself with the belief that no matter what Haylee had said or done, everyone was involved in trying to find me, even the FBI. I’d be rescued soon. How could I not be? I told myself, and somehow heard Haylee laughing at my hope.
I went to work on the basement apartment, cleaning up, making the bed, and taking another shower and brushing my hair. I had to feel like I was alive, or else I wouldn’t fight to survive. I even chose another one of his mother’s dresses, tan with a frilly collar. I tied a belt around it to keep the hem up and wore his slippers. When I saw myself in the mirror, I thought I looked like a madwoman who had wandered off the grounds of a mental clinic.
What if I do become someone else? I thought. What if I’m here so long that in order to survive, I lose track of myself and take on all the characteristics of the woman he is inventing? Years and years from now, when I finally escaped, would I even want to go home? People wouldn’t recognize me. Old friends would shy away. Even Mother would look at me like she would look at some stranger. Part of that reaction would be because I was so strange, but they might also be afraid of me, afraid that I had become truly mad, even dangerous in some way. I’d be lonelier than ever.
And while all this was happening, what was happening to Haylee? Would she even bother to look in at my empty room, or would she close the door and walk by as if it had been walled up? How long would it take her to forget me? Would she ever have a night of terrible regret and cry? Oh, she would pretend, but would whatever of me was in her pop to the surface occasionally and fill her with remorse?
How was my father going to react to all this? In so many ways, he had become like a stranger. We had seen him less and less, especially when he was living with another woman and her child. I had heard similar stories from others whose parents had divorced, with one or the other becoming so distant that the children were never sure again that there was any deep love for them. Daddy had missed so much about our growing up, especially these past few years. He was almost always unable to attend any school functions or meetings about us. He even missed one of our birthdays and had his secretary send over gifts—two of each, of course.
Was he even involved in the search for me, or was he on some business trip? If he was there in our home now, was he comforting Haylee? Despite how hard Mother was surely taking all this, outsiders would certainly direct a great deal of attention to Haylee. Surely something like this had to be more devastating for an identical twin. The image of her hugging Daddy or crying on his shoulder sickened me. After all, a weight had been lifted from her shoulders.
She didn’t have to worry about me agreeing to do the things she wanted to do. She didn’t have to think about people comparing us. Once she had said, “Sometimes I feel like I’m competing with myself, thanks to you,” like it was my fault that we were identical. Wasn’t it simply logical that people would wonder who was smarter, who was the better athlete, who would have more friends, and, of course, who was nicer to be with?
All these thoughts were like needles pricking me around my temples. I slapped my hands over them and stamped m
y feet, as if they had fallen out of my brain and were crawling at my feet on the floor.
“I can’t stand this! I can’t stand this!” I cried, and rushed over to the sink to get a butter knife. Then I went to the door and explored the tooth of the lock. Perhaps I could pry it back and pull the door open. Of course, the upstairs door might be locked, but maybe I could do the same thing. He was surely going to be away long enough.
I could barely see what looked like the tooth of the lock, but I inserted the butter knife and tried to move it while pulling on the door handle. Suddenly, a piece of the doorframe where I was working splintered. Oh, no, I thought. He was sure to see it and know what I was trying to do. I didn’t want that chain hooked to my ankle again. I studied the little piece of splintered wood and then went to the cabinet by the sink and looked for anything that might be sticky. I was lucky; I found some chewing gum. Returning to the door with a piece I had chewed to soften it, I used it like putty and neatly got the splintered wood back onto the frame. That should work.
The butter knife looked all right. I put it back and sat for a while, frustrated. Then I went to the window and boosted myself onto a chair to peek out between the boards. It looked sunny. I would never take a beautiful day for granted again, I thought. I would probably take deep breaths of fresh air every hour on the hour when I was free. I’d never be bored simply taking a walk. I imagined myself lying on a blanket on the lawn, the way we used to when we were little, staring up at the clouds imagining how they looked like an animal or a boat or a face. Sometimes Haylee and I would argue about it until Mother was nearby and could hear us. Then one of us would point to a cloud and tell her what it was. The other would not object. Arguments, even about clouds, were very dangerous and unsisterly.
And then there would be the nights, of course, and the moon and stars. Did I ever—did any of us ever—think that we’d miss seeing them? People who live in cities with all their lights don’t see many stars, but when they do, they notice, at least once in a while.
I remembered how my first real boyfriend, Matt Tesler, was into stargazing and knew the constellations. Haylee had ruined my budding relationship with him. It wasn’t long after that he and his family had moved away, but first loves are always there in your memory, like a stain that won’t wash out with time or new loves. Of course, your best love will be lasting and true. That’s what Mother told us and believed even after she and Daddy divorced. He just wasn’t really her best love, she had said. “Mine is still waiting to be discovered. And so is yours, both of yours.”
Would I live to make that discovery?
Would I live to graduate from high school, go to college, meet my love, and get married?
Would I have children?
Would the distance between where I was sitting and the door to this hellhole in which I was trapped be the last and only distance I would ever travel? Every prisoner, every other kidnapped person, surely wondered the same things. Could I outlive the frustration and fear?
I had a new one. Suppose something happened to Anthony. How long would it take before someone came to this house? He seemed to have no one. Eventually, someone would come, of course, but would it be too late for me? Would the food run out? New nightmares were pounding on the door, trying to get in.
Just as I was about to turn away from the window, I caught the shadow of something moving. I strained to look to the right, and then I saw a shadow again, and I began to scream. I screamed as loudly and as hard as I could. Then I waited, hoping. Suddenly, something furry appeared, and a rabbit looked in at the window. I could see its nose twitching as it sniffed. The disappointment weighed so heavily on my heart that I sank quickly onto the chair and then stepped off and put it back where it was.
Mr. Moccasin sat by his bowl watching me.
“Stop looking at me!” I screamed at him, and then I stepped threateningly toward him. I didn’t want to hate him, but I hated everything about this place and everything connected to Anthony. “How can you like him?” I shouted. The cat walked slowly and arrogantly along the wall and found a new place to sit. We stared at each other, and then I threw myself onto the bed and closed my eyes.
I didn’t sleep because I was tired.
I slept to escape.
9
Haylee
The psychiatric nurse came in the afternoon. I didn’t know Daddy had definitely decided to go ahead and hire her. I was still in my light-pink pajamas, barefoot, bored to death since I was still not returning phone calls or answering the phone. Except for the ringing of the phones downstairs, the house was as quiet as a class taking a test.
I was never fond of self-imposed silence. When Mother would put me or both of us in the pantry to punish us for something, I was always crying and screaming inside myself. She’d listen at the door to be sure we weren’t talking to each other, and if we did, we’d get more time in the “box.”
Every hour, at least half a dozen people called, many of them students in our school, girls we knew, girls I hung out with, and some boys. I could tell by looking at the phone and seeing the caller ID. It was hard to resist answering, but I did.
One time, I had to go to the phone because it was my grandmother Clara Beth, who insisted that Daddy let her speak with me. We hadn’t seen her in nearly two years. I always felt that for a grandmother, she was way too formal with us, sometimes reminding me of a mean grade-school teacher like Mrs. Cabin, who could burn you with her furious glare. At least, that was how I felt. Sometimes when she reprimanded me, I’d walk out of her room rubbing my face.
Nana Clara Beth had a voice as sharp as Mrs. Cabin’s. She talked to Mother in a similar way, and Mother was just as cold in return. When I was younger, I found it odd that my mother and her mother were so distant. It was the first time I wondered if a mother could dislike her own child or vice versa.
“How are you handling this situation?” she asked me as soon as I said hello.
I wanted to say with kid gloves or something equally stupid, but instead, I simply said, “The best I can, Nana. It’s not easy to lose your sister, especially if she’s a twin.”
Most of my friends and Kaylee’s called their grandmothers warmer things, like Granny, Nanny, or Nana. Some even had loving nicknames for them, like Kelly Graham, who called her grandmother Dolly, which had nothing to do with her grandmother’s real name. She said she had called her that since she was a very little girl and had never changed it, whereas I wished I could get away with calling her Clara Beth instead of Nana. I never really felt she was a Nana.
“Well, I’m sure your mother is worthless when it comes to helping the authorities or you and your father with this,” she said. “When she would get a splinter in her finger, she would cry and scream so hard that her father would want to take her to the emergency room. So?”
“She’s very upset, yes,” I said. I thought it was a little bit too harsh to say worthless or to compare Kaylee’s abduction to getting a splinter in your finger. At least I wouldn’t say it, even though it was probably true, and I especially wouldn’t have expected a mother to say it about her daughter. Maybe Mother defended us and bragged about us so much because her mother had not done so when it came to her. After all, what if it had been me?
“It all sounds like a mess, a terrible mess. When things like this happen, Haylee, you have to become far more mature overnight. You don’t want your father or anyone having to worry about you now, too,” she warned. “Be sure to help out at the house.”
“I will,” I said, wanting only to get off the phone.
“We’ll think about coming there,” she added, but it sounded weak, as good as saying Someday we’ll see you, which she had often said.
“Okay, Nana Clara Beth.” I think it annoyed her for me to say her full name like that, so I was sure always to do it.
“Is your father still close by?”
“No. He went upstairs to see about Mother,” I said, even though I had no idea where he was at the moment.
; “Tell him I’ll call again soon.”
“I will. Thanks for calling. Good-bye, Nana Clara Beth.”
She didn’t say good-bye. She simply hung up. I smiled to myself, imagining her look of irritation.
I realized that Daddy wasn’t upstairs. He was in what had been his office when he lived with us, and he was on the phone with people from his business. I wondered if I should go in and complain about him doing anything except sitting with me and being worried sick. But maybe that was too much, I thought, and returned to the living room. I had just flopped onto the sofa when I heard the doorbell. I waited, hoping Daddy would come out to answer it, but he didn’t. The doorbell rang again. I heard him shout, “Get that, please, Haylee. I’m on the phone.”
I half hoped it was one of my friends or Kaylee’s. I knew just how I would act and look. I’d make sure that they’d be sorry they had come. Of course, it could be the police with some important news. I looked out the window first and saw an ordinary late-model white Honda in our driveway. The detectives had a four-door black Ford.
I opened the door to find an African-American woman who looked like she was in her sixties. Her short hair was neatly trimmed and almost completely gray, a dull sort of dirty gray because of the way the black strands resisted in places. She was an inch or so taller than I was but heavy, with very manly shoulders and dark-brown eyes that looked too small for her face because of her heavy cheeks and wide forehead. She was not in any sort of nurse’s uniform, so I had no idea that she was the nurse Daddy had hired.
For a moment, I considered that she might be a Jehovah’s Witness, but she had nothing in her hands to give away, no pamphlets or cards. She wore a dark-blue jacket over a cream-colored blouse and a pair of black slacks, with what looked to be specially designed gray walking shoes and the ugliest thick white socks that rippled around her ankles. She wore no makeup, not even lipstick, and didn’t even have on a pair of earrings. Her watch had a big face and looked like a man’s watch.
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