“Can I ask what condition she has?”
“Cancer. It started in her cervix, then spread. We tried every treatment possible, but all we can do now is keep her comfortable and provide end-of-life care – if we could afford it, that is.”
“That’s tough.”
“Tell me about it,” I threw up my hands. “The irony is, the doctor convinced me to use all my savings to freeze my eggs, because it’s a hereditary condition. We’d been hoping for a miracle… you know? Then this happens, and I have no money left for her care.” Tears stung at my eyes. I had no idea why I was telling a woman I had never met before my most private thoughts, and yet the words just tumbled from my lips.
“How much do you need for her care?”
I shrugged and pushed at my hair. “Too much.”
“Ballpark?”
“$20,000, give or take.” I rested my forehead in my hands, and rubbed at my temples. It felt good to get everything off my chest to a stranger, but hearing the words out loud made it sound preposterous. I would never be able to raise $20,000. It was impossible.
“I have money.”
I thought I imagined hearing it. But then she said it again.
“I have money, and what I’m about to say might sound crazy, but I believe that things happen for a reason.”
My first thought was that she was right, it did sound crazy. “What are you talking about?”
“I have money, enough for what you need. Maybe we could help each other?”
“Help each other how?”
She took a deep breath, and surprised me by reaching for my hand. “I could buy some of your eggs. If we kept it a secret, my husband would never have to know.”
“What?” I instantly pulled my hand from hers. “You’ve got to be joking?”
“Think about it,” she said. “I buy your eggs, for $20,000. I tell my husband I want to try IVF, but we use your eggs instead. He would never have to know.”
“No!” I exclaimed, moving further down the bench. “That’s crazy, and it’s lying. Just tell him the truth, and use an egg donor. It’s still his baby. I couldn’t….”
“No, he would never allow that.”
“But I don’t understand.”
“You don’t have to understand,” she said. “All you need to know is that you can pay for your mother’s care, and the child my husband and I have will be loved. He or she will never want for a thing. You have my word.”
I stared at her, my mind reeling. “That’s…. No, I couldn’t.”
She was desperate. I could see it in her eyes, but what she was suggesting sounded insane.
“Tell me something,” she said. “Why did you come to this park?”
“Huh?”
“This park,” she repeated. “Why did you choose here as a place to come and think?”
“I don’t know, I guess I like the sculpture.”
“Yes. Because it makes you think what love can do. The way it can turn everything on its side?”
I looked at her closely. “I suppose you could say that.”
“Don’t you see? There are no coincidences. Sometimes things just happen for a reason.” She smiled and held out her hand. “I’m sorry. All this, and I haven’t even introduced myself. I’m Jane.”
I didn’t take her hand. Instead, I got to my feet and threaded my bag over my arm. “Well, Jane, I don’t know much about fate and all of that, but what I do know is the idea you’re suggesting is… I mean… How would it work? There’d be paperwork, and appointments for you and your husband. There’s no possible way you could keep something like that a secret.”
She reached into her bag and pulled out a scrap of paper. “I’m going to write my cell phone number down. If you change your mind, call, then hang up after the first ring, then wait fifteen minutes and call back. Just in case he’s there. It will give me time to move to another room.”
Despite the circumstances, I laughed out loud. “This is not some spy movie. This is real life, Jane! You can’t do these things in real life. It just doesn’t work like that.”
“But what if it could?” she asked. “Just think about it.”
Despite my reservations, I took the number, and folded it into my jeans pocket. “I’m not going to call.”
“Think about it. That’s all I ask.”
I shrugged, and turned to leave. “I hope you work things out with your husband. I’m honestly sorry for what you’re going through.”
“You too,” she smiled. “I’m sure your mother is a wonderful woman.” I knew her smile was genuine, but would a sane person offer to buy a stranger’s eggs? And in a park, no less?
On the walk back to Penn, I forced myself to think of anything other than the conversation with Jane. But no matter how I tried to distract myself, her words kept spinning around in my mind. It was impossible… But what if? And then my phone rang.
“Dad? What is it?”
“Come home Sophie, right now. It’s your mother.”
Chapter Sixteen
Lacy
I drop what’s left of my cigarette out the hotel window, and hop back to the couch. Doctors say I shouldn’t be smoking, but I say, what the hell. Cancer wasn’t responsible for taking my leg. In fact, I can’t remember ever being sick a day in my life. Goes to show you, if life’s out to get you, it’s going to get you. So why shouldn’t I smoke? Besides, it helps me think, and I have a lot to think about.
I would’ve enjoyed nothing more than to see her face when she opened that parcel and saw the box of matches. And the timing – had it been on point? Was he there when she opened it? Were the kids? I’d love to tell you that tormenting her like this is enough for me, but the truth is that it’s more frustrating than anything else. There’s no pay off, no satisfaction. I don’t get to see the strain on her face, the fear in her eyes. I need more. And more will come. I just need to be patient. Trouble is, patience has never been my strong point.
When they first fitted my prosthetic, I had expected it to work right away. I figured if amputees could run marathons and compete in the Paralympics, then walking to the store shouldn’t be all that hard, but I was dead wrong. An amputation above the knee is the most difficult to get used to. It requires rehabilitation therapy, occupational therapy, and physiotherapy, not to mention the sweating, pain, frustration, and most of all, my own impatience.
And it wasn’t just the walking. It was everything. One minute you’re an attractive woman clinging tight and waiting for your moment, the next you have a battered stump where your leg used to be. The worst part is, when you’re faced with the realization that from this moment on, the only glances you’ll ever attract are born of morbid curiosity and pity—sometimes both— and it makes you start to wonder, Where to from here? School was never my thing. And when I was signed by a local modelling agency at fourteen, I never went back – fat lot of good that ever did me, though. Turns out, a pretty face doesn’t always open doors. Sometimes it closes them, usually around 1am, when a cute boy with ripped jeans and a belt chain says, “I love you,” followed by, “We don’t need a condom, I can pull out in time.”
I went to therapy, and considered trying to accept the things I cannot change. I read books, and watched documentaries about Aimee Mullins, who had both her legs amputated when she was one year old, and went on to become a Paralympian. She was also named one of People’s 50 Most Beautiful People, but, like I said, I was never going to be anybody’s role model. So, when acceptance failed, I decided on something that felt a little closer to home. Revenge.
If someone takes everything from you—your children, your freedom, even your mobility—what are you supposed to do? Just sit back and take it? Not me. Until now, she has never cared about what she did to us – but she will. It has taken twenty-two years to find her, and had she not tried to big-note herself, creating that website or whatever it is, I probably never would have. She has built a fantasy world about who she is, and all those sheep buy into it. But not for much longer. I�
��m here now, and when I’m done, when it all comes out, the story of Madelyn-May will be completely re-written. Forever.
Chapter Seventeen
Madelyn-May 1997
Romance stories with damsels in distress were always my favorite kinds of books, mostly because I liked the happy endings. Melody and I were fifteen, and almost all the girls we knew who lived in the trailer park had already lost their virginity – mostly to boys in the trailer park, in clumsy spurts of intimacy that never lasted longer than the time it took to zip back up. I couldn’t say for sure about Melody, but despite all the humping and grinding going on around us, no one had ever touched me like that. Other than him.
In the books, the girls and women live happy after. No matter how bad their situation, there was always a prince, or a cowboy, or, dare I say it, a knight in shining armor to kick down the door and defeat their capturer. That’s why, on the day someone actually did burst through the door of our trailer and turn my life upside-down, I never dreamed it would be a fifteen-year-old girl.
On the afternoon it happened, I’d been tucked up in bed and surrounded by books for at least a week. It was the sickest I’d ever been. I had a fever, snotty nose, and cough so full of phlegm it even sounded green. But I was in no hurry to get better. Whenever I was sick he left me alone, and I got to stay home all day without the noise and annoyance of everyone else.
When I heard Melody come back from school early, right after lunch, I put my book down and dabbed at my clammy forehead. She must have caught my bug. The room we shared was tiny; it was bound to happen sooner or later. I pulled back the sheets and folded my legs over the side of the bed, thinking the least I could do was go and apologize, but before I got to the door, she burst in and grabbed at my arm.
“Ouch, you’re hurting me,” I told her, when she wouldn’t let go. “What are you doing? Quit it.”
Her usually shiny hair was a mess, and her eyes were wild. “Hurry, we don’t have much time,” she whispered. “I need to explain everything before he gets back.”
“What are you going on about? Before who gets back?” I asked. Then to my horror, she climbed onto Mercy’s bed and crossed her legs.
“That’s not going to be okay,” I warned her. “You know we’re not supposed to be up there.”
“So what? You know as well as I do that she’s not coming back.”
Our older sister had been gone for almost a month. According to Mom, she was shacked-up five trailers over with “that loser kid who looked a bit like the guy from The Walking Dead, and not the hot one, the other one.” Since I’d never been much into the whole zombie apocalypse thing, I had no idea who she meant, or which loser my sister was shacked-up with. In the trailer park, you could close your eyes and point, and chances were you’d be looking at a loser.
“Still….” I glanced nervously at the half-moon creases rippling out from Melody’s bottom. “If she knew—”
“Focus, Madelyn-May. Screw Mercy. All that matters is that I finally know what we have to do. I have a plan.”
I pulled my focus up to her eyes, and a knot formed in my stomach. “A plan for what?”
Her bony shoulders hunched forward, and black hair fell in feathers around her neck like a raven. “For taking care of Daddy.”
Melody had always been the good one. Her hair was longer, her skin shone brighter, she was smarter, funnier, prettier, and according to Mom, simply better than me. She had even beaten me at being born, coming out seconds earlier, and making a grand entrance of it. But as I watched her sitting there on the bed, something had changed. There was an itch about her, something that squirmed behind her eyes.
“Melody are you okay? Do you have a fever? If you’ve caught my cold—”
“Jesus Christ, Madelyn-May!” she snapped. “Would you pay attention? I don’t have your damned cold.”
“Well whatever it is, spit it out already. You’re starting to creep me out.”
She pushed her hands, now bunched into fists, into the pale skin of her thighs, and leaned forward. “We can end this, Madelyn-May, tonight, for good.”
“End it? End what?”
She stood up, and despite the way she was carrying on, all I could think about was straightening out the wrinkles in the quilt.
“What do you think I mean, Madelyn-May? Him. We can end him, and all his filthy, disgusting visits to our room. Don’t you want that? Don’t you want it to stop?”
She was staring right at me, but no matter how hard I stared back, I was certain the girl who had been my sister for the past fifteen years no longer lived behind those eyes. “You mean...?” I stepped back, tripping on an old magazine.
“Think about it, Madelyn-May. We can do this. You and me. Don’t you just want it to be over?”
My mouth was so dry that when I tried to swallow, my tongue got stuck to the back of my throat. “Melody, you can’t be serious. We can’t… I mean… We couldn’t. What about Mom?”
“What about Mom?” she repeated. “Mom’s not stupid, you get that right? She knows what he does to us.”
“No, she doesn’t,” I protested. “She wouldn’t let him.”
“Wouldn’t she?” She planted her hands on the emerging curves of her hips. “What is she, without him, huh? Come on, Madelyn-May, deep down you know it’s true. Mom doesn’t care about us. You should know that better than anyone.”
“But she’s Mom.”
“No, she’s a middle-aged woman with nowhere to go, and no cash, who isn’t pretty enough anymore to find someone else. That’s who Mom is. I know it, she knows it, and Daddy knows it. The only one who doesn’t know it, Madelyn-May, is you.”
“Why are you being like this all of a sudden? What’s making you act so crazy?”
She twisted and contorted her face until her features were unrecognizable. She was so full of hate, it was like pain had changed her into someone else. I thought back to what we learned in school, about how animals could adapt to their surroundings. How they changed in order to survive. Fish evolved to be amphibians, amphibians evolved into dinosaurs, and from there came birds and mammals and other creatures. It been difficult to imagine, reading it from a science book, but as I stared at her, the words leapt off the page and knitted together to form the new shape of my sister.
“Are you seriously asking why I’m acting this way?” she said. “You of all people?”
I was still a teenager, but in that moment, I realized the rape, abuse, and betrayal we had been subjected to for the past seven years had triggered an evolutionary process in my sister. Pain had woven itself into her DNA. She wasn’t the Melody she once was. The girl standing in front of me had become someone—or something—else entirely. “Melody, I understand,” I began. “I promise I do, but we can’t—”
“Has he been to see you since you got your period?” Her knuckles were white, and her eyes were wet.
“What?”
“You heard me. Has he come to see you?”
“He has, but—”
“Exactly. He was supposed to stop after we got our periods. That’s what you told me. That’s what happened with Mercy, right? He stopped after she started bleeding.”
“Well that’s what he said.”
“What he said,” Melody scoffed. “Well, why hasn’t it stopped then, huh? He’s a rapist, and a liar. Why do you think Mercy isn’t here anymore? Wake up, Madelyn-May. This is never going to stop. Not ever – unless we stop it.”
“I can’t, Melody. I can’t do… what you’re saying.” I moved toward the door, but she cut me off.
“How can you be okay with what he’s done to us? And to Mercy.”
“I’m not okay with it,” I told her, choking back tears. “But what you’re saying is… We just can’t.”
“Why can’t we?”
“Because….”
“Because why? He’s killing us, Madelyn-May. They both are, he and Mom – and you know what? They don’t give a shit.”
My mind was reeling. I had a fe
ver. I couldn’t think straight. “I don’t….”
“We have to.”
“I don’t feel well. I can’t think….”
“Pull yourself together, Madelyn-May, there’s no time for your ‘I’m sick’ shit.” She dug into her pocket, and pulled out a handful of skinny white pills. “Here, look….”
“What’s that?”
“Xanax.”
“You’re going to OD him?”
“No, there’s not enough for that.”
“Then what?”
“We’re going to drug him. Then when he’s out, we suffocate him with a pillow. I need you to help me hold it down over his face. He won’t feel a thing, and then we’ll be free, Madelyn-May, finally. Mom too.”
“Who would pay rent on the trailer?” I hated myself for even asking.
My sister had it all figured out. “He has a life insurance policy. I overheard them talking about it one night. Mom made him take it after that time he fell and hit his head, remember?”
I thought back to that afternoon. He fallen because Mercy had taken all she could take, and kicked him so hard in the chest that he lost his balance and fell back, hitting his head on the corner of our dresser. I glanced over at the fractured wood. “He really wouldn’t feel anything? And we could just live here in peace with Mom?”
I didn’t know if it was the fever taking hold, the primal look in my sister’s eyes, or that cracked wood of the corner of the dresser, but somehow the plan was starting to make sense.
“Not a thing.”
“What if he wakes up?”
“He won’t,” she assured me. “I have enough to make sure he stays down.”
I leaned in and inspected the pills. “Where did you even get those?”
“Doesn’t matter. Are you in?”
His damp brow moving back and forth over my face. The guttural sounds. His nicotine stained fingers pressing into my arm. Maybe he did deserve to die. “But why now?” I asked. “What’s changed?”
She stepped back and her hand came to rest across her stomach. “Because Madelyn-May. That fucking bastard made me pregnant.”
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