Mother Knows Best

by Kira Peikoff

  “Do you have marshmallows?” I ask.

  “Sure do!”

  If I’m stuck here, I might as well have my favorite drink. “Okay, thanks.”

  “Just water for me,” Dad mumbles.

  “Pellegrino, with a lime?”

  He perks up in surprise. “You remember that?”

  “A decade isn’t that long,” she teases. Her face turns pink, and I notice that her makeup is perfect—not too much, but enough to make her eyes pop and her skin glow. She is beautiful, especially when she’s happy. No wonder everyone at school loves her.

  Are we hostages or guests? Suddenly I can’t tell.

  Just to be on the safe side, I sneak my cell phone from my backpack into my sweater pocket when no one is looking. Dad is busy keeping an eye on her, and she’s chopping vegetables, boasting about how great a cook she’s become.

  “I had to teach myself after—oh, never mind. Abby, do you like mushrooms in your salad? I know your father doesn’t.”

  “No, thanks. My mom is the only one who eats mushrooms.”

  Crap, I did it again. Mrs. Miller frowns as though I’ve disrespected her in class.

  “Let’s not talk about her tonight. I’d rather not spoil a wonderful evening.”

  Dad rubs his hands together, but he doesn’t say anything. It’s so unlike him.

  “Your mother has done nothing wrong,” he whispers to me. “Everything she did was out of love for you.”

  “What was that?” Mrs. Miller comes around the counter holding a wet dishrag. “What did you say?”

  He lifts his chin. “I said, her mother was incredibly brave. You can’t deny that no matter how much you hate her.”

  Mrs. Miller’s eyes flash in rage. “Was I not clear the first time?” She smacks the rag on the edge of the table. “Enough about her!”

  I scoot closer to Dad on the couch, but that pisses her off even more.

  “Your hot chocolate is getting cold!” she barks.

  I leap up and follow her into the kitchen. Dad stays behind, watching me. Why won’t he do anything? I don’t understand. He’s the one who, when I was fighting with Sydney, told me I should never appease a bully.

  At the stove, Mrs. Miller is frying up some steaks in sizzling butter. A bowl of salad is on the counter, and sweet potatoes are heating up in the oven. It all smells amazing, but I’m not hungry. When she hands me a mug of hot chocolate topped with marshmallows, I don’t want to drink it, but I know I have no choice.

  “Is it good?” she demands.

  “Delicious!” I tell her. “So good.”

  Her wrinkled brow relaxes. “I’m sorry if I got edgy, okay? I just want us to have a good time.”

  “It’s fine.” I bury my face in the cup.

  “Remember, you’re my little girl!”

  I choke on a marshmallow. She pats my back.

  “It’ll take some time to get used to. But you know what?” She brings her face close to mine. “There is nothing I am prouder of than helping you come into this world.”

  I force myself to smile. Thanks? It’s impossible to picture myself as a bunch of cells in a dish, and just as strange to imagine her in a lab with my dad instead of in front of a classroom. There must be a reason she is no longer a scientist. I think of my dad’s mysterious words: We got in some trouble back then …

  “Did you also get in trouble?” I ask.

  Her face darkens. “Quite a bit, thanks to your other mom.”

  The phrase is clearly meant as an insult: your other, worse mom.

  I have no idea what to think, but she doesn’t explain. Behind her, in the living room, I see my dad bring his silently vibrating phone to his ear and whisper into it, but Mrs. Miller cranes her neck to follow my gaze and he drops it just in time.

  She turns back to me with open arms. “Don’t worry; it was all worth it for you.”

  I allow her to hug me. But her touch sets off my panic again because she holds me too tight, for too long. We are hostages, I think. She knows we can’t run away, because where would we go? Deeper into the woods? When she finally releases me, her eyes are watery, and so are mine.

  “I’ve waited so long to do that,” she says. “Thank you.”

  I wipe my forehead. My cell starts vibrating in my sweater pocket. I quickly reach into the pocket and send it to voicemail. Mom must have been trying to reach Dad, now me. I’ll call her back after I take care of business first. “Can I go to the bathroom?”

  “Of course; you don’t have to ask. It’s not class.” She points me down the hall.

  I walk slowly on purpose and avoid my dad’s stare. I don’t want her to think we’re communicating behind her back. But I wish I could somehow let him know that I’m taking charge. When the cops show up here at 12 Cherry Mill Lane, I’m sure he’ll be proud.

  Weirdly, there’s no lock on the bathroom door, just an empty circle where I guess a lock used to be. Oh well. I turn the faucet on as loud as it gets and take out my phone. Please have a signal. Two bars. Good enough. I tap 911.

  And then I see an angry blue eye peering at me through the hole.

  I let out a scream as the door suddenly swings open. “I knew it!” She grabs the phone out of my hand before I can press CALL.

  “No!” I yell. “That’s mine!”

  Dad appears behind her, furious. “What do you think you’re doing? Barging in on her in the bathroom?”

  “She stole my phone!” I cry, feeling hot tears build up behind my eyes. “Please, I promise I won’t use it; just give it back.”

  With a snort, she marches away from us and stops in front of a bookcase in the hallway. On top of it is a small box I hadn’t noticed. She puts her thumb on it and it pops open. When she turns around to face us, she’s dangling a silver handgun.

  My dad gasps. I dart behind his legs, my sob finally letting loose. We’re trapped.

  “It’s strictly for safety,” she says calmly. “Living alone in the woods, you know.”

  “You can’t just hold us hostage!” Dad shouts.

  She rolls her eyes. “Quit being so dramatic. I just want to have a pleasant dinner without interruption.” She turns up an empty palm. “I’ll need yours as well.”

  My heart roars in my ears. I wonder if he’s figuring out a way to attack her. His shoulders tighten; he looks frantically around the tiny cottage for an escape, a weapon, anything.

  “The phone,” she snaps. “Was I not clear the first time?”

  “Fine.” He takes his cell out of his pocket and tosses it. She catches it easily and puts both our phones into the small gun box, then slams it closed.

  “But if you so much as touch a hair on her head,” he warns, “I will kill you with my bare hands.”

  “Oh, get a grip,” she says, walking back to the dining room table and pulling out the head chair. Then she sets the gun down beside her fork. “Now let’s eat, shall we? It’s getting cold.”

  CLAIRE

  I am living my old nightmare. The most depressing place in the world is an inpatient psych unit: the wary nurses rushing from room to room, answering the beeps of machines and the howls of patients, the blur of white everywhere—sheets, walls, gowns—everything sterile, immaculate, impersonal; the lack of privileges—nothing sharp, we’re all safety risks, all packed together in this place of last resort. The schizophrenics are the noisiest; they jabber the most, in different tones. The psychotics are the quietest, but the scariest. When I arrived, I was wheeled past an unblinking man sitting ramrod straight in his bed, scowling at anyone who passed.

  I’ve suffered through the intake process with Rob, passing security checks and signing consent forms agreeing to evaluation and treatment. Now that a semiprivate room has opened up after a four-hour wait, I’m stuck in a bed that’s protected from my fellow delusional companion by a thin blue curtain. Every so often, when her meds wear off, she cries out that the television is beaming radiation into her brain. Being here is enough to make anyone crazy if you weren’
t already.

  And that’s what I keep coming back to: I’m not like them.

  Not anymore. A long time ago, I needed this kind of place. They saved me from the shadow of Colton that haunted me at night, from the voice that told me to jump out the window where he was waiting, to punish the staff who was denying me my son.

  But now I know he is dead and gone. I should never see him again, despite my recent frantic episodes. Maybe my lucid periods mean that my relapse will be easy to control with meds and I’ll be able to go home sooner than we estimated. A week, maybe two? The thought of Abby going to sleep without me is devastating. This is the first night in her entire life I won’t be there to tuck her in.

  My door unlocks from the outside and a nurse marches into my room, her face covered by a blue mask, but I can see her weary eyes; they’re underscored by purplish circles and they apprise me with caution. She thinks I’m one of them.

  She approaches me with a clipboard and a plastic water cup. “Lisa Burke?”

  I sit up. “That’s me.” I’ve checked in under my new name so they don’t pull my old records and connect me to the identity I’ve worked so hard to hide. As far as Rob told them, this is my first voluntary hospitalization for hallucinatory PTSD and depression. I have never been to this hospital, but it’s still possible someone could recognize me. Even if they do, though, they couldn’t prove it.

  The nurse checks the number on my wristband and compares it to my chart, then holds out the water and a little white pill. “Here’s one milligram of Xanax to help you sleep.”

  I will be a model patient. I will get out of here soon.

  “Thank you.” I swallow it. Then I lay back against my stiff pillow. Its harsh detergent stench reminds me of how far I am from home.

  “How are you feeling?” She holds a pen over the clipboard, ready to notate my chart. I notice she’s backed up two steps, in case I try to grab the pen and stab her. The staff never get too close to a wild animal in a cage. And multiple systems are in place in case backup is required. I know, because I’ve tested their limits before.

  “I’m feeling pretty good right now. I don’t think I’ll need to stay very long.”

  She scribbles something, but her expression is unreadable. Is she secretly laughing at me? All crazy patients must say the same thing, just like prisoners who think they were wrongly sentenced. I don’t belong here. There’s been a mistake.

  “Okay, Mrs. Burke. I’ll be in to check on you around midnight.” She shuffles backward to the door with her eyes on me, never letting down her guard.

  “Wait! Can I call my husband? I want to say good-night.”

  It’s torturous not to have my cell phone, which I surrendered on admittance.

  She considers the sincerity of my plea. So far, I have no marks against me. “Fine. I’ll take you to the supervised area. You can dial out from there.”

  We walk down the hallway to a small room shielded by Plexiglas, in direct view of the bustling nurses’ station. There are two black landline phones on a wooden desk in front of plastic chairs.

  I eagerly take a seat and dial Rob’s cell from memory. It rings and rings. No answer. I call again, aware that my nurse is watching me closely from the other side of the glass. My time is running short. I press the phone to my ear. After three more rings, he picks up, but instead of his usual “Hi, love,” he sounds strangely urgent.

  “Honey!” he whispers.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “We were—”

  Click. The line goes dead.

  What the fuck?

  I redial, but it goes straight to voice mail. I try again. Voice mail.

  The nurse pokes her head in. “All done?”

  “Almost.” I punch in Abby’s cell. It rings once, then voice mail. We don’t have a landline at home. There’s no other way to get in touch with them.

  I rush out of the room and almost collide with a doctor in a white coat. She gives me a dirty look, and two security guards instantly appear on either side of me. Their expressions are menacing.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to …” I try to veer around them, but one of the guards blocks my way. “Can someone help me?” I yell. “I need help!”

  My nurse appears at my elbow. Her eyes look as tired as ever. I wonder if she’s as desperate to get home to her child as I am to get to mine. “What’s wrong, Mrs. Burke?”

  “I think my family’s in trouble.”

  She trades a grim look with another nurse, who’s watching me from the station with one finger on a red intercom button.

  “Seriously, I’m not crazy! My husband sounded really upset!”

  “Everything’s fine. He just left a few hours ago, remember?”

  Terror leeches into my bloodstream. I don’t think I imagined his distress.

  “No, I think something bad happened.”

  She tries to escort me back to my room. “Paranoia is common with your illness.”

  “Please.” I dig in my heels. “Someone needs to check on them!”

  Her voice acquires a no-nonsense edge. “Mrs. Burke, you need to return to your room.”

  “No, I need to find them!” I shake her off and sprint back to the phone area but am quickly intercepted by the two guards. The next seconds pass in a screaming blur as they pin my arms behind my back and plunge a needle into my thigh, its sting so acute that I fall to my knees.

  Then the pain ebbs and blackness rushes in.

  JILLIAN

  Abby and Rob stare sullenly at their food. “All this …” Nash gestures suspiciously at the spread. I wonder how much he remembers of that special night a dozen years ago, during the summer we fell in love. “I don’t understand,” he says. “Why did you have all this ready in advance if you didn’t know we were coming?”

  Still sharp as a tack. “Actually …” I give Abby a sad smile. “I was going to drop it off for Mrs. Schaeffer tonight.”

  Her fifth-grade history teacher has just started chemo for breast cancer, and the school organized a drive to deliver meals for the family.

  Abby’s pout deepens. She can hardly take her eyes off the gun at my elbow. “Won’t they be hungry now?”

  “They weren’t expecting it. I’ll take my turn tomorrow instead.”

  I peek at Nash. It’s essential to remind him that I have a good heart, that I’m still the woman he fell in love with, even if I need to apply a firm hand to get us moving in the right direction.

  But my charity doesn’t seem to have dented his cynicism. He pushes a piece of steak around on his plate without eating it. “I still don’t understand,” he says. “How in the world did you get a job at her school? Don’t you have to be fingerprinted to work in education?”

  “Not if you’ve worked in a New York school before.”

  “So … identify theft?”

  “Great minds think alike, Dr. Burke.”

  Abby’s fork freezes above her salad. “What’s she talking about?”

  He sighs as though I’ve done him a great injustice by forcing him to be honest with her.

  He at least summons the courage to meet her indignant gaze. “Your mother and I had to go undercover for protection. We got fake names—” He shoots me a scornful look. “Not a real person’s identity! We would never endanger someone else for our own purposes.”

  Abby’s eyes bulge at this aftershock to the main shock, but little does she know the earthquakes aren’t over yet. I rest a hand on her arm, relishing the comfort that is my right to offer her. I picture us abroad, holding her hand as we cross a busy street in Prague or London while strangers admire our red-haired resemblance. And it won’t matter that I didn’t physically give birth to her, because I did intellectually; I’m the mother who made her possible.

  She snatches her arm back and tucks it under the table.

  I snap at Nash, “Oh, please. The real Mrs. Miller wasn’t harmed in the least. She quit teaching last year.”

  Once I did the legwork to find an art teacher somewh
ere in New York state who had recently left the field, the rest was no big deal: piecing together her résumé from social media, securing a reference from her former school, reaching out to Principal Hastings at the Garrison Union Free School for an interview. It’s the only K–8 school in town, so access to Abby was a shoe-in. The old fool took to me right away. He has a reputation for favoring pretty women. And he was in a bind; he was only too happy to hire me. I didn’t know Abby’s name when I started the job—only her screen name from MapMyDNA—but because I’d spotted her at the museum, I quickly recognized her in class. The position offered me the perfect perch from which to observe her up close while I executed my long game.

  Truth is, of course, I had to create the opening for myself. Art was perfect: easy to teach, and no parent-teacher conferences that would force a premature confrontation. Once I singled out the teacher I wanted to replace, the job opened up in short order. Calling in a few threats to someone’s loved ones can work wonders. People will fold like cards if they think their family’s safety is at stake—not that I would actually hurt anyone, of course. I’m not a monster, despite Nash’s apparent doubts; I’m simply strategic.

  “In other words,” he tells me warily, “nothing’s changed.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  He mutters an insult under his breath.

  “Excuse me?”

  He sets down his utensils, and his irate eyes drill into mine. “I should have known from the beginning.”

  My heart flips over. “Known what?”

  “You think you’re better than the rules. You exploit any vulnerabilities you can find.”

  “Come on, that’s not fair! In an unjust world, you can’t always play by the rules. You of all people should understand that.”

  “If you hadn’t betrayed me with that recording, none of this would be happening,” he snaps. “But you just had to go behind my back and hand them proof.”

  “I was protecting myself!” I retort. “You don’t know what it’s like to be a young woman in science, with hotshot men exploiting their postdocs. Not that it matters anymore.”

  He scowls. “I never would have done that to you.”