Now You See Her

by Lisa Leighton

  It’s like he can’t even say my name. Or doesn’t bother.

  “How about you take a shower and get cleaned up for Dr. Langstaff? Then we’ll be all ready to go,” Mrs. Graham says. I don’t have to be her real daughter to know I don’t have a choice in the matter. She pats a neatly folded pile of clothes. “I brought your things from home so you can get back to being you.”

  I would laugh at the irony of her statement if I wasn’t so completely desperate to figure out a way to stay.

  Mrs. Graham helps me out of bed and I don’t know whether to push her away or grab hold of her tighter. Physically I’m fine. A little sore and trapped in someone else’s life, but beyond that I’m aces. Still, she turns the shower on and hangs a towel on the back of the door, lingering in the tiny space as though she’s going to help me lather my hair or something. I don’t care whose body I have, I’m not about to let Mrs. Graham scrub me down.

  “I’ve got it,” I snap, the way I would at my own mom. She seems unfazed, so I make a mental note just in case I’m stuck as Sophie for another night. I lock the door behind her.

  It doesn’t take long for the small bathroom to fill with steam, the mirror fogged over. And it’s a good thing. I don’t know if I could stand to look into Sophie’s different-colored eyes again. Instead, I let the hospital gown drop to my pale-pink toes and look down at a body that isn’t mine. I assess Sophie’s muscular legs, her taut stomach, her perfect boobs, up to the gentle curve of her collarbone. Looking at her body makes me feel like a voyeur. It’s creepy and wrong and I feel my head begin to swim. Sophie is so much smaller than me. My five foot eight inches of muscle and bone and size ten feet have been replaced with a body made of tiny pieces and soft edges. I consider throwing this new body into the shower and closing my eyes, never looking again, but I can’t resist taking a towel and swiping across the glass to find Sophie’s intense eyes and porcelain skin, gripping the edge of the sink to brace myself against the shock.

  My hand instinctively reaches to my midsection, feeling for the slightly raised birthmarks that line my back like a constellation. But now there’s nothing there and as my fingers worry against Sophie’s soft, unblemished skin, I realize the beauty marks were a few of the trillion tiny things that made me Amelia.

  My throat burns as I watch tears gather in Sophie’s eyes, trembling as they fight to hold on. I’m spellbound by the intimacy of watching a stranger cry. A single tear slips across Sophie’s lower lashes, racing down her cheek, and I smash it with the back of my hand harder than I intended. These strange eyes water even more, silent tears racing to catch up. Enough is enough. I shut off the shower and get dressed. I need to get down to the ICU. I understand what Mrs. Graham said about the likelihood of me waking up the longer I’m asleep. I need to get back into my own body. I’d rather be stuck in a coma than in Sophie Graham’s life.

  Eight

  I EMERGE FROM THE BATHROOM IN A PINK-AND-KELLY-GREEN TROPICAL-flower-print dress complete with matching flip-flops. Even my pink underwear and bra coordinate. I look like cruise-ship Barbie, but Sophie’s tragic fashion sense is the least of my worries.

  The room is empty except for Mr. Graham sitting on the edge of the bed checking something on his phone. I wonder if it’d be too obvious if I slipped back into the bathroom. I don’t know how to be alone with someone else’s dad and I especially don’t know how to be alone with a dad who thinks I’m his daughter. I have no idea what to say. Luckily, he speaks first.

  “It’s now or never.” He nods to a wheelchair in the hallway.

  Pure panic washes over me. The wheelchair can only mean one thing. I’ve been released from the hospital. But I can’t leave with this man. I can’t go to Sophie Graham’s house and pretend to live her life. I need to get back to myself. I need to see my mom. I need to escape.

  “I can’t.” It’s the only thing I can think to say. The only words that come to my foggy brain.

  A look of annoyance flashes across his face. “Mom said you mentioned going to the ICU before we leave. She thinks it’s a terrible idea but I’ve spoken with a nurse and she’s cleared it with your friend’s mom. And I’ll take you on one condition.”

  I know I’ll agree to anything he says. Anything. I just have to get downstairs. I can feel it.

  “We move forward. Nothing good ever comes from dwelling on the past, Sophie. You are strong and healthy and none of this is your fault. We focus on getting you better. Bottom line.”

  It’s not the individual words that shock me. They all sound reasonable enough, like something I’d have imagined Sophie’s dad saying to her in a situation like this. It’s the layer of fear hovering just below the surface, making his eye twitch ever so slightly, that gives me pause. I’ve scared him. I’ve upset some sort of balance and he’s over it. There’s a note of accusation there too, the-jig-is-up sort of thing.

  This isn’t really the kind of deal I expected Mr. Graham would make with his beloved daughter. He always seemed so doting when he came to watch her play tennis, like the perfect father or something. His ultimatum catches me off guard because it’s almost completely devoid of concern and pretty much the exact opposite of the calm, sensitive, this-will-take-time approach the doctors and nurses have been advocating. But I nod my head anyway and it’s settled. Because I’m not her. I’m not Sophie. She can worry about all this crap when we switch back.

  We roll through hallways and down two different elevators and are greeted by a nurse who checks Mr. Graham’s ID and instructs us to wash our hands. We finally push through a set of big red doors and enter a room full of hospital beds and humming, beeping, living, breathing machines. The room is divided by curtains, I guess to give everyone at least a little bit of privacy. In some of the makeshift rooms, people sit on chairs next to the hospital beds reading books, talking quietly, or even sleeping. Many patients are alone or being attended to by nurses and doctors. Despite the underlying mechanical hum and antiseptic smell, the space is dim and peaceful.

  Sophie’s dad stops to talk to one of the nurses and guides me toward the back of the room. He pauses in front of a curtain and plants a kiss on the top of my head. Before I can remember to flinch away from his touch, I remember something else. A gurgle of nerves coursing through my stomach, a steady stream of tears, a kiss for courage from my dad before I say good-bye to Grandma Hazel. And for a second, I forget that I’ve never had a grandma, that I’ve never had a dad.

  For one millionth of a second, I am Sophie. I did not remember and now I do.

  Grandma before called to mind a wrinkled woman pulling a chicken potpie out of the oven on some lame commercial. Grandma now has a name and a sepia-toned memory of faint cigarette smoke and jelly beans. I wonder if I’ll get to keep her when I go back, if I’ll be some sort of mixed-up version of Sophie and Amelia. If I’ll remember.

  Before I push up from the chair, before I struggle to my feet and face whatever is on the other side of that curtain, I let myself wonder what it would be like to go home with the Grahams. For another one millionth of a second, I wonder how long it would take before the strange nuances of this new family felt familiar. Before my old life hovered just slightly out of reach and then drifted away altogether. Does it still hurt if you can’t remember what you lost?

  I think of all the Father’s Days we ignored. I remember how much I hated being the kid with a mom sitting across from her at Donuts for Dads. I remember the countless nights Mae and I spent making up stories about our dad. Sometimes he was a famous actor. Other times he was the author of our favorite picture book about a girl who makes a spaceship out of garbage in her garage with her dog and flies to the moon, because it seemed like the kind of story our fantasy dad would tell us every night when he tucked us into bed. But most days he was just a regular guy. A man with a decent job who would make our mom laugh and rub our backs so we could fall back asleep if we had bad dreams.

  I wonder what kind of person I would have been if my dad hadn’t died right after Mae was
born. I wonder what it would have been like to have a dad who sat at the dinner table with us every night. I wonder what kind of life we might have lived together as a family without the shadow of another move, another city, another life always looming over us.

  All of the wondering and questioning swirls and I feel like the chair beneath me is no longer grounded on tile but rather sinking into quicksand. I can’t stay here. I’ve never had a grandma or a dad or anything else that Sophie has. If losing my real birthday and gaining a Grandma Hazel is any indication as to how easy it is to forget, I have to get back. Every hour I stay, every minute, every second, maybe I’m losing more of myself.

  Maybe I’m not even aware of what I’ve lost.

  I stand, pull the curtain, and make good on my promise to Mr. Graham. I move forward.

  At first I think it’s just another patient, another victim of some unknown tragedy that ended with the ICU. But then I realize it’s me. It’s my hair that has been partly shaved, my neck that is braced, my arms attached to a million different machines, my life seemingly slipping away with every beep and artificial breath.

  Fresh stitches slash across one eyebrow and a large bandage is covering the area of my skull that has been shaved. My lips pull down from the weight of a tube keeping me alive, and instead of my sun-kissed cheeks, I see yellow and blue and a sickly green color. A death palette. My eyes are closed and unmoving beneath the lids. Is Sophie—the real Sophie—stuck in this body?

  The thought makes me feel like a ghost haunting my own funeral and I’m sinking again, my vision fuzzy along the edges. I haven’t drowned yet, I can’t drown now. I breathe deeply, fighting off the dizziness as I inch toward the bed, Mr. Graham’s voice trailing behind me like a spirit.

  “Her car broke down. They’re not sure if she hit her head and got disoriented, but this isn’t your fault, Sophie.”

  Someone shifts in the shadowy corner. “Mom.” Her name comes as easily as Sophie’s sepia-toned grandma. I’m still me.

  I hadn’t noticed her sitting there before and for a one dizzy second I don’t recognize her. Is it because I’m seeing her through Sophie’s eyes or has she really transformed in a matter of hours? She looks like a rag doll someone left out in the rain too long. If it didn’t feel like a dream before, it does now.

  I want to wrap my arms around her. I want to tell her that Mr. Graham is wrong, I wasn’t disoriented or crazy when I ran into the road. I want to tell her how scared I was when the shadow man grabbed me and how terrifying it felt to have someone try to take me away from her, from my life. I want to tell her that I never would have stayed behind, that the only option was to remain a family. I want to tell her that I love her.

  Instead, I whisper, “I’m so sorry. . . .” and she doesn’t even flinch. I hear her whispering under her breath. It takes me a second to place the words of a song she used to sing to Mae and me.

  “Amelia, Mae, give me your answer true.

  I’m half-crazy all for the love of you.

  It won’t be a stylish marriage, I can’t afford a carriage.

  But you’ll look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle built for two.”

  It was the song she’d sing when Mae and I would wake up in a new place, scared and sure there were monsters in our closet. My mom would pull back her blanket, letting us crawl inside her bed where it was soft and warm and safe. She’d sing to us until we finally fell back to sleep.

  My mom squeezes her eyes shut, and I can feel the pain radiating from her body, the song whispered over and over to her broken daughter. And I hate myself for ending up here. I hate myself for fighting with my mom, for accusing her of ruining our lives.

  But I hate myself the most for the secret part of me who’s scared to go back.

  Mr. Graham clears his throat and I know my time is almost up. Before I can let in any more fear, I reach out and grab my own hand, interlocking Sophie’s fingers with my clammy, limp ones. Fully ready or not.

  I close my eyes and wait a beat, sure that I’ll feel a spark. As I open my eyes, I pray that I’ll be lying on my back in the bed, but there’s no flicker of energy, no shifting of the world on its axis.

  I’m still Sophie and my body is still lifeless on the bed.

  I lunge forward and grip my frail shoulders—whose are they now? Mine? Sophie’s? Maybe I need to get closer; maybe I need to whisper magic words to reverse whatever spell put me in the wrong body. Maybe if I just click my heels together three times, I’ll find myself back home.

  A steely arm shoots out and pushes me back, almost knocking me to the floor. My mom’s eyes are blazing.

  “Take your hands off her.” Each word is hissed in an angry staccato as she grips Sophie’s forearm. “I figured you were here to say sorry, not cause more damage.”

  I can’t hear what she says next, something about a mistake, because suddenly the machines connected to my body start beeping. My mom presses the staff-assist button and springs into action, running her fingers over the printed scribble of my heartbeat, pulling open my hospital gown and checking the electrodes, repositioning the finger probe. It’s second nature the way she moves. When a nurse pulls back the curtain and knocks me farther out of the way, my mom says, “Respiratory distress. Using accessory muscles to breathe.”

  Before I can even be impressed or confused by a side of my mom I’ve never seen, or had the chance to respect, a sharp pain explodes in my skull. I fumble with items on a narrow table, squinting through the pain, searching for the silver thing in my memory. If nothing else, I need to know what I took. But the pressure bleeding into my vision is too much. I have to shut my eyes against it.

  I can’t remember why I’m here. I can’t remember who the person is on the bed. I don’t recognize the woman running her fingers along cords checking connection points on machines that are keeping me alive. For a moment, I only recognize my dad’s voice, excusing us from the ICU. I feel his fingers dig into my shoulders as he presses me back into the wheelchair, trying to comfort and reassure but squeezing just a little too hard. For a moment I’m relieved to be leaving and ready to get back to my bedroom at home, to my crisp white sheets and the patterned pillows that my mom and I ordered online from Restoration Hardware Teen.

  It’s not until we’re at the door when the beeping stops and I hear a woman say, “She’s stabilized. Thank God. She’s back,” that something in me snaps back into place like I’ve been defibrillated.

  Amelia.

  This is how it must feel to be lost in space. To not know which way is up or down as your world spins out from under you. I grasp for stability. A memory, something, anything that makes me uniquely me, uniquely Amelia. I file through all of my biggest fights with Mae, the name of my first baby doll, the way a tennis racquet felt in my hands the first time I held one. And surprisingly they’re all there. I think.

  Except I can’t remember the way my bedroom looks. I can’t remember if I shared a room with Mae or if I had a room of my own. I can’t remember the walls or the bed or the floors. The only room I can picture has a crisp white duvet that looks like a cloud and a mountain of artfully arranged throw pillows.

  I hadn’t planned for this. Accept a coma, even death? Fine. But continue stuck as Sophie and be forced to watch myself—my Amelia self—slip away? Absolutely not. And what if I forget the shadow man next? What if I forget what happened to me?

  Suddenly all I can think is that I have to warn her. I have to warn my mom about the stranger. What if he comes back? What if he’s already been here? I’m still in danger. I know this with more certainty than I’ve ever known anything before. We’re still in danger.

  “Wait! Mom! You have to be careful! There’s someone. . . .” It comes out louder, more frantic than I intended.

  Mr. Graham politely presses me back into the wheelchair and rolls me over to a young nurse and asks her to please remove me from the ICU as quickly as possible.

  “There’s something silver. It’s a clue! You have to find it!” I shout ov
er my shoulder as the nurse frantically pushes me away. I watch Mr. Graham grab both of my mom’s hands, turning her around so her back is facing the door. He wraps his arms around her and her shoulders begin to shake. It’s so unexpected, so intense, that I have to look away.

  A few minutes later, Mr. Graham assures the worried nurse that his daughter is “under a great deal of stress” and “still recovering” and releases her with an Instagram-worthy smile. She just seems thankful not to have to call security. Before I can open my mouth to ask him what in the hell he was doing with my mom, he asks me what in the hell I was doing with Amelia.

  “What the hell was that, Sophie?” Mr. Graham whisper-shouts, eyes blazing. “I know you’ve been through a lot with the accident, but you can’t scream nonsense and climb all over critically injured hospital patients. What in God’s name is wrong with you?”

  But before I can even begin to formulate an answer I see Mae curled up in one of the waiting room chairs, head collapsed on her forearm. I’m on autopilot now and I’ve got nothing to lose. I can’t go home with these people. I have to warn Mae. I have to save myself.

  I jump out of the wheelchair and make a beeline for my sister, screaming, “Mae! Wake up! It’s me!” at the same time as Mr. Graham roars Sophie’s name. But I completely block out the sound of his voice because I’m Amelia and I’m shattered and my whole entire family is shattered and I need to fix it all.

  Mae sits up groggy and confused, her eyes puffy, her chocolate-colored hair greasy and limp. She’s swimming in one of my grubby sweatshirts and her tall, lanky body is reduced to a curled-up lump.

  Does she look worse through Sophie’s eyes? As her sister, I remember her hair being shiny, her eyes brighter, her face prettier. The pale girl standing in front of me looks exhausted and plain.