by Sue Wallman
Something occurs to me. “Noah, do you think maybe” – it’s hard to say this – “I’m given HB because I have a rare disease, one which Mom has too because we’re both given the same pills? Maybe everyone else on the beige pills has the disease too. Perhaps Thet’s been cured. Maybe that’s why she can go home?”
“Of course you don’t have a rare disease,” says Noah. “You’d know. And how would all these other kids have the same rare disease?”
“But if nobody ever told me, I wouldn’t know, would I? What if I do and I’m never able to leave the Creek?”
Noah shakes his head. “Mae, the world doesn’t just end outside that gate, I promise you. Whatever medication you’re on, you can get it outside the Creek. If you even need it, which you don’t.”
The raincoat slips down and Noah has to grab it. His bare arm brushes against mine, and I want the shivery feeling to be replicated all over my body. Noah moves, but not away. He places his arm round my shoulder, and the weight of it anchors me to a new sensation: a flare of joy. I don’t want to risk looking at him and breaking the spell. We watch the rain pool in puddles on the rooftop, and wobble the yellow flower heads.
“Whatever Dr Ballard’s doing is wrong,” says Noah eventually. “It’s probably illegal but it’s definitely unethical. You have to get the hell away from here.”
Rain seeps through the towel to my shorts and underpants, and with it a coldness. I shiver. “I’m being kept away from real life for some reason.”
Noah adjusts his raincoat again. It’s no longer much protection against the driving rain. “I’m really sorry, but I’m going to have to go in a minute,” he says. “If I’m not there for breakfast, I’ll be in trouble.”
He goes down the ladder first, and I watch him run towards Larkspur, his enormous jacket flapping. He looks like a large bird trying to fly.
I wait until he’s no longer visible before I go down the ladder. As I walk, dripping, through the apartment door, Dad – Hunter – calls out, “Mae? We need to talk.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
“Look at you. You should have run on a treadmill in the gym.” Hunter’s dressed in his weekend on-call clothes. Long trousers, a short-sleeved, open-necked shirt and brown brogues imported direct from Italy.
“Yeah.” The water is dripping down, starting to pool on the marble entryway floor. What does he want to talk to me about? Can he tell I’ve been on his laptop? I bend down to undo my laces and ease off my running shoes, so he can’t see my guilty face.
“You were seen loitering by the gates. You must be careful. Those gates are heavy.”
I peel off my socks. They’re so wet I could wring them out. Who saw me? Was I on CCTV, or was it a gardener, or the receptionist? Did they contact Hunter especially to tell him?
Did they see me go up the ladder, too?
“Grab a towel, then we need to talk” he says.
I hear noises from the kitchen – Mom making Sunday breakfast – as I go into my room to take a towel from my en suite. When I come out, Hunter is leaning against the door frame to my room. Is he ever planning to tell me that he’s not my dad?
“You’re agitating for a life outside the Creek. We need to talk about it,” he says.
Even though relief makes me want to collapse, I keep my expression neutral, nod and wrap the big fluffy towel round my shoulders, over my wet running clothes.
“You’re probably looking ahead to when you leave this place.” His tone is friendly.
I nod. “I’d like to aim for the best college I can.”
He leans forward slightly, as if he’s not sure he heard correctly. “You’ll be going to Pattonville,” he says. “But I thought you might like to know the details.”
The battle of keeping emotion from my face is lost. “Pattonville? But I don’t want to go to Pattonville.” I sit abruptly on my bed.
Hunter walks further into my room, pushes back some of my things on top of the chest of drawers, and props himself against it. “There’s absolutely no need for you to go further afield. Pattonville is a fine college, and you’ll enjoy the many, varied opportunities it has to offer. And you’ll be close enough that I can help you adjust to the world outside Hummingbird Creek. You’ll live with Greta in her apartment there, and the two of you will come home for vacations or whenever you want, as long as you let admin know in advance. I’ll buy you a car, of course. And then you’ll have Zach with you when he’s old enough to go. And by then, Greta will have graduated and be living back here.”
So he wants Greta to continue to tell me what to do and report back to Hummingbird Creek, and when she’s finally gone, I’ll have Zach breathing down my neck.
“I don’t like how you’ve been obsessing over your lessons.” He frowns and I’m acutely aware of all the textbooks I have on my shelves and the bag of books under my bed. “You’re a smart-enough girl…” The way he says smart-enough breaks something inside me. “There’s no worry about you not getting into Pattonville College.”
Because you’ve donated that building. You’ve bought me a place.
“Nor is there any worry about you finding employment afterwards. You’ll have work for you here in the Hummingbird community.” He gazes at me, and I think how small and mean his eyes are. Not handsome at all. “I hope that puts your mind at rest.”
During his speech, my small world has shrunk to the narrowest of dark corridors which leads to a blocked exit. “But I don’t want to go to Pattonville,” I repeat. “I definitely don’t want to live in an apartment with Greta, or Zach.”
“You and Greta are going to get on.” He lifts his chin, a backwards nod. It means it’s been decided. “Pattonville is the right place for you. You have to trust me on this, Mae.”
I don’t trust you on this or anything else.
The dinner at the Jesmonds’ apartment. It was about forcing me and Greta together.
“And if I say I’m not doing that?” My ribs are pressing in on my chest, threatening to take my breath away.
Hunter frowns. It’s as though this possibility has never occurred to him. “In that case, I’d say you were on your own. I wouldn’t be funding you any longer. It’s a harsh world out there, Mae, and you wouldn’t last five minutes.”
The blocked exit is bolted from the outside. I have no money of my own – not even a few dollars in a savings account. Not even ten dollars in cash. I operate with tokens, which are meaningless outside the Creek.
He stands up and places his hands in his pockets. I’ve seen him do that when he’s talking to patients’ parents. It’s his I’m-a-down-to-earth-guy-but-I-know-what-I’m-talking-about pose. “When you’ve thought about this properly, it will make sense. Let go of those wild thoughts of moving far away.” He walks towards the doorway. “This is where you belong.”
I am never ever going to be able to escape this place.
When Hunter’s gone, I crawl under my comforter and pull it tight around me. Why doesn’t he want me to have my own life? I’m not even his daughter. The patients will keep cycling through, staying a few months, while I stay for years, growing old here. I’ll become too old to make friends with patients, or too bitter. I think about Drew, and Thet. I think about Noah.
Eventually I have a shower. I am a zombie at lunch, then I go back to lie on my bed afterwards. I’m prepared to be punished for laziness. At some point in the late afternoon there’s a knock at the door. Mom walks in with a mug of herbal tea and says, “Your dad’s gone to the gym.” She places the mug on my bedside table, then sits on the bed next to me, and runs her fingers over my patchwork quilt. “I love you so much, Mae.”
I hate her for accepting everything without question. I hate her for lying to me about Hunter being my father, but most of all I hate her because I know she wouldn’t be brave enough to tell me about my biological dad if I risked asking her. “Do you seriously want me to be stuck here for the rest of my life, Mom?”
“You’ll go to Pattonville. You’ll have a nice time.” H
er voice is soap-opera bright.
“I don’t want to be watched over.”
She nods slightly and looks down at the stupid quilt. “You don’t understand how hard and cruel the world can be.”
“Tell me.”
Mom picks at a patch of rough skin on the side of her finger. She whispers, “When I was a child there were days when I didn’t have enough to eat. When we had to hide because my parents owed money.”
I hold my breath.
She says, “I wanted a different life for you. It wasn’t much of a choice.”
Does she mean hooking up with Hunter when she was pregnant with me? “What choice?” I ask. Tell me about my real dad.
“It was a difficult time,” says Mom. She’s clamped up.
“Where did you even meet Hun— Dad?” I ask. Their meeting story has always been a vague “through friends”. Friends who didn’t have names.
Mom looks round, as if Hunter’s going to materialize in the doorway. “He came to my clinic,” she says. “In England.”
“What clinic? What were you doing there?”
“He came for research.”
I bite back my frustration. “Research?”
She nods, and I urge her on with my expression. Tell me about the research. But again she veers off in a different direction.
“I had a best friend when I was growing up,” she says. “I don’t see her any more. That’s how I know how hard it is for you, honey, not seeing Drew.”
I’d like to talk to her about missing Drew, but I know I need to keep her focused. “What was your best friend’s name?” I say it slowly, in the voice that Abigail might use. Firm. Expecting an answer.
“We used to go to the field with the horses. We shared our dreams. Had a laugh. Tiny little thing, she was, with a big mouth on her.”
“What was her name?” I repeat.
Mom closes her eyes. “Callie Ridgeway,” she mutters.
It’s not the name of my dad, but it’s something. I’ll take it.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Greta and Ms Ray are standing at the front of the schoolroom in silence. We sit in our seats while keeping our eyes on them. Something is up.
“May I make the announcement?” Greta asks Ms Ray in her open-day voice.
Ms Ray nods.
Greta gives a little cough. “It’s my pleasure to tell you that I’ll be teaching you alongside Ms Ray this summer.”
“I thought you had another job,” I say. “In admin.”
“Yes, I do,” says Greta. “That’s in the afternoons. I’ll be in the schoolhouse in the mornings.” She looks at the others. “Any more questions?”
“Why do we need two teachers?” I ask.
Ms Ray steps forward. “I’m sure Greta will be a helpful addition to the schoolroom.” She doesn’t look at me as she says it. Her face tells me she doesn’t believe it.
Greta picks up the pile of work booklets on the front desk and hands them round. “Do a few pages,” she says, “and then we’ll have a circle time.”
I open the booklet and colour in all the middles of letters a, e, o, b, d, g, p and q, then I write my name in a super-curly script. Mae Ballard. Except I’m not a real Ballard. I don’t know who I am or what’s being done to me here, but I’m going to find out.
Callie Ridgeway could know who my biological father is and she might not have anything to lose by telling me. I picture all the different spellings of her name in super-curly script. I’m too afraid of the little camera on top of the hummingbird picture behind me to write them down. But they are scorched into my brain, waiting for the time I have access to the proper internet.
Ms Ray and Greta sit at the front, waiting for us to put up our hands for help. In circle time Greta tells us to discuss Creek values. I say precisely nothing and she uses her new authority to fine me five tokens. Joanie becomes upset and tells Greta that it’s because I’m still sad about Drew. Luke tries to intervene too, his quiet voice shaky as he says he thinks Greta’s being unfair. She shuts them down quickly. I want to hug them both, but I look at my feet. Pedicured feet in sandals that are worth three hundred dollars.
At morning break, Ms Ray busies herself with marking the booklets, but I see her rub her forehead, as if she’s too weary to concentrate. When I walk past her, she places a history textbook on the desk and indicates that I should take it. She says nothing, but I understand what she’s telling me: keep going.
It may or may not be deliberate, but in the afternoon Mick takes Zach, Ben and me on a run that goes past the outdoor pool. There’s an inflatable session going on. Patients sliding in off the plastic rafts and throwing around a huge stripy ball. Shrieks and laughter. One guy holds up a girl on his outstretched palms as if she weighs hardly anything. I watch her spring upwards and double-somersault gracefully into the water. The grad student life-guard stares at them and jots something down in a notebook, but spectacular sports feats are the norm here when you train as much as we do.
Mick stops for us to do some stretching. It’s one of the glorious cloudless sunny days that feature in Hummingbird Creek’s brochures. Thet is in the pool, standing in the shallow end, watching, her pink glitter plastic shoes are lined up on the side. Noah’s there too, clambering on to one of the rafts. His swim shorts have chemical symbols printed on them. He’s not as all-over ripped as a lot of the other boys our age. I guess he hasn’t being working out as much as them. But I like his tall, slim build.
I’ve sat in group therapy sessions for years. I understand the concept of living in the moment. Being mindful. My friends deserve to be happy, they absolutely do, but right now their happiness is hard to see.
We carry on with our run. Mick takes us up by the cycle track. There’s already a plaque up in memory of Austin.
Later, in my trampoline skills session with Joanie, we go through an easy routine a few times, and then she stops and asks me what’s wrong. I say I’m fine, but we lie on the trampoline for an extended cool-down and after a bit she takes my sweaty hand and says, “I don’t like Greta.”
“Me neither,” I say. “But we have to do our best not to let her know that, OK?”
“OK.” She pulls away her hand and flips over on to her stomach. “I miss Drew. Were you in love with him?”
I play for time. “What are you talking about?”
“Ben and Luke say you were. But that you’ll never see him again.”
I cover my eyes with my forearm to block out her and the sun. My own smell, of warm skin and lavender soap, soothes me. “I thought I was, Joanie. But maybe it turns out I was just clinging to him.”
“We saw you clinging to him,” says Joanie in a solemn voice. “When they took him away.”
One day, it’s going to be down to me to explain to Joanie that how we live isn’t normal.
Our trampoline time is up, and there’s a trio of patients waiting to use it. I walk with Joanie back to Hibiscus, but I don’t feel like going home myself. There are patients in the sensory garden, which means there’s a risk I might be seen going up to the roof, so I go to the spa instead for a pedicure, to pass the time.
Noah’s there, having a haircut. “Posh-boy haircut suit me?”
I nod. “You look … like somebody different.” Perhaps even someone I’d be too shy to talk to, if I’d just met him. I select the nail-varnish colours I’d like for my toenails from the stand.
The therapist finishes Noah’s hair and runs warm water into the foot bath for me. Suddenly Noah’s sitting beside me in the other pedicure chair, asking for one too.
“Wait until the toenail tools come out,” I say. “You’re going to regret this.”
“This bit’s nice though,” says Noah, as he slips his feet into the soapy water. “Mm. How often d’you get this done?”
I shrug. “When I feel like it. If I have enough tokens. Thet and I love the facials best.”
The therapist disappears for another clean towel, and Noah scans the room. I know exactly what he’s looking for
. “Just one pointing to the desk,” I say. “I already checked.”
He smiles. “Good work, Agent Ballard.” He lifts his feet out of the water to look at them, and says in a low voice. “I’ve got the iPad for you.”
The magic key. “Oh my God. How?”
“It’s better if we don’t know. That way we can’t leak it.”
I’m 47 per cent worried and 53 per cent completely and utterly excited.
“One thing, though.” Noah’s face is still serious. “It’s fully charged but there’s no charger. Will doesn’t know when he can get hold of one. So you’ll have to go easy on the battery. The dozy orderly is on duty at Larkspur tomorrow night. You want me to give you the iPad on the rooftop then? If I just leave it there, I’m worried it might rain, and anyway I can show you how to use it.”
I imagine myself sneaking out of Hibiscus at night for the first time, then typing in Callie Ridgeway’s name. Tomorrow night I might find her. Her name is more unusual than the names I searched previously, and I could try it in combination with Mom’s or Frank’s. Surely that gives me more of a chance?
My throat is dry. “Yes,” I whisper. “But I’m scared of being caught.” I think of orderlies, security guards, other staff on night shifts, cameras, Mom or Dad waking up and noticing me gone. “It would be solitary confinement for sure.” Or worse.
“We’ll be very careful. I know what to look out for. Come out of the fire-exit door in Hibiscus,” says Noah. “Five to midnight? I’ll meet you.”
The therapist is coming back, and we stop speaking.
The next day passes slowly. I’m in a constant state of observation and alertness, watching for signs that it will or won’t be safe to leave Hibiscus at night, but everything follows familiar patterns. The worries I had about falling asleep by mistake were misguided. I’m far too jittery and I have a deep muscle ache in my thigh. When my watch shows 23.45, I sneak out of the apartment.
I’m wearing pyjama shorts, a T-shirt and Converse. The stairwell is dimly lit with night lights, which give off a faint humming sound. I walk in a sort of ghost-like glide, in stark contrast to my heart’s panicky rhythm.