Broken (20 page)

“Adopting?” I almost drop the book.

“Sure. I could have sworn your mom said she was telling you this week. That’s what we’re celebrating tonight, isn’t it? Our application getting approved.”

I’m shaking my head in time with his words. “I had no idea.”

“Oh, shoot. I’ve spoiled the surprise.” He looks at me in dismay. “You’re not upset, are you? If we get a baby, it will take some of your mom’s attention away from you. But you’re doing so much better—”

Do I break the news to him about the surgery Monday? Or the fact that Mom obviously hasn’t told him—just like she kept it from me—that even with the surgery, my time is short?

I can’t. I just can’t. He’s so excited about the chance to be a father again. I can’t steal his smile away.

“No. I think it’s great,” I say. Even though it’s obvious to me that Mom’s set this up. Finding my replacement. What did Dad say? If it wasn’t for me, she would have died after Ash? Guess she’s preparing this time.

I don’t know whether to feel angry or relieved. I’ve been dreading what would happen to Mom and Dad—but especially Mom, whose entire life is entwined with my illness and taking care of me—after I’m gone.

“What about your job?” I ask Dad.

“I’m being promoted. I’ll be based at the office starting next month. No more travel for me.”

Visions of him playing catch with a son are clearly dancing in his eyes. I smile at the thought. Imagine Ash as the one catching the ball.

Sadness fills me, but the void is smaller than it has been.

Dad glances at his watch. “Actually, that’s why I’m home early today. I need to go in, get some paperwork done. Why don’t you take these?” Dad says, handing me the shoebox. “Get to know your brother.”

“Thanks, Dad. For everything.”

He blushes as I kiss him on the cheek. We both stand up. “Okay if I take these to my room?”

“Of course. You know where to find me if you need me. I’m just a phone call away.”

I head downstairs and close my door behind me. A few minutes later, I hear his car pull out. Ensconced in pink, I sit on my bed and open the lid on the box once more. I take out the baby book and set it to one side. Next is a lock of white hair, fine and silky, tied in a blue ribbon. I tickle my face with it; it’s so soft.

Below that is the satin hem from a worn baby blanket, only a few inches left, clearly loved to rags. I hold it to my nose and inhale. Can practically smell baby powder and little boy on it.

A few loose photos, a paper from the hospital with Ash’s baby footprints inked on it, and then the final item.

I stare at it, pain lancing through my chest. My heart has finally shattered, leaving only slivers as sharp as broken glass. A folded pillowcase. Orange with clown faces covering it. Laughing, smirking, killer clowns with bright red lips and flashing teeth ready to devour little boys and girls.

The clowns that have been chasing me in my dreams.

They’re real. They’re here.

Frozen, gasping for air as my heart stumbles back into a chaotic cadence, I can’t do anything but sit and relive my nightmares.

Dreams? Or memories?

Maybe Mrs. Gentry’s relaxation exercises worked better than anyone could imagine.

I find a photo of me and Ash in our beds, surrounded by clowns. Clowns on the walls, on the bright orange sheets we both have, painted onto the headboards. Maybe it’s just a warped memory—I was upset about Ash leaving me and translated that into this irrational fear of being smothered by clowns.

That would explain the sound of the child crying in my dreams.

But what about the grown-up laughing? The woman telling someone “Hush, it’s not your turn yet…”

I burrow under the covers, shivering uncontrollably.

A woman. With me and Ash. In our bedroom.

No.
It can’t be.

I skitter out of bed, almost tripping on the sheets as I lunge for my backpack and grab my iPad. I find the medical record of that first hospital visit for me.

Apparent life-threatening event in a twenty-two-month-old white female, full-term product of a twin gestation…

Apparent Life Threatening Event. I Google the term. Near-miss SIDS is the other name for it. A baby, usually less than a year old, stops breathing for no obvious reason. Causes also include gastro-esophageal reflux, infection, congenital heart disease, and rarely, non-accidental injury.

Non-accidental injury? What the hell does that mean?

But I already have a pretty good idea. Doctor-speak for someone wanting to hurt someone else.

But it makes no sense. Why would anyone want to hurt—no, not just anyone. My mother.

No. Stepmother. Not blood.

The room spins around me in a pink whirl as I fall to my knees. My stomach is trying to claw its way up my throat but my heart blocks its path. I can feel my pulse tap-dancing in my skull in time with the black spots dancing before my eyes.

No. No. She’s the one who Saved me. Who’s always been there for me. Without her I’d be dead.

Like Ash…

I barely make it to the toilet in time before I vomit. Kneeling on the cold tile, sandwiched between the tub and toilet, I lay my head on the side of the tub and force myself to just breathe. Deep, belly breaths. In and out. Nothing complicated, nothing scary, I’ve been doing it every day of my life.

It’s something I shouldn’t need to think about. But of course, now I can’t stop thinking. The smell of laundry detergent and fabric softener mixed with fear. The feeling of being smothered.

That laughter haunting my dreams…my memories.

I still can’t believe it. In fact, I decide I
won’t
believe. I’ll prove my crazy mixed-up mind wrong. Find proof of Mom’s innocence.

That’s exactly what I’ll do.

Pushing myself to my feet, I stagger back out to the bedroom and find my cell phone. It’s one eighteen; Tony should be just leaving biology. I call him, expecting it to go to voicemail since it’s against the rules to use your phone in school, but he answers.

“Hey there,” he says, his tone uncertain. “Are you okay?”

“I need your help.” I sound melodramatic, something out of a dime-store novel, so I suck in my breath and try again. “Could you skip? Come over and help me with my medical records?”

“Well, I have AP chemistry next—”

He’s taking life sciences and AP chemistry the same semester? He really is serious about getting out of here and into college early.

“No, I understand. That’s okay.” Already I’m regretting getting an outsider involved. What if my prying starts rumors flying about Mom? If anyone knows how dangerous that is, it’s me.

“I’m on my way.”

He hangs up before I can protest and tell him to not bother. I stand there, swaying, staring at the phone in my hand.

What have I done?

I get myself cleaned up and change into jeans and a sweater just in time for the doorbell to ring. Tony’s using the front door this time—I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.

I’m actually not sure of anything. Including what the hell we’re going to be doing.

My
mom
didn’t try to kill me.

The thought of explaining all this to Tony makes me nauseous again.

But I open the door anyway. Inviting disaster into my home.

“You look awful.” The first words out of Tony’s mouth.

Guess we’re not going to be kissing again anytime soon. But then he totally confuses me by giving me a hug. Not a guy-friend hug, it feels more like a real boyfriend hug.

But what do I know? I’m the crazy person who’s spent the afternoon imagining her mother might be a monster.

“I need your help,” I whisper into his shoulder before I let him go.

“Of course. I’m here. Anything.”

We separate and I lead him into the dining room where we can use the computer and have room to spread out the medical records.

“Did you—” I can’t even ask it without sounding nuts. “I mean, while you were looking through the medical records—” All of a sudden, they’re no longer “my” records but “the” records. Like I’ve disowned my own life. “Were there any more discrepancies?”

He stands very, very still for a long moment. He’s wearing jeans and a gray Wildcats sweatshirt and a corduroy jacket. Slowly he drops his pack, unbuttons the jacket, and takes it off, hanging it on the back of a chair. At least he hasn’t run away. Yet.

Then he meets my gaze. “Why don’t you sit down?”

The look in his face. Haunted. That’s the only word I can think of.

The room wobbles as I lurch to a chair. I fall into it. “What did you find? Tell me everything.”

I must be shivering—I don’t know, I can’t feel anything—because he drapes his jacket around my shoulders. He doesn’t sit but rather squats beside me, holding my hand, stroking it as if trying to coax warmth back into it.

“What did you find?” he echoes my question back at me.

I can’t. I just can’t. I don’t say anything, just squeeze my eyes shut and shake my head.

He releases my hand and sighs. Then stands and takes the notebook out of his pack. I open my eyes and he’s got the records separated into sections piled across the table. Then he adds new pages of his own—computer printouts highlighted and covered in his handwriting.

“Last night, I noticed something weird in the electronic records compared to the written ones,” he began. His voice sounds like a lot of the doctors I’ve had. Remote, clinical. Which right now works for me. “It’s not just missing data like the genetic tests and the existence of your twin. The ones your mom printed out give a totally different version of your—er, sickness.”

All I can do is nod and listen. My fingers wrap around the edge of the chair’s seat, holding me in place and upright.

“I realized they’d been altered. Tailored to fit a certain ailment.”

“I don’t understand.”

“When you were a baby, it was mostly breathing problems, right?”

“Yes, but those could be explained by Long QT—”

He’s shaking his head. “They
were
explained by Long QT. The way they’re described by your mother
now
. But if you read the original notes from back when you were a baby, the notes she didn’t include in here”—he taps the binder Mom prepared—“it’s a different story.”

I’m totally lost. “You’re saying she edited the version she gave me?”

“No. I’m saying she’s edited every version she gave everyone. Look, here in the GI version—that’s gastroenterology—”

“I know what GI means,” I snap at him. My headache’s back, full throttle. Even my eyes hurt.

“Right. Well, anyway, the history the first GI doctor records from your mother is that you had failure to thrive and episodes of vomiting ever since you were a baby. Apparently she described the classic symptoms of gastro-esophageal reflux, and despite a normal pH probe test, they try you on meds after she brings you in one more time with an Apparent Life Threatening Event.”

“I know what that is,” I say before he can explain it to me.

His expression has changed to pitying. “She keeps telling them the meds aren’t working. She wants them to operate. Put in a feeding tube. Their notes indicate that they want to try new meds, because when they examine you, they just aren’t finding anything wrong. Then there aren’t any more notes from that doctor but a few months later you have a new doctor. This time she takes you there
with
the diagnosis of severe reflux. Their history says that the old doctors have already tried everything and wanted to operate but she doesn’t want to subject you to that without a second opinion. Makes it sound so bad that the new doctors say yes, the first guys are right, we need to operate.”

I look down. My fingers are tracing my feeding tube scar through my sweater. I can’t feel them. I can’t feel anything. “But that’s pretty much the truth. Besides, just because a mother fights for the best medical care for their child doesn’t make them wrong about what that care should be.”

That’s what my mom tells other moms at hospitals. Moms she thinks are wimping out, following the doctors blindly. She calls them sheep, says they need to learn to fight for their kids.

“Doctors don’t know everything,” I add. My mother’s ultimate rebuttal. “But a mom sees her kid every day.”

He’s nodding in time with my words. Just like doctors do when they’re politely listening to Mom’s suggestions but are ready to ignore her. Anger coils inside me, making it hard to take a deep breath.

“I read everything, Scarlet. There are records and notes she’s altered—to slant things her way before she passed the records on to the next doctor. Easy to do before electronic medical records. All she needed was a little white-out and a typewriter. But in the computer version of your records, she kept a copy of all of the originals. So they were there to compare.”

Curling up in the chair, knees to my chest, hugging them, I’m trying my best to make myself a smaller target. To hide from his words. So they can’t hurt me. Because everything he says hurts so bad—worse than anything I’ve ever felt in a hospital. Tears slide off my cheeks onto the knees of my jeans. I don’t even notice. I like seeing the world blurred. It makes this all seem like it’s not really happening.

Where’s my beach? My lovely beach. It’s gone. I can’t get there. Not from here.

He leaves his notes—his precious evidence—and comes to me. He reaches out a hand but I shy away. It drops to his side. Empty.

Just like I am.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.

“Okay.” I somehow find my voice again. “So she changed the records to convince doctors. That doesn’t mean—that can’t mean—”

He turns away. Like he can’t even look at me. I’m that pathetic.

“She hurt you, Scarlet. You and, I think, your brother.”

“You can’t prove that!” Now I’m shouting, the rage that’s built inside me exploding as if it has a will of its own.

He whirls back. “Why are you defending her?”

All I can do is stare. How can he even ask? What kind of boy is this that he doesn’t know the answer?

I unfold myself and stand up. “Out. Get out of my house.”

He stands firm. I try to push him. He doesn’t move. “I want you gone. Go away!”

I pound on his chest with my fists, flailing and crying and screaming. He just stands there. When I quiet down, he says, “Think about it, Scarlet. Who saw? Who was the only person who ever saw anything?”

He wraps his arms around me, catching me before I can collapse, and holds me tight. “You know I’m right.”

I do. I do. I do. I do. I do.

But that doesn’t mean I believe. How can I believe what he’s saying, what I’m thinking?

I’d have to be a monster to believe that. And monsters deserve to die—maybe that’s what happened. My mom saw the monster inside me and knew that.

“It’s all my fault.” The words emerge in a gargle of tears. “All my fault.”

“No.” He holds me tighter.

All I can see is the gray of his shirt—now black with my tears. All I can smell is Tony. Musky, sweet, autumn leaves crushed underfoot—all Tony.

“It’s not your fault,” he keeps repeating. We stand like that for a long time. Long enough for my tears to stop and my heart to tumble into an oddball, almost-normal rhythm.

Then he says, “I stayed up all night trying to figure this out. Then today I went to the library and did some reading.”

I brace myself. So far Tony’s reading has only brought me pain.

“There’s this…condition. Called Munchausen by proxy. People, usually moms, hurt kids so they can get attention from doctors and nurses or be treated like heroes when they ‘miraculously’ save them. I think that’s why she did it.”

Enough people do this that there’s a name for it? I wonder at that. A sliver of hope chisels itself into the darkness. Maybe I’m not the monster, the crazy one. Maybe it’s not all my fault.

My cell phone rings and the frayed thread of hope dissolves as reality intrudes.

I push away from Tony, wipe my nose on my sleeve, and grab my phone.

“You bitch!” Nessa’s voice thunders through the receiver. “How could you?”