Circle Nine (24 page)

I try hard not to think about it. But it’s there, all the time, a hand pressed against my chest, suffocating my heart until I’m deader than they think I am, because not even a soul remains. All of my grief is not enough. Sometimes I wonder, when I sit on the long steel bench at mealtime, or when I wait in line for an open shower stall, how many of these women are like me — which ones are running from something, hearts beating from anxious adrenaline, and which ones are just stuck somewhere in inertia, passing the time until they pass the time somewhere else. It’s not so easy to tell. Everyone watches one another, but this is what I see:

I see Myra, the obese woman who speaks to her belly and clutches her back when she walks, hoping everyone will think she’s pregnant. I see the way Myra skips meals. I see her trot back to her room at night, and because I watch very closely, I know where she keeps her stash of candy. I even know how much she eats: seven king-size Hershey bars per night.

I see Lulu, a scrawny kid, maybe fourteen, who cocks her fingers in the shape of a pistol and gnashes her teeth together if you look her way. I see her stuff things in her pockets when she thinks no one’s watching: a cheap plastic bracelet, a brownie from lunch, a postcard of Las Vegas. And I see the way she hugs her drug-addled mother when she bothers to visit. I see the way she slips these treasures from her own palm into her mother’s pockets. I made a sketch last week, one night I couldn’t sleep. I made it extra-beautiful with lots of detail. It was a sketch of the ocean, with a little beach hut off to the side and a girl playing in the waves. The next morning, it was stolen, but it was OK. I’d wanted her to have it.

And there are others. Others more like me who went to bed one day and woke up somewhere else entirely. Girls whose worlds changed in an instant because of a mistake, or an accident, or a bad decision they thought they could control until they found out they were horribly, grossly wrong. There are several drug addicts whose jittery mannerisms remind me of Sam. I try not to notice.

What strikes me most profoundly in all my watching and waiting is that I’m not very different from most of the people here at all. Less than a year ago, I had a good life: a family who cared, books and clothes even though we weren’t rich, and always plenty of food. Now I am here. And all it took was one mistake to go from being who I
was
to who I
am.
All in the flicker of a candle. And I can’t help but wonder, How many people here would say the same thing happened to them? If only someone told us all when we were little how easy it is to fall. How no one at all belongs at the bottom — it’s just unfortunate luck, a bad choice made in a minute or less. We think we’re different, we’re privileged, that those people are down here for a reason. But now I know the truth: they’re not. It’s just chaos, madness, accident, luck.

Even when I was with Sam, though, there was this idea that we were somehow different, or better. He made me believe we were destined for each other; that we were smarter and more in love and
chosen.
Chosen for greatness. If he were ever to find me here, he’d clasp my hands in his, and even as track marks ran up and down his forearms, he’d look around and laugh. And he’d say in a gravelly voice, “What are you doing here,
mija,
with all of these messed-up people? You don’t belong here; you belong with me.” And the worst part is, I’d go. I’d follow his skeleton frame out of there and never look back. I’d follow him and live in a situation far worse than this, all the while make-believing that he and I were above all of that. And I’d look the other way when he indulged his habits, and then maybe the day would come when he’d get me hooked on more than just him. I’d follow Sam all the way to the grave. That’s why I’m afraid of him. It would be my second grave. The whole world believes I’m dead, but I won’t get there Sam’s way, on a chariot of arrogance and obsession.

“I can’t remember,” I say, but I am lying. I remember everything.

“Try,” Dr. Tessler says. “The memories are there, somewhere inside of you.” I look at him then and he looks at me back and I see he’s so painfully sincere.

I read once that there are hundreds of emotions that can translate themselves to the human eyes. I think this as I look into Dr. Tessler’s brown orbs, which speak of all the ways he wants to fix me, as though I’m a puzzle he can reassemble if he only tries hard enough. And I remember my mother’s eyes the way I always seem to think of them now: their warmth as she smiled at me on Sundays, flipping pancakes on the stove, extra butter and one of them cut in an
A
for
Addison.
Her eyes spoke of love, contentment, happiness. Emotions that seem so inconceivably distant now.

I remember Katie’s wicked grin the first day she ever snuck out, scaling the tree next to our roof and hopping into the idling car below. She’d turned to me and winked, and I’d looked back at her, silently pleading with her to ask me along, knowing she never would, that in some ways I’d always just be alone. Even in the dim light of the street lamp, I could see it in her eyes: nervous abandon, pride, excitement, glee. Feelings that had everything to do with the parts of her life I couldn’t share. And when she returned home that night and kissed me on the cheek, her breath hot with gin, her eyes radiated a soft, muddled kind of peace.

The eyes can say so much more than words.

I remember the night of the fire. My mother’s eyes glowed amber in the reflection of the flames; they were pleading, frightened. My father’s eyes shone with resignation. Katie’s were worse. In them lay some emotion: maybe part regret, but also something more. Her eyes screamed awareness of the whole life she’d never see.

But of course I can’t tell any of this to Dr. Tessler. I can’t tell him because then
my
life — the only thing that remains of all of this — will vanish as easily as theirs did. I don’t know why I want to live, but I do. And that fact is maybe even uglier than everything I’ve done to get here. It fills me with disgust. But I can’t tell Dr. Tessler who I am.

Because I am a murderer.

I wear my family’s blood like an impenetrable coat of armor. I betrayed them. I am a part of the very thing I’ve spent months fearing. I am Circle Nine. I am surprised Dr. Tessler can’t see it for himself. He will return home tonight to his empty apartment, or maybe even to a loving family. He will settle back into his armchair, a replica of the one he keeps in his office, and reflect on my case. He’ll sip a cup of coffee or a glass of whiskey, unwind from his long day. And he’ll think, Maybe I can really get through to her. I hope I can. She’s so young. . . . And later, he’ll fall asleep easily, clearheaded and optimistic. Certain that somehow, some way, he can fix me.

And all the while I will sit on my cot at Saint Francis House, and for me it will all be real and so excruciating that I will, probably, question for the millionth time whether I really do want to go on alone or whether I should end it all now. After all, I think, even if I keep fighting, what’s the point? Aren’t I already condemned? But like the many times before, I will recognize that tiny glimmer in me that wants something more from life. What happened will still be true. I will still be responsible for all these deaths. I will still be without my family and without Sam, whom I still — despite everything — can’t help but love. It’s not an interesting case but a life — my life — and the lives I destroyed. I know in my gut that what I feel is beyond repair. And I know if I stay here and let this doctor pick apart my brain, the things he’ll inevitably find will only make things worse.

I have to leave. I don’t have much time.

“Abby?” I look up quickly. “Abby,” he says again, and, as though he can read my thoughts: “What about Sam? Can you tell me about him?”

Sam.
The name is a bullet through my chest. Sam’s name did not come up in my previous sessions; I’d thought he, at least, would be easy to hide.

“I don’t know who you mean,” I say. The doctor peers at me closely. He knows I’m lying.

“Sam,” he says. “According to the social worker from Saint Francis, you were repeating the name in your sleep.”

“I don’t know,” I tell him. “I don’t remember any Sam.”

We sit in silence for ten minutes.

“You should know that Lara’s run a background check,” says Dr. Tessler seriously. “There are no missing persons reports filed under Abby Jameson.” He pauses, as though choosing his words carefully. “We need your memories, Abby. There may be something that can help you if you’re willing to try it. Hypnosis.” He says it carefully, gauging my reaction. “Many people who suffer from what you’re experiencing can easily enter hypnotic states.” He forms his fingers into a little steeple in front of his chest. “Consider it. It could be very helpful.” His words sound like a threat, but I nod anyway.

“It’s noon, then,” he says, as if it wouldn’t have been noon otherwise. “Hang in there, Abby. I’ll see you next week. You can call me anytime before that if there’s anything at all you’d like to talk about.” I nod, pushing myself out of the recliner I’ve come to hate. My time here is running out.

“An interesting book.” His voice stops me just as I’ve reached the door. “What did you think of it?” I swivel at this; I’m caught off-guard. Dr. Tessler has an odd, curious look on his face, as though I’ve surprised him somehow. At first I don’t know what he’s talking about, but then I remember; the
Inferno
is jutting from the pocket of my jacket, its bulky form halfway exposed. I don’t know why I still carry it around. I guess because it’s the one thing I still have left from my time with Sam.

“I’m not sure,” I say carefully, even as my heart begins its instinctive race. “It’s frightening.”

“Yes,” he agrees. “But necessarily so, wouldn’t you agree? In the way it fits with the whole, I mean. Have you read the rest?”

“The rest?” Now it’s me who is surprised.

“Oh, yes,” he says. “You really ought to. The
Purgatorio
and the
Paradisus.
The
Inferno
is the most famous, of course; but it’s only the beginning.” I see that he is getting animated, as though this is a subject that interests him, but I don’t mind because I am interested, too.

Only the beginning.

“It’s all about the soul’s ascent to heaven,” Dr. Tessler continues, “starting in the bowels of hell and working its way up. At least that’s it in very simple terms. It’s really quite interesting; you should give it a look. A monster of a book, though,” he says with a laugh. “I don’t blame you if you don’t. I only dug through it under threat of a failing grade, way back when, in college.”

“OK,” I tell him, forcing a casual tone. “Maybe I’ll check it out.” I can feel the warm flush spreading to my face, so I turn quickly, striding out the door before he has a chance to see how his words have affected me.
The soul’s ascent to heaven.
So the story didn’t end in hell at all; there’s more to it. Something about knowing this makes me feel lighter, justifies my will to survive. All this time I’ve felt guilty for wanting to go on, but maybe survival is OK. I think about it all the way home, and it stays with me into the night, a tiny spark of hope embedded in my heart.

I am on the streets, technically the sidewalk, crunched up next to a set of stone stairs. I am supposed to be looking for a job; instead, I am begging. Because of my health, I have not had to go on mandatory job searches before today.

Now I pull my baseball cap low over my face, a cap I borrowed from a girl named Thed, short for Theodora, for the afternoon. My body almost doesn’t matter; by now it is a stranger’s body. But I wear one of Thed’s tight wife-beaters to show off my bones. It makes me look as skinny as I am. I feel naked, but it is so hot in this early-summer sun that I am grateful in a way. I sweat. I stare down at my sidewalk. It is the easiest way of making money. I’ve heard stories of people getting rich this way. So I’m doing it, even though there’s a risk. But I’ve seen myself in the mirror. I think I look different enough now, so skinny, like one of those girls on the talk shows and nothing like myself.
Keep your head down. No one will recognize you. You could be anyone.