Now, when Mother appeared settled, Mrs. Lofter turned to me and nodded toward the doorway. We practically tiptoed out. She didn’t speak until we reached the stairway.
“Let’s talk a bit downstairs,” she said.
“Did I do something wrong?”
“Let’s have a chat,” she insisted.
Here it goes, I thought, my psychoanalysis. I led her into the living room and purposefully took Daddy’s favorite chair. It helped me hold on to my sense of superiority. I sat back, with my arms on the arms of the chair, looking, I was sure, like some sort of princess holding court. This was, after all, my kingdom and not hers. She sat on the sofa across from me.
“I know that what you see happening to your mother is quite disturbing for you,” she began.
I pounced. “My mother never confused us. She never called me Kaylee or called her Haylee. Never! And she wouldn’t permit anyone else to get away with it, either, even my father.”
“I understand, but you have to realize, Haylee, that your mother is in a state of shock. At this point, it will only do more damage to force her to accept Kaylee’s disappearance when she blocks it out. It’s better if we go along with it as best we can when that occurs.”
“How can we do that? Kaylee’s not here! If you didn’t drug my mother again just now, she would have come down here to lecture the two of us and would have remembered that Kaylee is gone,” I snapped back. “Then what? We pretend Kaylee’s in another room or in the bathroom until you give Mother another pill?”
She closed and opened her eyes, projecting that tolerance I hated on the faces of my teachers and especially on Kaylee’s face. It had the effect of forcing your words to echo back at you and turning your anger into regret. “For now, we have to humor her, pretend that Kaylee is here when she forgets or blocks out that she isn’t. We can try to get her to change her train of thought, which was what I was doing. I’m afraid she’s going to move in and out of this state of mind, I hope for only a while. Sometimes she’ll remember Kaylee’s gone, and sometimes she won’t.”
“Hopefully for only a while?”
“Yes, hopefully for only a while.”
“What are you saying? You mean she might not? She might never believe Kaylee’s gone?”
“I’ve had patients like that, yes. The situation would need more drastic approaches. Look, the mind is incredibly stronger than we often imagine. It will do what it can to protect her from realizing something so painful. Eventually, facing Kaylee’s disappearance, if the disappearance continues, of course, will be quite devastating.”
“Eventually? It looks to me like it is devastating right now.”
“It can and might get a lot worse,” she said, as firmly as Mother had ever said anything.
“How can you tell all this so fast? You haven’t been here one full day?” I asked, more like demanded. Her superior self-confidence was annoying me. And I certainly didn’t want to hear that Mother might never believe that Kaylee was gone. Nothing would change if that was true.
Concerned, however, that Mrs. Lofter might read something more into my irritation, I tried to hide it, stuff it under a look of sadness. But it refused to be kept silent.
“That would be terrible, horrible. It would be like living with a ghost in the house.”
“Yes, it would. I’ve been involved in many similar situations, I’m afraid. Many of them involved an only child, which, as you can imagine, shatters parents, perhaps mothers more than fathers. Your family situation is complex, even without this event.”
I stared at her a moment. She seemed to know a lot more about us, about Mother. “Complex?”
“There’s a divorce. There are other issues,” she added softly.
“What other issues? How do you know about our issues?”
She was silent.
I leaned forward. “You and my father met before you came here, didn’t you?” I asked, my suspicion rising like mercury in a thermometer.
“Why do you say that?” she countered, but weakly.
I looked away. I could recognize guilt in someone’s face. As Kaylee used to tell me, “It takes one to know one.” Mrs. Lofter’s response was a yes, I was sure.
I turned back to her, no longer intimidated by her. “Why did my father pretend to be meeting you for the first time here? What’s going on? I won’t be treated like a child.”
“No one wants to treat you like a child.”
“Well, then, why be dishonest?”
She looked trapped.
She might have the education and the experience, but I had the instincts. I’d knock her down a peg or two.
“We didn’t want to frighten you more than you already would be,” she confessed. “No one was trying to fool you or do something behind your back, Haylee.”
“Which was what you did,” I said dryly. “I suppose the three of you met—you, Daddy, and the doctor—and discussed me as well as Mother?”
“It was all to make sure I could do the best possible job for you all,” she said. “I don’t simply walk into a new assignment cold.”
I smiled. “Yes, I’m sure you don’t,” I said. “Well, maybe you don’t know it all. You said when this sort of thing happens to people who have an only child, it’s especially devastating to the mother.”
“In my experience, yes,” she said.
“This did happen to people who have an only child.”
“Excuse me?”
“My mother never saw us as anything but two halves of one daughter. Kaylee and I once had an argument over how she used the word you when she referred to us or either one of us. You know, you is one of those words that can refer to many or just one. Well, when Mother used it, she meant only one, us, Haylee and Kaylee. She’s missing half of each child,” I said bitterly.
“Do you feel you’ve lost half of yourself, too?”
Oh, so here’s where the psychoanalysis comes in. Careful, I thought. Don’t get too far ahead, and don’t be too smart for yourself.
I pressed my lips together hard, which always helped me make my eyes teary when I wanted them to be, especially when a teacher was reprimanding me.
“Yes,” I said in a little girl’s voice.
“Nothing is confirmed yet, Haylee,” she said, her voice far more compassionate. “You mustn’t lose hope. I know how difficult it must be for you, but if you can keep up a confident appearance for her, your mother will get stronger and maybe help herself more, which will only make things easier for both you and your father. It’s a great deal to put on your shoulders, I know.”
“I told you, I’m not a child. I can handle it.” I was talking again without thinking. I forced my face to tremble. “In front of her, I mean,” I added. “Everyone’s going to blame me, you know,” I blurted. Now I was really crying. “I should have spoken up sooner. I shouldn’t have gone along with her crazy plan. She’s not here, so I’m the one they can blame. It won’t be the first time we were both punished for something only one of us did.”
“No one should blame you for loving your sister and wanting to keep her loyalty and faith in you. Those were good motives. In the end, we’ve all got to face the fact that we’re responsible for ourselves. Your sister’s mistake was her mistake. She brought this on herself. But let’s not rush into more tragedy, Haylee.”
“That’s not completely true. Parents are responsible for their children,” I said. “It’s not fair to put the blame entirely on Kaylee. Mother made us the way we are, and my father fled instead of changing things.”
“I see. You’re very angry with your father, aren’t you?”
Here we go, I thought. The psychological X-ray.
“We both are . . . were,” I said. “We seem to have everything any girl our age would want except a happy family life. It’s not fair. Parents shouldn’t have children if they’re going to care more about their own happiness and desert them.”
She stared a moment too long for my comfort. I could almost read her thoughts now. Her s
uspicions were expanding. She was weaving them in her mind the way a spider weaves its web.
“What?” I asked. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“If this is something you both planned in order to punish your parents, especially your father, it will not go well for either of you, Haylee. It’s best if you tell me now.”
“What?”
I almost started to laugh when it suddenly occurred to me that Mrs. Lofter might also be working with the police. Perhaps she would report to them about me, about how I was really reacting to my sister’s disappearance, or maybe she would start asking me more detailed questions to see if there were any contradictions. She wasn’t here simply to help us with Mother and to help Mother deal with Kaylee’s disappearance; she was here to spy on me, too. I was sure of it.
“Okay. You might as well know everything,” I said, as if I was exhausted from the burden of heavy secrets.
“Oh?” She leaned forward.
Looking for a confession? I thought. Look again, Mrs. Lofter. You’re the last person to whom I would confess.
“You’re not entirely wrong with your suspicions,” I said.
“I see. Please explain.”
“I don’t like talking about Kaylee like this.”
“It’s for her own good.”
“We never betrayed each other’s confidences.”
“I understand, but this is a different situation now. It’s grown far more serious. I’m sure you realize it.”
I took a deep breath. Oh, how painful I made it look. Were they standing off to the side with my Oscar? “My sister was more frustrated than I was with how our mother insisted on and enforced our similarities,” I began.
Mrs. Lofter sat up straighter. “Go on.”
“She often talked about running away, but like that sort of talk was for me, I thought it was just wishful thinking for her. Maybe there was no Internet romance. Maybe she lied to me. She wasn’t herself these past weeks. There was a time when we would tell each other our most intimate thoughts, down to how we felt when a certain boy touched us in places boys want to touch you. We hid nothing from each other.”
I paused again to take a deep breath and wipe an errant tear from the crest of my cheek. Good touch, I thought. Sometimes I was so good at this that I convinced myself I was telling the truth.
“I don’t know what to say, Mrs. Lofter. I don’t mean to give the police or anyone false information, but I feel terrible revealing these intimate things about Kaylee. It’s like . . . revealing things about yourself, don’t you see? It’s so hard, so hard to explain.” I had the police wondering about this already, so I didn’t think I was doing anything damaging to myself. Keep it all consistent, I told myself.
“If she did indeed run away of her own accord, where would she go?” Mrs. Lofter asked.
I smiled to myself, thinking she wasn’t so clever after all, even with all that education and experience. She was so obvious. Why would she care about any of this if she was here to be a nurse and not a detective’s assistant?
I shrugged. “She saved money. We both did. She used to talk about going to California and becoming an actress or a model. Either of us could do that. Mother herself often told us so, and so did many other people, including some teachers. To us, it wasn’t such a far-fetched dream, although I would say Kaylee believed it more than I did.”
“Maybe you should discuss this more with the police,” Mrs. Lofter said.
“I’ve told them as much.”
“But if you have any more details . . .”
“I don’t,” I said.
She looked skeptical. That was fine. I was keeping them all off balance. And wasn’t that what she was really doing to Mother, keeping her a little confused, a little foggy, so she wouldn’t suffer so much? Everyone was lying to everyone else in one way or another.
The truth was, in this world, we couldn’t exist without lies. Mother had been lying about Kaylee and me all these years, telling people we were exactly alike, even in our thoughts. Daddy had lied his way out of here. My grandmother Clara Beth certainly lied all the time. I could see the lies teachers spun when they tried to convince one of their students to work harder, claiming they could do so much more. Lies were gray and dark, like angry clouds swirling madly above and around us, always threatening to rain the truth on us and make us do what Mrs. Lofter did not want Mother to do: face cold reality head-on. The truth was too strong.
Some believed that suicide had become an epidemic among depressed teenagers and wounded war veterans. If Kaylee never came home, Mother might just do that. If she did, how would I feel? I didn’t know. Maybe, just before she killed herself, I would confess to save her, or maybe I’d do what Mrs. Lofter believed people did and block out reality to keep myself from suffering at all.
The phone rang. I looked at it as if I had just realized we had one.
“You should start talking to people, especially your close friends,” Mrs. Lofter said, rising. “It’s at times like this that we need our friends. Don’t drive them away. I’m going to look after my things and settle in.”
Sure, I thought. What you’re really going to do is call the detectives on your cell phone and report everything I told you, I bet. I nodded at her.
The phone rang again as she walked away. “Haylee Fitzgerald,” I said after I had picked up the receiver.
“Hey,” Daddy said. “I was afraid you wouldn’t answer. How’s it going?”
“Not good. She gave Mother a pill, even though she told us she wasn’t going to keep her on pills. Maybe this is all too much for her to handle now that she sees what’s happening. I mean, she didn’t know much about us before she came here,” I said, to see if Daddy would reveal that he and Dr. Bloom had met with her. “It’s very complex.”
“No, no, she knows what to do and when to do it, Haylee. She’s trained for such things. But did anything else occur to upset your mother? Someone call or . . .”
“Nothing to upset her, but something occurred to upset me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Mother called me Kaylee,” I said, and started to cry, sucking in sobs. “When she saw me, she thought I was Kaylee, who had come home.”
“Well, under the circumstances . . .” I knew he didn’t think that was anything to lose sleep over, even before all this.
“No. You don’t understand. She’s never mixed us up, Daddy. She really didn’t know who I was. It hurt. A lot.”
“Okay, okay. She’s not herself. You can’t take any of it to heart.”
“I know,” I said in my little-girl voice. “Mrs. Lofter explained it all, but it still hurts.”
“Stay strong, Haylee. We’ve all got to stay strong.”
“I’m trying.”
“Good. I spoke with Lieutenant Cowan a little while ago.”
“And?”
“They found someone who lives on that street where another witness thought he might have seen your sister. She’s an elderly woman but apparently quite healthy, alert. She gave them a description of a white van that she says she’d never seen parked there. It’s not much, but it’s something. They’re showing her pictures of vans to see if they can isolate the make, model, and perhaps year. They’re really trying.”
“I hope so,” I said.
“Anyway, I thought I’d stop at the Lotus House on the way home and pick up some Chinese food for us. How’s that sound?”
“Okay,” I said. “I don’t even remember if I ate any lunch.”
“Hang in there, sweetheart,” he said. I loved hearing him say that only to me. “You might be the strongest of all of us.”
“I’ll try,” I said. He didn’t know it, but I had always believed that I was.
After we hung up, the phone rang again. It was Mrs. Letterman, one of Mother’s hens, as I called them. I didn’t give her a chance to hide behind any empty expressions of hope. I went on and on about how difficult it was for the police and how we had to have the psychiatric nur
se for Mother, who was on the brink of a terrible nervous breakdown.
“We have to keep her sedated,” I said, as if I was as much in charge as anyone. “For her own good. I’m so frightened for her.”
“Oh, dear, dear. You always think things like this happen to someone else.”
“I’m sorry. I’ve got to go. I think I’m going to throw up, Mrs. Letterman. Thanks for calling,” I said, and hung up before she could utter another word.
The phone rang again, but this time, I let it go to voice mail and went upstairs instead. I was surprised at how mentally exhausted I was. Moving from one emotion to another quickly, however cleverly I was doing it, put more of a strain on me than I had anticipated. I looked forward to when this would all be over, when they’d find Kaylee, or she’d escape and come home, or when it would be clear she never would. But I was always impatient, so it didn’t astonish me that I had this attitude. Ironically, it was my sister who always kept me centered. I wished I had that part of her here.
As I lay on my bed, I wondered if after everything, even now, I would discover that I really did miss her. What if, years from now, I did just what Mrs. Lofter feared Mother would do, losing my mental defenses and then suffering regret and remorse? Could I have a nervous breakdown, too?
I laughed, imagining it. Maybe Mrs. Lofter would be called in to help with me. Too much thinking, I told myself, and I rose and went to Kaylee’s room. The detectives had asked me to do this, hadn’t they? I reasoned, and went directly to her dresser. She always kept her things neater than I did, something that annoyed Mother more than me, of course. I reached into the drawers and began tossing out her panties and bras, her socks and scarves, just flinging them willy-nilly onto her bed until all the drawers were emptied. What do you know? I thought. I didn’t find anything that might help the police.
I went to her closet and ripped everything off the hangers, turning pockets in coats and jeans inside out, flinging it all onto the floor. I even turned shoes and sneakers upside down in case a secret note had been placed inside one. When I was done with that, I attacked her vanity table, emptying the drawers onto the floor. I dumped out the contents of her jewelry box and then tore off her comforter and pulled up the sheets, bundling everything at the foot of the bed. I stripped the pillows, too. Exhausted, I plopped down among all the clothes and stuff.