He’s recording.
Chapter 51. Caleb
Saralinda sits on the floor, one arm around her knees, one hand on the locked door. Her fingers are white from the pressure, as if she’s trying to push her hand through the door and touch her mother’s.
She gapes up at you.
The camera captures her horror as she grasps that you are filming, filming as her mother berates her, shames her, abuses her, and disowns her . . . as she realizes this will be the video uploaded onto the internet.
No script. No editing. No control. No multiple takes to get it right. No friends to share the spotlight with.
No choice.
She half chokes on a whispered no.
It turns out that you are the kind of bastard who, despite being moved, is aware that her distress makes better drama. Which is to say, you lean in for a different angle on a close-up.
Saralinda buries her face in her hands.
You hear a distant siren. However, five seconds later the siren fades and Kenyon moves into the camera eye, kneeling beside Saralinda.
“SL.” Kenyon makes a pleading movement with her hands. She whispers low, underneath the ranting that’s still coming from Saralinda’s mother, so you go in closer to make sure the microphone catches her voice. “Keep her talking. Get her to talk about the other parents. I’ve called 911 for Evangeline and they’re coming. It’s all up to you now.”
Kenyon runs back to Evangeline and you pivot to film how Evangeline slumps across the bed, shivering, retching over the side, the cell phone beside her with—you hope and pray—emergency response still live on the other end. Because then it turns out that it doesn’t need to be just the Saralinda show after all.
You keep the camera on Evangeline as she looks into the camera and says, “I’ve been poisoned.”
You return to record Saralinda shriveling against the door. She has now fully absorbed Evangeline’s deteriorating condition. Her gaze moves to the camera, to you, and she nods, a crisp movement of her head.
She doesn’t look pathetic anymore.
Later, if there is a later, you will tell her about the moment of connection that you had with Kenyon and Evangeline after Saralinda’s mother began ranting. There’d been a nod at the tablet, another at a cell phone, and you’d moved smoothly and silently into your individual positions; you recording, Kenyon calling for an ambulance, Evangeline grimly holding on. You would not have taken the power of consent from Saralinda if all three of you had not agreed—but you are enormously relieved she is now fully conscious of what’s going on, and participating.
Saralinda raises her voice to cut into her mother’s continued ranting. “Mom, listen. I know about Tori.”
“You know nothing!”
“I read all the paperwork. You want a little daughter again who needs you the way I don’t anymore. I want Tori in our family too. I’d love a sister. We can still make our family work.”
“Family? You’re not in this family! I told you. I’m done with you! I don’t want you!”
“But see, if you were to talk with a therapist—if we both were to talk to a good therapist, someone like for example Dr. Colchester. We could make our family work again. And you like Dr. Colchester . . .”
Her mother takes the bait.
“I’ve already talked to him! For your information, he agrees with me about you.”
Saralinda’s voice goes scornful. “I don’t believe you. You don’t really know Dr. Colchester. He’s famous. He’d never talk to you. I bet he doesn’t know you’re alive.”
Her mother is stung. “I do too know him.”
“I doubt it. No. You don’t know Dr. Colchester and you don’t know—” Saralinda hesitates. “You don’t know my other friends’ families either. You don’t know Mrs. Dubois or Kenyon’s grandfather or Spencer Song.”
You hold the camera steady on Saralinda’s face.
Her mother says, “Actually, Dr. Colchester is my very good friend. He understands about you, Saralinda, because he has a thankless child himself. That boy. He’s absolutely onto you and what kind of girl you are.”
“Is he?”
“Yes, he is! After you ran away, he told me you might come here for insulin. It turned out exactly the way he said. That’s why you came back, right? For insulin?”
“Yes,” Saralinda says slowly. Her shocked eyes meet yours and you nod in grim acknowledgment—your father was one step ahead of you the whole time.
Then her mother says, “What’s your blood sugar, anyway?” For a moment she sounds like a concerned parent. “Did you take insulin already? How much?”
This video is going to be useless, you think. Full of footage that could be interpreted any way the viewer wants.
Saralinda hesitates, her brow creased, and then says, “I did. My sugar was high. It was—it was 653.”
“653!” It’s a shriek.
“Yes.” Saralinda stares grimly into midair. Didn’t she tell you something different before? A much lower number?
“I’ve never been sicker in my life, Mom. You’re right, I came home for insulin, and before you got here, I shot myself with a whole lot of it.” She mentions more numbers, which are meaningless to you. “I didn’t know what to do without you helping me, so I guessed.”
Her mother exclaims, “You took way too much! You’re going to go too low now! I knew it! I always knew you couldn’t manage without me.”
“It won’t be too much if I eat. You taught me that, Mom. So if you unlock the door and let me into the kitchen so I can eat, then I’ll be okay. Right? I need to eat something. And then maybe go to the hospital. Right?”
You stare into the level, lying eyes of the clever girl you love.
“Please, Mom,” Saralinda says softly. “I need to eat. Let me. Please. Let me out. Take me to the hospital.” She pauses. “Save my life.”
There is a long pause.
“Oh, no,” her mother lilts. “I won’t.”
“But I could go into a coma. I could die.”
“That’s right! And you’ll have done it to yourself.” Saralinda’s mother’s voice rises in triumph. “I always said you couldn’t take care of yourself, couldn’t calculate insulin amounts properly, couldn’t remember to eat right, not on your own, and now you’re proving it. All I have to do is keep this door locked and walk away.”
“That would be murder, Mom.” Saralinda’s voice does not quiver, but her arms clasp themselves.
“No, it would be karma. Because you brought this on yourself. Go ahead and die, Saralinda! See if I care.”
You go close in on Saralinda’s face.
Outside, you hear the siren.
Kenyon leans out the open window, looks back, and mouths, They’re here!
“Mom,” Saralinda says. “You don’t mean it.”
“But I do,” says Ursula de la Flor.
Okay, you think, okay. Your video has nothing on your father, nothing on Kenyon’s grandfather, nothing on Spencer. But you have Saralinda’s mother crowing over her daughter’s death—and the ambulance has arrived for Evangeline.
Chapter 52. Saralinda
I am done I am finished there is nothing left inside me. I have tricked and betrayed my mother who is mentally ill and I never knew it, and she has betrayed me too. Only I can’t fall apart and I can’t be destroyed, not yet anyway, my friends need me. So I stagger up on my feet and lurch with Georgia’s help to Evangeline’s side. There is no time for tears, also it is selfish because look at Evangeline so sick and shaking, and oh the smell, and look at Kenyon so terrified oh God oh God, I am afraid I will sob hyperventilate hystericate which is not a word but should be, so—
I slap myself on the face.
Which works.
Never ever argue with what works.
I am calm again, okay maybe not totally calm but not crying either. The point i
s I can function because I am not me, I am someone else steady and clear who will do what she has to do.
Caleb is working to upload the video of me and my mother. On the video my mother says she knows Dr. Colchester and he agrees with her about me being rotten—that’s all there is, that plus her being mean to me and wanting me dead, maybe that’s something although there’s not even my mother herself on it, just her voice but it’s all we have.
I elbow Caleb, who is working too slowly. “Let me do it! I have ideas!”
Caleb looks at my cheek where I slapped myself and he steps aside before I push him out of my way.
My fingers take wing, uploading the video and tagging or linking or emailing it to the faculty and student body and all the parents at Rockland Academy including of course our own families. Also the New York City and State police departments (who cares if Kenyon’s grandfather is one of their own, he won’t be able to intercept it), plus @nypost and @cnn and other news places, and I make sure to use the names of Caleb’s father and Evangeline’s famous dead father and Kenyon’s grandfather the cop in the tags. I also make sure to say that even if nobody believes us, all of our lives are in danger and if anything happens to us, then the police must investigate. I am posting to Facebook when at last (how long can it seriously take them to come upstairs?) there’s commotion and pounding on the outside apartment door.
“Emergency! Open up!”
My mother will have to let them in, right?
Many things happen simultaneously:
Kenyon yells, “Help! Yes! Help!”
Caleb plasters himself against the bedroom door and yells, “In here!”
Evangeline’s head hangs over the side of the bed as she retches and a thin string of spittle dangles from her mouth which Kenyon wipes away with a washcloth.
I tweet the video link to @obiwankenobi adding insanely You’re our only hope.
There is a smashing noise—the outside door—and strange voices call “Hello? Hello?” and Caleb yells again. “We’re locked in! She’s locked us in here!”
Evangeline looks up dazedly with glazed eyes and I go crazy on Twitter trying to tweet to people or things with many followers, @emergencykittens @beyonce @thetweetofgod @hillaryclinton @neilhimself @shakespeare @benedictcumbRP and @nfl.
My bedroom door snaps unlocked, and three men and one woman crowd in wearing emergency jackets. One look and they are at Evangeline’s side.
Kenyon says frantically, “She drank something, we think it was poison and she’s been vomiting but there’s nothing to come up anymore and her skin’s so hot and—”
“We’re here,” one of the men says. “Stand back, miss. Let us do our job.”
Reluctantly Kenyon moves aside as two of the medics crouch and the woman puts a hand on Evangeline’s forehead. “She’s burning up.”
Beside me Caleb breathes deeply. They work on Evangeline while I google for law firms. Their numbers are overwhelming so I narrow the search by criminal law. Then I send the video to the first twelve lawyers on the list, with a cover note that says simply: Our families are trying to kill us. Can you help? I am not happy with this but writing appeals to lawyers is not the kind of thing Rockland Academy teaches. I also wish I could remember the name of Evangeline’s lawyer but I just can’t.
Evangeline gets an adrenaline shot.
My fingers cannot be stopped. They find the Facebook page of the adoption agency which I did not even know I was looking for. There is no evidence of the parental conspiracy on the video but there is evidence to cast doubt on my mother’s fitness to adopt.
I wonder where my mother is. Did she run away? Is she lingering out in the kitchen or hiding in her bedroom?
I send the video to the adoption agency and I think:
Tori, this video is my gift. May you find a good family may you be happy may you have a good life. Though I will never know you, I will never forget you, my sister.
Caleb’s hand is on my shoulder. I do not need to look at him to know that he sees and understands what I am doing.
“Bring up the stretcher,” one of the male medics says to the other two. “We’ll take her in.”
Kenyon crowds close again.
“Sorry, miss, we need you to stay out of our way. It’s best for your friend.”
“Girlfriend! She’s my girlfriend!”
“We’ll take good care of your girlfriend,” the woman medic says.
Kenyon staggers back toward me and I hold her with an arm around her waist, and from Facebook I hear a beep: Evangeline’s roommate Irina has shared our video along with five exclamation points.
The medics hook Evangeline up to an oxygen tank. One of Evangeline’s hands flutters up to hold the oxygen mask against her nose and mouth. I pray this is a good sign and Caleb’s hand tightens on my shoulder as if he hopes so too. I tilt my head to touch his hand with my cheek and I clasp Kenyon to me with my other arm. The three of us breathe in unison as the two medics do things—they straighten out Evangeline’s legs, they inject something else into her arm—and the other medics come back in. They position the stretcher and lift Evangeline onto it and roll her out.
“I’m going with her. I’ll force them to take me!” Kenyon wrests herself from me to run after them.
Caleb calls, “We’ll follow. We’ll meet you there!”
Kenyon flaps a hand behind her and disappears.
I grab for Georgia. As I stand up, my mother appears in the doorway of my bedroom.
She is beautifully put together—silk pantsuit, ankle boots and scarf, with makeup and jewelry and her hair swept up—as if she did believe it about needing to go to the adoption agency.
The air from the open window ruffles her neck scarf.
“So you’re not the one who’s sick?” she says.
“No,” I say. “I’m not sick. I took the right amount of insulin. I ate. I’m fine.”
We stare at each other.
“So you lied,” she says.
I turn away from her to my tablet where there are more messages about shares which I ignore. I scroll the video ahead to near the end.
The recording fills the room with my mother’s voice.
Go ahead and die, Saralinda!
My mother stares narrow-eyed at me.
I say to her, “I sent this recording to the adoption agency. So, no matter what happens to me, they won’t let you have Tori.”
I stand steady with Georgia. We do not need Caleb’s help although he stands very near to me and I am glad.
There is a long silence.
At last my mother says, “All I ever wanted was to be a mother.”
I clench Georgia. “That’s over. I’m not your daughter anymore, and you’re not my mother.”
More words come lashing out of me. “Also you’ll never be anyone else’s mother ever again! You’ll be completely alone!”
Her face. I will never forget her expression.
My mother takes two quick steps toward me but Caleb blocks her way, so she looks around the room as if for some object that she can grab and bash me with—and I hope she finds it because I want to bash back. I steady myself with one hand on the desk behind me and think about lifting Georgia—no, yes, no—I can’t do that—
Then I see that my mother is crying.
What happens next happens quickly.
My mother looks past me to the window which is open wide. In a blink she has covered the distance to it and despite everything my heart leaps toward her and my muscles tense toward her—to stop her—stop—
Caleb grabs me, holds me, as my mother scrambles over the windowsill—balances there for a sickening second while I scream Mom—
A heartbeat later comes the smash and the shrill of the alarm from the car on which my mother has landed.
Chapter 53. Caleb
You sit in the hospi
tal waiting area outside the locked intensive care unit, beside a silent Saralinda and a frantic, pacing Kenyon. It’s evening by the time Spencer Merriman Song races dramatically into the waiting room. She’s wearing a crisp black shirt, beige leggings, and beige heels, with her hair pulled into a disheveled ponytail. A coat slips from her clutching arms, obscuring her handbag. She spies you—it seems as if she zeroes in on you in particular—and alters her course to skid breathlessly up. She wears no makeup, smells of soap, and her shirt is misbuttoned.
“Caleb?” She uses your name as if she knows you, lingering on it a beat too long. This makes you decide that if you live you will change it.
“You were with her?” Spencer asks urgently. “You and—” Her distressed gaze takes in Saralinda, but she entirely misses Kenyon, who is approaching wrathfully from behind. “What happened? They just got hold of me—my phone was off—I—so sorry—oh, God, how is Evangeline now, what do they say?”
You have no clue why this woman risks marrying and murdering her way into wealth when she could act her way there.
Kenyon is in her face. “Get away from us!”
Spencer takes a step back. “But—but Evangeline—”
“Don’t speak her name! Not to me! Not ever!”
Spencer’s hands go up and her lips part. She looks at you with great big wounded eyes. You let your own eyes drift accusingly to the second button of her shirt, which is pushed into the third buttonhole.
Her hand reaches to clutch her shirt—she stutters, “I—I—”
Saralinda stands up.
“Sorry about my friends.” She speaks directly to Spencer. Each word sounds like it’s rasping against her throat. “They’re upset. Ignore them.”
Spencer blinks rapidly. “I—I—it’s true that Evangeline doesn’t get along with me, but—”
“Hospital policy is that they only talk to family,” Saralinda continues steadily. “So they won’t tell us how Evangeline is. But you will, won’t you?”
“Of course—I need to go see her . . .” She looks terrified.
Saralinda nods. “Yes. Let’s go talk to the reception nurse together.”