“To be fair,” John said slowly, “the calls and visits may not mean anything to her.”
“They tell us she’s still in there,” Laura said. “Trapped in her own mind. But for whatever reason, she can’t get out. And we can’t let her think we’ve given up on her.”
But this was all wrong. Couldn’t they see? Agatha, when she was awake, charming, full of zest and fun and sprinkled with popularity like some magical teenage cupcake, wouldn’t have wanted me as her friend. I had nothing to offer. Maybe once upon a time we would have gotten along. But now? I was a hollowed-out shell. In some ways I was basically a version of Agatha who could talk.
Laura dug her manicured fingernails into her palm. “They told us to send her away. To a—a facility. They call it a home, but how can a place like that be a home?”
John reached over and patted her knee, and she dialed back her emotion.
“This is her home,” she said. “And we’d like for it to be yours, as well. It’s not perfect, but life never is.”
Now wasn’t that the truth.
John leaned forward. He was trying to look relaxed, but I could see his forehead twitch. “What do you think, Margaret? Do you want to try?”
The Suttons didn’t come right out and say that if I refused to be Agatha’s companion, they’d ship me back to Palmer House. In fact, I was pretty sure they didn’t think they would. But I knew it would come to that, in time. If I said no, the mere sight of me would be an ever-present reminder of my selfish choice to neglect their darling Agatha, and what was I doing with my time otherwise? Reading? Surfing the internet? Couldn’t I do those things with her in the room? It wouldn’t take long for them to see me as a greedy person who was taking advantage of their kindness.
It wasn’t a yes or no question. It was a stay or go question.
I didn’t really want to stay.
But I really didn’t want to go back to Palmer House.
So I reached up, scratched the back of my neck, and said, “Okay.”
And their expressions, like banners advertising joy and relief, actually warmed my heart and made me glad I’d said yes. Maybe I couldn’t help them, but it was nice that they thought I could.
There was silence for a little while, during which Laura made a show of looking out the window and smiling.
“It’s a beautiful evening,” she said. “Should we have dinner on the terrace?”
John jumped slightly, as if he’d forgotten we were there. “No, I can’t,” he said. “I’m sorry. I have a call at seven. I’ll eat in my study.”
“Very well,” Laura said. “Then Margaret, Agatha, and I will eat in the breakfast room.”
“Actually,” I said, “people call me Margot.”
“Margot,” Laura repeated carefully. “Spelled with a t?”
I nodded.
“How sweet,” she said. “Agatha will love it.”
I was saved from having to reply by a soft knock on the door signifying Mr. Albright’s return. He was carrying my backpack and the plastic bag.
“I can take these upstairs,” he said. “Which room?”
“Oh, the nursery, Tom, of course,” Laura said. “She’ll be staying with Agatha.”
CHAPTER
5
AS LAURA AND I walked back up to the nursery, a lump rose in my throat. This was not what I’d signed up for. No, no, no. Not this. Being friendly was one thing. Being roommates was different.
What would happen when I screamed at night?
Laura, ahead of me, knocked on the door and pushed it open.
“Agatha, we’re back,” she said.
The figure at the window didn’t move.
“This bed is Agatha’s,” Laura said.
Trying to conceal my dismay, I looked at the other bed, not six feet from Agatha’s. Like hers, it was perfectly made with a quilted white bedspread and a pale yellow throw pillow.
“I was thinking . . . if you’d like a little more space of your own, you could take the nanny’s bedroom,” Laura said haltingly, gesturing toward a door in the wall to our right. I walked over and peered inside. It was a tiny space, painted pale gray, and the furniture looked like it was a hundred years old. The bed had a chipped white metal frame, and the dresser was ancient and sturdy with two missing drawer pulls. “I hate to even suggest it, because it’s so small and plain.”
“Oh. Yes,” I said immediately. “This will be great.”
“Okay,” Laura said, fighting to keep the disappointment from turning down the corners of her lips. “The doctor thought it would be good for you girls to be near one another . . . but this is close enough.” Her tone veered toward doubt as she finished the sentence.
“We’ll be close,” I said quickly. “I’ll hardly spend any time in here. Only when I’m asleep. Mostly I’ll be . . . out there, right? With Agatha.”
This appeased her. “The light’s so pleasant in the main room, don’t you think?”
“Definitely,” I said, as if I’d taken any time to notice the quality of the light.
“All right,” she said. “There’s the bathroom, that door right there, and then if you want to unpack, you can put your things in the dresser and closet . . . goodness, is that all you’ve brought?”
She was staring at my two meager bags.
If she thought the bags were unimpressive, wait until she saw the clothes inside them. My shirts had come from the charity rack at Palmer House— misprints from a souvenir T-shirt factory, shirts whose decals had peeled off unevenly, leaving incomplete phrases like MIAM IS HOTTER THAN HO and I LFFT MY HEAPT IN FLORID.
The only halfway decent outfit I had was the one I was wearing: a ruffled blue blouse one of the nurses at the hospital had given me as a gift, a pair of old jeans from another nurse, and a pair of flip-flops one of the volunteers bought me at the drugstore down the street when she learned I didn’t have any shoes.
What I wore hadn’t mattered at Palmer House. Once school started in the fall, it might have been an issue, but even then I couldn’t imagine caring.
“It’s all I have,” I said.
“Well,” she said, “we’ll need to get you some things, won’t we?”
I can’t afford things, I thought, and then I remembered what John had said. Were they really going to buy me clothes? Give me money to spend on whatever I wanted?