She locked the door behind her, picked up her bags, and carried them across the hall to the service elevator. The thing moaned and groaned so badly every time she got into it that she held her breath and hoped that it didn’t crash and burn with her. When it reached bottom, she went out through the back door of the old building to her SUV and loaded her things. She checked her collection of canvases of every size, brushes, paints, and equipment one more time before she closed the back hatch and got behind the wheel.
With noonday traffic, the twenty-minute drive from her place to the wellness center took over an hour. Now she wouldn’t arrive at the trailer park until suppertime, and that was if she didn’t stop for a snack in the middle of the afternoon. She parked in front of the fancy facility with its fancy sign and its perfectly manicured lawns and flower beds and wondered how much money Victoria had shelled out to get her daughter into the place. Before she got out of her vehicle, she sent Josh, the trailer park owner, a text asking him to turn on the air-conditioning in her place sometime around six that evening. Then she used the rearview mirror to reapply lipstick, shook her long blonde hair out of its ponytail, and took a deep breath before she swung the driver’s side door open.
“I shouldn’t have let so many years go by,” she muttered to herself as she walked across the parking lot and entered a place that didn’t look a helluva lot different than the house where Emma had grown up. Why was her childhood friend in a place like this?
Victoria would drive Jesus and the angels out of her house. This is probably a vacation for Emma. Sophie took a deep breath and pushed the button beside the spotlessly clean glass door.
“May I help you?” a slightly raspy voice asked.
“I’m here to see Emma Merrill,” she said. Lord have mercy! Emma was locked inside the place. Emma, who would rather be outside than in her fancy suite of rooms on the second floor of Victoria’s mansion, couldn’t even step outside for a breath of fresh air. This just wasn’t right.
“Come in and stop at the front desk,” the voice said.
The lock on the door clicked. Sophie stepped inside a sterile-looking lobby, took two steps, and said, “Could you tell me which room Emma Merrill is in?”
“Are you family?” the woman asked.
“Of course.” Sophie beamed as she lied through her teeth. “Can’t you tell by looking? I’m her cousin.”
“Visits have to be scheduled. We can’t have people just dropping by any old time. She’s making real progress here, not like at the other places she’s been. She’ll probably be going home in a few days, so maybe you could wait and see her when she’s settled back home.” The woman eyed her carefully.
“Can’t you make an exception this one time? I’m leaving town and won’t get to see her again for weeks and weeks,” Sophie begged.
“Sorry.” The woman shook her head. “Rules are rules.”
A woman with a notepad came up to the desk and eyed Sophie carefully. “I’m Dr. Nancy Davidson. And you are?”
“This woman wants to see Emma Merrill, and she hasn’t made an appointment,” the lady said.
“Sophie Mason.” She stuck out her hand, and Nancy jumped as if she wasn’t sure she’d heard right.
“I think we can make an exception to the rules this time and let Sophie talk to Emma,” Nancy said.
“Thank you so much.” Sophie flashed her brightest smile.
“Sign the visitors’ log right there.” The woman whipped a guest book around and pointed to a page with empty lines. “Room one-thirteen, just down that hall,” she said and went back to typing something into the computer.
Sophie marched down the hall. When she found the right room, she frowned at the sign on the door—FEMALES ONLY. What in the devil was going on with her old friend? She eased the door open and peeked inside to find the starkest room she’d ever seen. She had always envied Emma her bedroom when they were kids. All done up in pink satin and white lace with Disney princess posters on the wall, the suite had had a sitting room, a bedroom, a walk-in closet, and a beautiful private bathroom. This poor room had only a dresser and closet built into the wall. There was no television or phone, and the twin bed was covered with a light-green bedspread. The only inviting things in the whole room were a dark-green recliner and matching love seat.
From the appearance of the outside of the center and knowing how rich the Merrill family was, Sophie had expected to see a fully furnished room like the one Emma had at home. Why would Victoria ever put her daughter away in a sorry place like this? If she wasn’t sad when she arrived, she damn sure would be before she left.
She opened the door wider and saw a dark-haired woman standing at a window. Slumped shoulders, arms hanging limply by her sides—everything about her said defeat.
“Em?” she whispered.
Emma turned away from the window and threw a hand over her mouth. “Sophie, is that really you?”
“It’s really me.” Sophie stepped inside the room and closed the door behind her.
Emma met her halfway across the room and grabbed her in a fierce hug. “I was talking about you this morning. I’m so glad to see you. I still don’t think lizards are that color.”
Sophie wrapped Emma up in her arms and held her tight. “An artist can make lizards any color that they want,” she said and stepped back. That was the sort of banter that would have made her laugh, but now her childhood friend looked like death warmed over. Her skin was ashen, and her big brown eyes were lifeless. “How long has it been since you were outside?”
Emma shrugged. “Mother says I can’t go outside—that I don’t do well except inside. I had a panic attack at the mall, so she doesn’t let me go to big places. I wanted to build myself one of those new tiny houses, but she threw a fit.”
“How long has it been since you painted or even colored?” Sophie took her by the cold, bony hand and led her toward the love seat.
Emma began to twist her hands once Sophie released her. “I can’t paint or color. The people here tried to get me to draw, but my hands shake every time I pick up a brush or even a crayon,” she said. “I’m not doing so well, Sophie. They want me to remember things, and I can’t. Sometimes I want to make up something just so they’ll stop wanting me to talk to them.”
“Well, hell’s bells,” Sophie said. “You were a better artist than me. What happened?”
Another shrug.
Anger boiled up from somewhere down in the depths of Sophie’s heart. Who or what had caused her childhood friend to not even care about her art? Something catastrophic had to have happened to make her turn her back on her dream. Some friend she’d been all these years.
Sophie had never done anything on impulse, not even when the candy bars and magazines right by the checkout counters reached out to her. But right then, Sophie decided to change that. She couldn’t undo the past, but she could fix the future. She couldn’t let Emma stay in this dismal room one more day—or, for that matter, one more hour.
“Who checked you into this place?” she asked.
“I did,” Emma answered, “but Mother brought me here and told me to sign the papers. She is still the boss about everything.”