I nodded. “Yeah, she’s reading a book right now that she read before, and she doesn’t even remember that.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I felt I had betrayed my family, my sister. Mom and Dad had been very clear: no media, and no talking to anyone about Sarah. We didn’t know how the facts about her having amnesia had gotten out, but Mom suspected it was a leak from the children’s shelter in Florida. We hadn’t released anything: no photos, though the papers and magazines had been clamoring for them. Mom had fielded calls from news shows like 48 Hours and Dateline and also magazines—even People. But she turned everyone down.
“I want to give other people hope, the families of missing children—to tell them to keep believing and that maybe it will happen for them too, but not at the expense of my own daughter’s mental health.” That was the statement she gave to most sources.
“Can I see her?” Tessa whispered, leaning in, and I had to shake my head.
“Don’t even tell anybody what I said about the book, okay?”
Tessa nodded seriously. “Okay.” She lingered for a moment. “You know Liam is having that party tomorrow night? I feel weird going without you.”
“That’s okay, you should just go,” I said, taking the pile of books from her hands.
“So you don’t think your parents will let you? My mom will drive us.”
I looked out at Tessa’s mom in the car. She was usually on her phone, but not today. She was watching us, waiting to see if Tessa was going to get inside. If I was going to come out. If Sarah was going to make an appearance.
“I dunno, I have to see.” Really I knew that we already had plans for the weekend. Max was coming into town, but I couldn’t tell Tessa that.
“Okay, well . . .” Tessa met my eyes. “I guess just let me know, okay?”
I felt a weird detachment from her, as if I was lying to her. We usually told each other everything. I didn’t like how it felt to keep secrets from my best friend—if that’s what I was doing.
After the family session with Dr. Levine, we talked about visitors and let Sarah decide who she wanted to see first. She had agreed to let Max come for a visit over the weekend, but she was nervous—not about her amnesia, but about something else. At dinner Friday night, she said quietly, “I’m mostly just worried what people will think of how I look now.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Mom laughed lightly. But I knew what Sarah meant. She could see from the photos all over the house how she used to look. And she didn’t look like that anymore.
Sarah sighed and stared down at her plate. She didn’t want to say the words. “They might think I’m different now. Ugly.”
“You are not ugly, Sarah,” Mom was quick to say. “You are a beautiful girl, and I want you to see that. Whatever it takes to make you feel better, we’re going to do it, right, Nico?” Mom looked over at me.
“Yeah, of course,” I agreed. But Sarah was right. Max was going to be shocked to see her—older, so thin and drawn. That glow, that whole “Sarah” thing, was gone, and I didn’t know how she could possibly get it back.
“How about this? Tomorrow, before Max comes over, we go see Amanda at the salon—makeovers all around. Then shopping—you need new clothes, shoes, everything. Okay?”
Sarah smiled. “I’d like that,” she said, taking a bite of pasta from her plate. “I love this pasta.”
“It’s gnocchi,” I told her. “Your favorite, but you almost never ate it because you said it had too many calories.”
“Nico!” Mom snapped.
“What? It’s true, she used to say that.”
Dad pushed his plate away. “Well, it’s mighty filling, I’ll give you that.”
Actually, what Sarah used to say was that I shouldn’t eat pasta, because I was so fat already. I wish we could order pizza, but Nico can’t have any, she told her friends who were over one night. My mom had to put her fat ass on a diet, so now we all have to suffer. Thanks, Nico.
I looked over at Sarah now and tried to marry her words from the past with this person sitting at the table. She smiled at me and took another bite, this washed-out version of my sister. Deep down, part of me still hated her, even though I knew that was wrong. I had tried so hard after she was gone. Tried to remember only the good things about her, but it was nearly impossible.
On her birthday every year, Mom and Dad left white roses at the entrance to MacArthur Park, and they made me come, too. March 11, early spring, and almost always raining or damp. A dozen white roses, wrapped in a yellow ribbon, wasted, left to rot on the brick wall at the entrance arch. We never actually set foot in the park, just stood outside the gates. Mom made us each say something—something good we remembered about Sarah. The first year, I said something about how she was so awesome at cheer. That was easy, a good thing, a true thing. The next year, I mentioned how she always kept her room so neat. Mom had laughed at that, through her tears.
And this year, just a month ago, it was easier for me to say something nice about Sarah as the memory of her cruelty faded. I was more forgiving. I said she always wanted the best for me, which was true, sort of. She wanted me to be thin and pretty like her; she wanted me to care about my appearance, to work out instead of constantly reading. To have more friends, be more popular. All the things that had happened for me after Sarah went away. Without Sarah’s shadow over me, I became what she wanted me to be. And now she was back. But that didn’t mean that I had forgotten.
CHAPTER 13