Ms. Chancellor thinks the room at the end of the hall is mine.
I am so paralyzed by her mistake I don’t even know how to tell her that she’s wrong. So I just stand perfectly still, watching the lights flicker and buzz when she flips them on. It’s like the room is having trouble waking up from its long slumber. It hasn’t been used in years, after all.
Three years.
The electrical outlets all look funny and, in the attached bathroom, there is one spout for hot water and another one for cold. These are the things that remind me where I am — how far I have traveled. This isn’t just another relocation from one army base to another. This time I am deep in enemy territory, and I am on my own.
Ms. Chancellor opens the window and lets the cool breeze fill the room. It smells like the sea.
“Now, I know we’ve arranged for the majority of your things to be shipped over, but — Oh, good, someone brought your luggage up.” She motions to the big rolling suitcase and duffle bag that sit beside the bed. “You should have plenty of time to unpack before dinner. Would you like some help?”
She stops and watches me for a moment. Eventually, though, the silence is too much and she blurts, “So? What do you think?” She smiles too brightly; I feel like there’s too much riding on whatever answer I’m being asked to give. “Do you like it?”
Someone has put fresh flowers on the desk, and I reach out to touch them. I eye the white lace curtains and the big queen bed with the twirly, twisty frame and soft-pink canopy. It is every little girl’s dream room. Too bad I’m not a little girl.
Too bad I’m not my mo —
“I think there’s been some kind of mistake,” I say too quickly. “I’m always in the yellow room.” I point in the direction of the smaller bedroom three doors down. “That’s my room.”
“Well, your grandfather and I thought that you’d be more comfortable in this room. Since you’ll be staying with us longer this time. It’s larger, see? And, of course, it has its own bathroom, and —”
“This is my mom’s room,” I say. As if she doesn’t know. As if it isn’t obvious.
The signs are everywhere, from the ballerina-topped jewelry box on the dresser to the stuffed animals in the window seat. Every summer of my childhood, my mother made a pilgrimage back to a room that never changed. She grew up, but it did not. When I was a kid, I thought it felt like a time machine. Now it feels like a shrine.
“We can redecorate,” Ms. Chancellor tells me. “Of course, you should pick out your own things. We have a lovely selection of furniture in the attic. Do you like antiques?” she asks, then realizes how silly it sounds. “Of course you don’t like antiques. Well, maybe we can ship some of your furniture over from the States if you’d prefer.”
“That’s okay,” I tell her. “I don’t have a home there either.” For a second, she looks at me like I’m the saddest little orphan in the world, so I point at myself and say, “Army brat,” as if living on ten bases in fifteen years has left me impervious to change. As if what happened is just something else I can move away from and forget.
“Oh.” She nods. “Well, how about we go look around the attic, just in case? Or you can move to the yellow room if you think that would be better.”
As she talks, I pull aside the lacy curtain and stare out the window. Mom’s old room is at the back of the embassy, right beside the ancient wall that runs around the city’s edge. From my place on the third story, I have a bird’s-eye view of the Russian flag that waves atop the next building over. On the other side, I can see Germany and a smidge of Canada — dozens of embassies all stacked together like dominoes in a ring around the city. Suddenly I am overwhelmingly afraid that I’m going to knock them all down. It’s just a matter of time.
That’s why, even with the window open, I’m finding it hard to breathe. Ms. Chancellor is saying something about dinner plans and a midnight curfew. She doesn’t notice that the walls are closing in. Her wrists don’t itch so badly she wants to scratch them until they bleed. When she opens the closet and pushes aside a red sundress, she doesn’t hear the voice in the bathroom, calling, “Gracie, honey, can you zip me?”
I close my eyes and take a step back, but Ms. Chancellor doesn’t notice. She’s not looking closely enough.
“Grace?” Ms. Chancellor says. “What do you think?”
I think I have to get out of here. I need to run. To breathe.
“It’s …” I start, struggling for breath.
“Grace, are you okay?”
I’ve got to get her out of here, I think as I turn to the window and notice the tree that stretches up to the sky, its big branches easily within my reach. “It’s perfect.”