Of course nothing happened. It was only a bathtub. The pictures had distracted me and I let it overflow, then turned it off without remembering it. Everything was fine. I plunged my arm in.
For a second, I could not think. It was as if all feeling beneath my elbow had been cut off. Like the rest of my arm never even existed.
Then the scalding pain clawed at my skin, my bones, inside out, outside in. A soundless scream misshaped my mouth and I struggled to pull my arm out but it wouldn’t move. I couldn’t move. I crumpled against the side of the bathtub. My mother found me there an hour later.
“How did you say it happened?” The ER doctor looked my age. He looped the gauze over the red, swollen skin of my forearm as I clenched my teeth, fighting off a scream.
“Bathtub,” I managed to croak. He and my mother exchanged a glance.
“Your arm must have been in there for some time,” he said, meeting my eyes. “These are some serious burns.”
What could I say? That I tested the water before reaching in and it didn’t seem that hot? That it felt like something grabbed me and held me under? I could see in the doctor’s eyes that he thought I was crazy—that I did it on purpose. Anything I could say to explain what happened wouldn’t help.
So I looked away.
I didn’t remember much about the ride to the hospital, except that Joseph and both of my parents were with me. And thankfully I didn’t remember my mother picking me up off the bathroom floor, or getting me in the car as she must have. I could barely look at her. When the doctor finished with my bandage, he pulled her into the hallway.
I focused on the searing pain in my arm to avoid thinking about where I was. The antiseptic smell invaded my nostrils, the hospital air leached into my skin. I clenched my jaw against the nausea and leaned against the window to feel the cool glass on my cheek.
My father must have been filling out paperwork, because Joseph sat and waited out there, all alone. He looked so small. And still. His eyes were downcast and his face—God. His face was so scared. A hard ache rose in my throat. I had a glimpse of how terrified he must have been when I was in the hospital the last time, seeing his big sister swallowed up in a hospital bed. And now here we were again, not even three months later. It was a relief when my mother finally returned to lead me out of the room. We were all silent on the ride home.
When we arrived back at the house, Daniel was there. He rounded on me when I walked in the door. “Mara, are you okay?”
I nodded. “Just a burn.”
“I want to talk to Mara for a bit, Daniel,” my mother said. “I’ll come to your room in a while.”
Her voice was a threat, but Daniel looked unperturbed, more worried about me than anything else.
My mother led the way down the hall to my bedroom and sat on my bed. I sat on my chair.
“I’m making an appointment for you to talk to someone tomorrow,” she said.
I nodded, as Joseph’s terrified face appeared in my mind’s eye. He was just a kid. I’d put him through enough. And between the burn, the mirrors, the laughter, the nightmares—maybe it was time to do things my mother’s way. Maybe talking to someone would help.
“The doctor said you must have held your arm under water for a long time to get second-degree burns. And you stayed there until I found you?” she asked, her voice raw. “What were you thinking, Mara?”
My voice was laced with defeat. “I was going to take a bath, but the earrings—” I took a shaky breath. “The earrings you lent me fell into the tub. I had to get them before I could unplug the drain.”
“Did you?” my mother asked.
I shook my head. “No.” My voice cracked.
My mother’s eyebrows knit together. She walked over to me and put her hand on my earlobe. I felt her finger unhook the back of an earring. She held the emerald and diamond stud in her flat palm. I lifted my hand to my other ear; that one was in too. I removed the earring and placed it in her hand as tears welled in my eyes.
I’d imagined the whole thing.
22
MARA DYER?” THE RECEPTIONIST CALLED OUT. I shot up. The magazine I’d been not-reading fell to the floor, open to an NC-17 photograph of two naked models straddling a handsomely suited actor. Rather racy for a psychiatrist’s office. I picked up the magazine and set it on the coffee table, then walked over to the door the smiling receptionist was pointing at. I went in.
The psychiatrist took off her glasses and set them on her desk as she rose. “Mara, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Rebecca Maillard.”
We shook hands. I stared at the seating options. An armchair. The obligatory couch. A desk chair. Probably some kind of test. I chose the armchair.
Dr. Maillard smiled and crossed her legs. She was thin. My mother’s age. Maybe they even knew each other. “So, what brings you here today, Mara?” she asked.
I held out my bandaged arm. Dr. Maillard raised her eyebrows, waiting for me to speak. So I did.
“I burned myself.”
“Do you mean, you were burned, or you burned yourself?”
She was quick, this one. “I was burned, but my mother thinks I burned myself.”