Deep in her gut, though, she knew. This was Ethan’s file. Her Ethan.
Ethan had told her not to come here, and now she knew why. What was in it? What had he hidden from her? Suddenly Emma felt angry and deeply hurt. She had shared everything about herself with Ethan—things she’d never told anyone, the worst stories from her foster homes, stupid childhood fantasies, her most private secrets.
Emma took a shuddering breath, then slipped Ethan’s file back where it belonged. She couldn’t betray his privacy, no matter how betrayed she herself felt.
“It doesn’t matter,” I told her. “It’s not why we’re here. Now hurry,” I said, as we both heard footsteps approaching. Emma tensed. But whoever it was walked past the records room, and she let out a breath of relief.
Emma shook her head quickly to clear it, then flipped to the back of the drawer. MELVILLE, MENDEL, MENDOZA—there it was: MERCER. She pulled out the file and laid it flat across the drawer. On top was Becky’s most recent admittance form and a scrawled copy of her prescriptions. Behind that were her session notes, stapled into a clear plastic folder like a kid’s book report. They were written in Dr. Banerjee’s neat, slanting cursive.
Patient is despondent and unresponsive, was all that was written under one day. Another note read:
Patient refers constantly to some “terrible act” she has performed. Have cross-checked with her police record, but nothing seems to correspond with her guilt complex. She will suffer these delusions of persecution until she is able to confess.
Some of Becky’s sketches were included in the notes, the same intricate and abstract filigree that filled the notebook Emma had found in the attic. Patient’s art shows both incredible creativity and crippling level of compulsion, Dr. Banerjee had written on the back of one of them. Increased dosage recommended.
None of this was anything Emma didn’t already know. She turned a few pages.
Patient talks frequently about the daughter who was taken from her. She seems convinced the child is being brainwashed and fantasizes about stealing her away.
The paper rattled in Emma’s hand as she started to tremble. A daughter taken from her? Did that mean Sutton? Had she come back to Tucson in August to take Sutton away from the Mercers? Had Sutton fought her—and lost? Emma kept reading.
The little girl was born twelve years ago this month. It seems to bring back bad memories for Ms. Mercer and exacerbates her episodes.
Twelve years ago this month. That couldn’t mean Sutton or Emma.
There’d been another baby.
I inhaled sharply. Becky had another daughter?
The world spun around Emma. She clung to the file cabinet, feeling as if she might fall and bring the whole room crashing down on top of her. Rapid calculations shot through her mind. Becky had left Emma when she was five—thirteen years ago exactly. Right around the time she would have realized she was pregnant again.
Jealousy and excitement fought for control in Emma’s mind. Becky had traded her in for this new baby. But the note said that the girl had been “taken” from Becky. What if her second sister was suffering through the foster care system just as Emma had?
Emma and I had the same questions: Where was she now? Could Emma track her down? Was she safe?
Then Emma took a deep breath. She could think more about her other sister later. Right now she had to keep looking for answers. Flipping rapidly through the notes, she found the most recent session at the back of the folder. Something had primed Becky for that fit.
… finally, we are making progress in processing Ms. Mercer’s guilt and grief. She admitted to me today that a few short months ago she actually met her first daughter in Sabino Canyon. It apparently did not go well. She still won’t tell me the entire story, but something happened between them that triggered this most recent episode.
Dr. Banerjee didn’t seem to have gotten anything more specific than that. There were a few more scribbled notes, including several medication adjustments that looked increasingly dire to Emma’s eye. She pawed through the pages, desperate for more.