“I’m not going anywhere,” I say, looking at the door. Not while Shane’s here.
Liv eases from her bed, holding her johnny behind her. I hand her an orange bag with her clothes inside from the L-shaped table. A chart is clipped to a hook on her bedpost. My eyes flash over the word ketoacidosis. The nubs of Liv’s spine snake down her neck and back, visible between loose johnny ties. As she reaches for the doorknob, her johnny parts at the back.
Across the top of her right buttock, where her back naturally curves, is a swoop of faded black marker, half a circle with half an X inside. It is faint, but it is there, and not only there. Half of the same is visible on the inside of her right thigh, and very lightly, nearly rubbed out, are circles with Xs on the backs of her thin arms.
“Liv!” I gasp. “Did the doctor do that?”
She freezes, her hand high on the door.
“The marker. On your skin,” I say.
She looks over her shoulder, eyes moist and bright. A housekeeper in maroon scrubs and plastic gloves bustles in and Liv ducks into the bathroom, slamming the door shut. As the housekeeper starts to strip Liv’s bed, I grab the clipboard, scanning for the word mononucleosis, but it’s not there. There are various blood sugar counts taken over the course of the last twenty-four hours, all in the three and four hundreds, and the words anorexia consult upon discharge highlighted in yellow. I grab my phone from my back pocket and take a picture of the chart just as Deborah throws open the door. Shane skitters around the corner, followed by a woman in maroon housekeeping scrubs screaming in Spanish. Deborah’s eyes widen, cartoon-style. Shane hands the housekeeper a tube of cream. Liv comes out in street clothes. Deborah hustles about, complaining that this whole thing has been an expensive inconvenience for her, between taking time off work and the outrageous parking fees at the hospital garage. The orderly returns and Deborah shuts up. Liv settles obediently into the chair and the orderly decides, to Deborah’s disappointment, that we need nothing and disappears, along with Deborah’s happy mask. Shane takes the handles of the wheelchair. Liv reaches around to cover Shane’s hand with hers and we head en masse toward the elevator to the garage, one bizarre, misfit family. Deborah looks straight ahead, no doubt dying inside that her daughter holds the hand of a pale, tattooed boy with a waist smaller than hers.
I walk last. Shane leans over the chair handles, greasy hair falling forward. He whispers in Liv’s ear, “I try to love you. Why do you have to make it so hard?”
Liv pats his hand.
“This isn’t over, you know,” he says. “I have a lot more questions.”
“You’re right.” Liv’s hands slip underneath the blanket on her lap. “I’m not nearly finished with you.”
NINE
362 Days After the Woods
As if I need reminders that I am invading the personal space of Paula Papademetriou and Desh Patel and their only child.
Purple cabbages border a topiary carved into the letter P. Under my feet, the mat is initialed with a curly P. A brass knocker on the purple door is shaped like a shell engraved with another P. In the corner, two rockers are painted glossy white, with matching throws across the backs, one in a pastel plaid, one in darker jewel tones, embroidered PP and DP, respectively. My plan suddenly seems like a bad idea. I hold my breath and stab the doorbell. Bong-bong-floosh!
I ought to go.
I press the doorbell a second time: bong-bong-floosh!
Footsteps inside. No turning back.
The door falls open.
A boy, my age, or maybe a year younger, blinks as if the late-day sun hurts his eyes. “What?”
“Hello.”
He twists his mouth to the side. “Hello.”
“Is your mother home?”
“You are?”
I had planned to say I was a friend but instead I say, “She’s writing a story about me.”
The boy looks me up and down. “Whatever. My mother’s out. It’s just Dorotea.”
“Hud-sohn?” a voice calls from deep in the house.
“I gotta go.” He starts to shut the door.
“Dorotea?” I ask.
“The nanny. Listen, no one’s supposed to come here. My mother gets stalkers weekly. You better leave.”
I consider pointing out all the Ps in just these two square feet don’t suggest she’s hiding her identity. Instead, I turn to walk down the porch stairs.
“Wait!” Hudson calls. “You’re the chick from the woods. The one who saved her friend?”
I dig my fingernails into my palms. “That’s me.”