A burning lump formed in Lilly’s throat, but she had run out of tears. “It’s me,” she said. “Momma was right. I’m a monster.”
“No,” Glory said in a firm voice. “It wasn’t you. They tipped Dina over and threw half-eaten hot dogs at Belinda. They’re just a bunch of horrible, stupid kids who don’t know any better. I promise, being in the sideshow is not always like that. If it was, I wouldn’t have anything to do with it.”
Lilly didn’t know what to say. It didn’t matter if the sideshow was like that or not. She never wanted to do it again. And the fact that she had no choice made her body feel heavy and slow, as if her arms and limbs and heart had turned to stone. She washed her hair and dried it with a towel, too exhausted to think beyond the next few minutes.
Glory helped her into the robe, then knelt down to help her roll up the sleeves. She gazed at Lilly with tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry I didn’t protect you. I said I would, and I failed. I hope you know I really care about you, and I’ll try to do better from now on.”
Lilly bit her lip and said nothing. Between the shock of what happened in the freak-show tent and the way Glory was looking at her, she felt like she might disappear into thin air, or collapse in a heap in the grass. All at once, she was overcome. “I want to go home,” she cried, a sob bursting from her throat.
Glory’s face crumpled in on itself and she held out her arms. At first, Lilly hesitated, then she collapsed into Glory’s embrace, her shoulders convulsing. Glory held her tight, rocking her gently back and forth. “It’s going to be okay, sweetheart,” she said. “Everything’s going to be all right. I promise.”
A thousand different feelings overwhelmed Lilly, including surprise and relief at the calming effect of Glory’s arms wrapped around her. It reminded her of snuggling her beloved cat, Abby, except the warmth and comfort she felt seemed twice as powerful. Little by little, she stopped shaking. And even though she was too exhausted to cry, tears sprang from her eyes. So this is what it felt like to be hugged by another person. And maybe, just maybe, this was what it felt like to be loved.
*
The following night, Merrick insisted Lilly stand next to him on the platform outside his car as the circus train traveled to the next spot. When he forced her out the door between his car and the next, she gripped the railing, trembling and hanging on for dear life, certain he was going to throw her off, even though Glory had reassured her that Merrick would never red-light someone he’d paid good money for. Then, as they approached the outskirts of the next city, Merrick pointed out houses with boarded-up windows and breadlines outside churches. He made sure she saw the CLOSED signs on warehouses and the hobos along the railroad tracks—men and women, young and old—gathered around fires built in trash cans.
“People are starving out there,” he said. “So you might want to remember how good you’ve got it. The promise of three square meals a day is the biggest reason some people join the circus these days.”
The morning after a show in Massachusetts, during which Lilly got through her act without running out of the tent or having anything thrown at her, Merrick called a taxicab for her, Glory, and himself. When Lilly asked where they were going, Merrick said he wanted to show her a place called Danvers State Hospital. In the backseat of the cab, Lilly paid no attention to the fact that it was her first time riding in an automobile. The only thing she wanted to know was why Merrick was taking her to a hospital. Was he going to let doctors poke and prod her to see if she was normal? Was he going to sell her to someone who wanted to pickle her body parts and put them on display? She looked up at Glory with worried eyes, her fingernails pressed into her palms. Glory patted her arm and said everything would be fine.
Twenty minutes later, they arrived at a castle-sized stone building with what seemed like a thousand windows and steep roofs. They entered through a set of giant doors into a foyer and followed a nurse into a long hallway. The hallway was empty and quiet, except for the clack-clack of the nurse’s white shoes. The farther into the massive building they went, the more Lilly worried Merrick was going to leave her there. To calm herself, she made her feet go in step with the nurse’s. One, two, three, four, five.
As they neared the end of the first long hallway, she heard a low murmur, like a hundred voices talking in the distance. Then it grew louder and louder. When they reached a set of thick double doors surrounded by rubber strips, the nurse stopped and smiled sympathetically at her.
“Now, it gets a bit unruly in here, but don’t worry, you won’t be staying in this area. Is it all right if I call you Lilly?”
Lilly’s heart skipped a beat, then thumped hard and frantic in her chest. She gaped up at Glory, suddenly trembling.
“That’s not what we’re here for,” Merrick said to the nurse. “We’re looking for a relative.”
“Oh.” The nurse looked at Lilly again, confusion written on her face. “I’m sorry, I thought—”
“You thought wrong,” Glory said.
Lilly went limp with relief. Merrick wasn’t leaving her there after all. The nurse nodded and unlocked the door. Before they even went through to the other side, Lilly clamped her hands over her ears. What she thought was talking was wailing and crying and shrieking. The room was full of women in gray gowns with scraggly hair and scratches on their faces and arms. Some were strapped to their beds, and one of them screamed for help over and over. The room smelled like old urine and spoiled food. Bugs scurried up the windowless walls. A woman with a bloody nose smiled and came toward them. Lilly edged closer to Glory and kept her head down, her eyes on the nurse’s feet.
After leaving the frightening, noise-filled room, they passed through a short hallway into another area, this one quieter, with women lying in beds and staring at the ceiling, reading, or talking in small groups. The nurse stopped in the aisle and addressed Merrick.
“Anyone look familiar?” she said.
Merrick scanned the room, then shook his head. “Not this time.”
Afterward, in the cab on the way back to the train, he said to Lilly, “Do you know why I took you there?”
Lilly, who was leaning against Glory in the backseat and trying to forget what she’d seen, shook her head.