done the same thing just moments ago, but it’s vastly different with Fear. There’s that sensation again, of something within me moving. His touch brings on images of panting terror and horrific experiences of people around the globe, but I ignore them all.
Fear heaves a sigh, arms tightening around me like he never wants to let go. “I have summons,” he murmurs reluctantly. “Better get back to work.” I don’t respond. Smiling again, Fear bends and brushes a soft kiss on my lips. Once, twice, three times, as if I’m a drug and he’s a drowning addict. He shudders in my hands, this timeless, powerful Emotion. Being with me really does change him, affect him.
“Don’t.” I pull away. An odd instinct doesn’t like the distance between us, but I chalk it up to my mind striving for safety. Right now, Fear represents safety. Yet Tim isn’t a threat anymore. He lies there with his back to a stall, a lump of regrets. Above him, the cows watch us curiously. “You’ll only get hurt.”
Fear winks at me, buoyed by the kisses. “We’ll see, won’t we?”
He disappears from my sight, and I turn to see how much damage he’s done to Tim. It’s not encouraging when my father coughs up blood, hay sticking to his pummeled face.
“Oh, dear,” I murmur, feeling my own injuries twinge, demanding attention.
“Since I’m already breaking the rules … ” I hear Fear’s voice say in my ear. A moment later my cuts and bruises close up; my skin becomes smooth and unbroken as if none of it ever happened. The burning pain in my hand is gone, too.
“More interfering,” I say.
Fear doesn’t bother with a reply, leaving me alone to figure out what to do with Tim Caldwell. After much debate, I decide that the best course of action is to do nothing at all. I milk the cows and shut up the barn for the night, leaving one door open.
Eleven
The next day, there are two abnormalities. Joshua isn’t at school, and when I get home, Sheriff Owen is in our kitchen. He’s taking statements from Mom and Tim, who refuses to go to the hospital.
The story is simple: Tim woke up alone in the barn last night without a memory of how he was beaten or who did it. Standing there with his calm expression, Sheriff Owen waits for my statement, pen poised over a notepad. I focus on his sandy-brown mustache and tell him in simple terms that I came home late yesterday, milked the cows, and went into the house for supper and homework. No, I didn’t see Tim in the barn. I went to bed around ten. No, I didn’t see anyone suspicious around the farm.
“One of the doors was wide open, and you found Tim lying a few feet away in his current condition, correct?” Owen asks my mom. Lips trembling, she nods.
The sheriff frowns, rereading his notes. “Well, the way I see it, Tim, you must’ve been working in the barn and someone came at you from behind. It explains your lack of memory. Are you sure there’s no one angry with you that would have a motive to do this?”
Holding an ice pack to his head, Tim just scowls and shakes his head.
Owen sighs, pocketing the notepad. “I’ll ask a few questions around town and see what I can find out.”
Mom shows him to his car. There’s the sound of an engine revving as Sheriff Owen leaves. Mom comes back inside and goes right to her dishes. Tim lumbers upstairs to lie down.
I wait until he’s gone—I can hear him moving around above us, a water faucet turning, the bedsprings squeaking—and then sit down at the kitchen table. Mom doesn’t notice me at first. She sighs in her isolation, shoulders slumped. I notice the grooves in her soap-covered hands, the natural downturn of her mouth. I shift, making the chair creak deliberately. Mom gasps, whirling around. When she sees it’s just me, her expression tightens.
“Elizabeth,” she mutters unhappily. The name sounds reluctant on her tongue. “Did you want something?”
“I’d like some answers,” I say, and it occurs to me how much I sound like Fear. “I won’t take long.”
She turns her back to me, resuming the dishes. “What is it?”
I fold my hands on the surface of the table and decide to be direct. “Will you tell me about the car accident?”
She stiffens, facing me again. Her gaze is sharp. “Who told you about that?”
I smile wryly, acting real for her benefit. “People talk, Mom.”
Her face twists up. She’s so many things. Disgusted, sorrowful, wistful, angry. Suddenly we’re not alone— my gaze flicks briefly to Resentment, where he stands among the others. He winks at me. “ … call me that,” Mom is saying. “A mother knows. You’re not my child. I may not know how or why, but you’re not her. My baby
Guilt also appears beside Mom, rubbing her shoulders. Even though Guilt is a big, lumbering Emotion, there’s something slimy and sly about her. She fills the room with her aura.
“Hello, odd one,” she greets me. I don’t take my eyes off my mom.
“She’s too good to talk to the likes of you,” Resentment tells her, smirking. The other Emotions have gone.
Mom is silently crying. Despite the evidence and the impossibility of it, she wants to believe her real daughter is out there somewhere, waiting to be found. She wants to believe that her child isn’t the cold person beside her. I need to fix this. I have to fix this. “It’s not your fault,” I say to her as I ignore the two guests sharing the space in the kitchen. “Whatever you think happened. The accident—”
“The accident.” Mom sniffs. She shakes her head, wiping away some sweat on her forehead with the back of her arm. Is the incident with Tim what’s rattled her? Or is it this conversation, here, now? “That’s when it all started. You never found out about it because we never talked about it. For Tim it was a matter of pride. He didn’t want to think about our four-year-old daughter wandering all the way out to the road without our knowing and getting hit by a car.”
“How long was I in the hospital?” I ask next.
Trying to regain her composure, my mom starts on the dishes yet again. Resentment leaves but Guilt remains. “Just a day,” Mom replies. “The doctor said it was a miracle. You got away with just a few scrapes and bruises. They only kept you overnight for observation.” She laughs softly, her shoulders shaking. “Since the driver that hit you was the one to call 9-1-1, Tim and I got to the hospital later. As soon as I walked into your room and you turned … that was the moment I realized you’d changed. You looked at me like you didn’t even know me.”
I stand, moving to the counter to help her dry. She doesn’t object. “It really could just have been shock.”
Mom shakes her head so adamantly that some of her hair comes loose from her ponytail. She’s going to cling to her delusions. “No. No. I rocked my daughter to sleep every night, I sang her songs, I dressed her, I fed her, I played with her, I carried her inside of me for nine months. She knew me, and I knew her.” She scrubs a dish so hard that she slips a bit and dishwater splashes over the edge of the sink. I think, not for the first time, of how different we are, yet it’s her I look like the most. Both of us tall, slender, blond and blue-eyed.
“I should have done more,” Mom murmurs, pulling me back to the present. “Said more. I should have fought for my daughter, tooth and nail, looked for her until my last breath. But I stood here in this kitchen, doing dishes, pretending that everything was all right.”
I should have expected this; it’s the way of humanity, after all, to deny. To hope when there is none. I study the shine of a glass in my hand as I ask, “What do you think happened, then?”
Mom just shakes her head. Really, she has no idea what she believes.
People are so complex. They want to hear the truth, but they want you to lie to them. I choose silence rather than making another mistake with my mother. I dry each dish meticulously, concentrating on the plates and silverware and pans as if they’re the reason for my existence. I become aware that Mom has stopped washing and is watching my hands, her eyes wondering, worrying.
