I wonder if they ever had an arson episode.
But then, that’s not exactly fair. I’m not going to burn the place down. Even though, at the moment, that sounds like a lovely option. All my problems going up in smoke. If only I could.
Instead, I set fire to the paper and I huff and I puff and I blow on it until the flames catch. Maybe this is a fairy tale after all—complete with the obnoxious pig downstairs. Smoke hisses and the paper curls at the edges. I expect a dramatic whoosh, but it’s more like a nervous kiss.
The alarm screeches.
“Right on cue,” I mutter under my breath, hopping down from the chair.
“Help!” I scream in the hallway, leaning over the stairs bannister. “I’m trapped! Help!”
I tiptoe past the stairs and duck into the bathroom, not letting myself think of Erik, of how safe I feel when he holds me. As if the whole world doesn’t exist … all that stuff people sing about in love songs, all that stuff I told myself I never wanted … I let it all drain away.
I try to, at least. That’ll have to do for now.
Footsteps pound up the stairs and recede toward my bedroom. I reflect that I’d make a pretty good ninja as I slink from the bedroom and sneak down the stairs unnoticed.
The front door is wide open. I take a deep breath, duck my head, and sprint like my life depends on it. Maybe it does.
For a second, I think one of his men is going to leap up from my periphery, but it turns out Erik needs to hire new guards.
Because not one of them notices me escaping.
Mom raises trembling hands to me when I walk into her bedroom, lying on her side with the fan blasting her, her sheets crumpled and sweaty. Even with Jackie’s warning, I let out a gasp, something I normally never do in front of her. She doesn’t like being reminded of ‘how far she’s fallen,’ as she once unfairly described her condition.
I’m a few steps into the room when it hits me.
Everything is suddenly, inexplicably deluxe. The chair is new. The bed is new. The sheets are new. On the bookshelf there are first-edition copies of Agatha Christie novels. An expensive-looking stretching contraption sits in the corner. And on the way in, I’m pretty sure I passed a TV three times the size of our old one.
Erik has probably spent more money taking care of Mom than he’s paid me in weekly wages.
Doesn’t he know I’m trying to be angry at him?
“Oh, do I look like a devil?” Mom whispers, blinking as I get closer.
“Where’s Jackie?” I snap. “We need to change these sheets!”
“Dear, dear …” She uses her soothing voice. “She changed them an hour ago. It’s no use. A bug, the doctor tells me. Just a bug, but it’s making me sweat like a … your father used to have this saying. I won’t repeat it.”
“A whore in church?” I offer, sitting down next to her.
“How did you know?”
“Because he used it in that home video. The one you smashed.”
“I shouldn’t have done that,” she says quietly.
“You were angry. You had every right to be.”
It was the Christmas just after my tenth birthday when Mom caught me watching it, eyes pressed to the screen to catch any glimpse of the man who’d run out on us. She was drunk, before the disease, and so full of anger that she tore the video player from the socket and smashed it against the wall. It is the only violent thing I have ever seen her do.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she whispers. “I’ve been having the craziest nightmares.”
“Like what?”
She giggles, sounding just like her old self. “I don’t want to bore you.”
“Oh okay.” I stand up. “I’ll leave then. See you later!”
I pause for just a moment, then laugh and sit back down. “Don’t be stupid. You could never bore me. Well, except when you start going on and on and on about the curtains.”
“Hey, there’s an art to choosing the correct curtains, young lady!”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, I know, and there’s nothing better than strawberries and cream on a warm summer’s day. Don’t worry. I’ll never forget your little pearls of wisdom.”
She sighs softly, wiping at her face with clumsy movements. I take the hand towel and dab at her forehead.
“Thank you.” She smiles. “Anyways, this nightmare. I was in this tree, right at the top, just like when I was a girl. But I wasn’t a girl. You were at the bottom and the branches were all tangled around your ankles, pulling you down, pulling you away from me. And I woke up and I just … it got me thinking. Camille, you’ve been different lately.”
She’s watching me closely, the same way she did when I was a teenager.
“You’re scared,” she says after a moment. “Aren’t you, sweetie? Don’t lie to me. You know you can’t.”
“Scared?” I try for a laugh. Result: forced in the extreme. “It’s not that. I just don’t want to see Erik for a while.”
Which is why I’ve come to the one place he’s sure to find me. I should leave soon, but I can’t, not when Mom is like this.
“Does he hurt you?” she demands.
“No!” I cry, the idea horrifying to me.
I can’t have Mom thinking that about Erik. Whatever else is true about us, he has never done anything that even approaches abuse. The auction, the sex, the dinners, all of it has been consensual. Hell, more than consensual. I wanted him—still want him, I realize. Maybe that’s why I’m staying here—because I know that, sooner or later, he’s going to show up.
And I’ll face him, I decide suddenly. I won’t run.
“Camille, you’re daydreaming,” Mom says. “If he doesn’t hurt you, why don’t you want
