The day after telling Emilia the truth about Jeremy Lance and Carl Smith, Ma didn’t go to work. She spent all morning calling makeup artists she knew, asking if they would take over the few Sunday appointments she had as well as her appointments for the next several days.
I’ve had a family emergency, she explained over and over again.
I’m an emergency, Emilia thought each time. A crisis. Emilia could hardly stand it. It made her eyes sting with shame and the threat of more tears.
It’s not true. That’s not what I am, she told herself, even as part of her wondered, Are you sure?
Emilia sat on her bed, by her window, watching her crows come for the peanuts and looking out to see if her father would come back.
Where is he? she asked the crows.
Yesterday he was gone by the time she and Ma got home, and now she wondered if her dad had left again for good.
He wouldn’t leave, just like that, would he? she asked her birds. What do you think?
She watched the crows and wished they would come inside, fill her room, and stay with her. She pictured them on her dresser, on her floor, perched on her shelves.
“Emilia?” her mother called. The crows startled.
“Upstairs,” she answered as they flew away.
Ma came upstairs and before she could say anything, Emilia said, “I don’t want to talk about it.” Ma stood there for a moment.
“Okay, I understand.”
But throughout the day, Ma kept calling for her.
“Emilia?” she called when Emilia was in the next room.
“Emilia?” she called when Emilia went downstairs to surround herself with books, though she’d already taken her favorites to the school.
“Emilia?” she called when Emilia went back upstairs.
Emilia finally went to the only place she thought her mother would leave her alone and not look at her the way she was looking at her. She filled the tub with hot water, as hot as she could stand it. She took off her clothes, shivered with each article she stripped off, and stepped into water so hot it made her prickle with pain before she finally went numb.
“Emilia?” Her mother knocked on the bathroom door.
“I’m just taking a bath, Ma.”
Then, in a small voice, Ma said, “Not too hot, Emilia.”
“I know.”
She knew Ma was thinking about the times after the attack. When no matter how many sweaters Emilia wore, or how many blankets she covered herself with, the cold found its way into the very marrow of her bones. That’s when Ma would run a hot bath for her. Emilia remembered how she would shake and shiver, how her teeth would chatter as she whispered to Ma to make it hotter.
It’s already so hot, Emilia, Ma would say. But it never felt hot enough to Emilia. Not even when her skin itched and crawled from the heat. Instead, it felt like she was still lying in the woods.
She looked at the rising steam around her and sank into the hot water. She felt the cold ground beneath her.
Don’t, she told herself, don’t.
But she felt the sense of a cold breeze brushing over her legs. In her ears she heard the call of the crows, so many crows, and her mind conjured up the images of the branches above—thin, breakable, intertwined.
She was eight years old and looking to the sky like she did every day during recess.
No. Don’t go back to that day, she told herself again. She closed her eyes and sank just below the surface of the water.
She held her breath for as long as she could stand. Then her mouth came to the surface, took a gulp of air, and went back down again. She looked at the silver blur of the world, of her bathroom ceiling, wishing she could stay underwater.
Hotter, she thought as her body shivered.
She reached for the hot water faucet. Turned it. Sank under the surface again.
That evening, as Emilia sat in her thickest sweatshirt and swirled uneaten spaghetti on her plate, Ma said quietly, “I know we talked about Jeremy Lance, how he’s out of jail. But you need to prepare yourself, Emilia. In case we . . . see him.”
Emilia’s stomach filled with dread. She swirled the spaghetti some more, willing the stinging sensation in her nose and eyes to go away. Her vision blurred as she swirled and swirled. She could feel her mother staring at her.
“Okay.”
“I think it’d be a good idea to call Dr. Lisa, check if she’s still practicing here . . .”
Emilia’s mind filled with Dr. Lisa’s office. The dollhouse in the corner. The round table stocked with paper and art supplies. Emilia would color sometimes. She didn’t want to go back there.
“Ma, please,” Emilia said.
“It’s important.”
Emilia took a deep breath. Soon Ma would insist on homeschooling her. Soon she’d withdraw Emilia from school. She could feel their lives whirling back to the past. Going back to how things had been. Soon she would be shutting Emilia away in the house while the rest of the town, the school, the neighbors talked about her. She’d be her mother’s shadow again.
Emilia looked over at Ma, saw in her eyes a confirmation of everything she’d just thought.
“Please, Ma,” she said. “Can we just . . . slow down? Can’t we just stay the same?” She didn’t know how to explain to her mother what she meant. “Please.”
“Nothing is the same,” Ma said. The words made Emilia feel hollow, like a large hand had scooped out her insides. But she was careful not to let Ma see how she felt.
“I know, Ma. But just for a little while. Please.”
Ma took a deep breath.
“I’m going to my room,” Emilia said. She didn’t want to sit there any longer. She half expected her mother to come after her, force her to talk about it, but she didn’t, and Emilia was relieved when she was able to close her bedroom door behind her.
She locked it. And flopped onto her bed, letting the tears she’d been holding back come flowing out.
Jeremy Lance.
He was out of jail. She might run into him. She might actually have to face Jeremy Lance again.
The image of him covered in blood flashed in her mind, the image of him pulling her by her ankles on the playground, pulling off her clothes, came rushing back.
Emilia shook her head. It wasn’t him. That’s what Ma said.
But it was him, she thought. Emilia pulled the covers over herself, even though it didn’t warm her or stop her shivering.