I am not allowed coffee, and breakfast is infused, but I am out of bed, dressed, and downstairs. I wait in community space while the other girls eat. At eight thirty, they stand up and disperse. Direct Care clears the dishes from the breakfast table and then comes to me.
Your therapist wants to see you at nine, and your treatment team at nine thirty.
The other girls go on the morning walk. I remain on the couch.
The house is quiet, till the sound of a car pulling into the driveway. Doors opening, closing, a suitcase being wheeled to the front of the house.
It cannot be a new admission. Today is not Monday. The front door opens and in walks the sickest, thinnest girl I have ever seen.
What first strikes me is her suitcase; it looks very much like mine. Blue. Her worried husband, who looks a little like Matthias, carries it inside. She is dressed as I would be: in layers. She looks sick, cold, and old. I try not to stare, but her face stops me like a heart attack. Her eyes, her nose, the thin line where her lips are supposed to be.
Danielle?
Direct Care shakes both strangers’ hands. I hope she is gentle on hers. Even from a distance Danielle’s frail wrist looks ready to break.
Please have a seat. I will be with you as soon as I take Anna to her team.
Danielle jars me more than every book and article on anorexia I ever read. More than the numbers on the scale, those on my test results. More than all the other girls I met here. Perhaps it is the suitcase. Or her husband. Or that she looks like me.
Perhaps it is the blatant truth that this woman is dying. Bones and blue fingernails; this is anorexia. It is hideous. I cannot stop staring.
Something else is bothering me, but I cannot put my finger on what it is.
Then I do. Then my insides turn cold and there is no more air in the room.
Anna, are you ready?
Today is not Monday. Admissions are on Mondays. And yet Danielle is here.
Anna, did you hear me?
I understand what Danielle means.
Valerie is dead.
Anna!