The next morning, I find Emily in the laundry room, folding socks. There are two machines, two dryers, drying racks, a row of detergents and softeners. He makes it as easy as he can.
Emily has a row of white socks lined up. She is concentrating hard, as though it is the most difficult thing in the world to match up white socks. She smooths each sock as she places it on the long table used for folding.
“Emily,” I say. “Are you okay?”
She isn’t really here. I can feel that her focus on the socks is absolute. She likes the repetition of the motion, the smell of the bleach. She likes how white they are.
I put my hand over hers to stop her movement. She slips it out and keeps going.
“Do you know what I was afraid of when I was little?” she says, looking down at the socks. “Not monsters, or earthquakes. Infinity.”
“Infinity?”
“I was in Sunday school. They taught us that in heaven, you just keep going on. Before I went to sleep, I’d think about that. I’d try to imagine going on and on, never being able to stop. I tried to imagine something never ending. And it used to terrify me. I’d run and get into my parents’ bed. Dad would ask me what was wrong, and I’d say I was afraid of monsters, or the lion at the zoo. Whatever. I thought it was too weird to tell him that I was afraid of infinity.”
She smoothes another sock, places one on top of it.
“Emily, we’re all in danger. We have to get out of here.”
She smoothes another sock.
“Emily, I’m thinking of a way. But it won’t work if we all can’t do it together.”
She begins to hum.
“I need your help. We have to face this!”
“This isn’t like you,” she says primly. She takes another sock and rolls it up like a bandage.
“What are you talking about?”
“Nothing bothers you,” she says. “You’re a closed system.”
She isn’t making sense, and I’m scared. I watch her fold socks. And then the truth crashes down on my head so dizzily I want to fall on the floor and grab onto the floor to keep myself steady.
I had never asked myself the questions that were staring me in the face about our friendship. Why did Emily drop the friends she’d known all her life, the girls who’d known her since kindergarten, the boys who knew her parents, the group that hung together through long Saturday afternoons, through endless rainy February weeks, through crushes, through bad teachers, through pizza on Fridays?
Why had she picked me? It certainly wasn’t because I was such a fun companion. It wasn’t because we could share our sorrows.
It was because she knew that I wouldn’t make her feel.
I would never ask her things. I would never push her. I would never make her cry.
She knew, with the cunning of the wounded, that I couldn’t turn away from myself long enough to even see her. She could slowly close herself off. And no one would knock on the door.
Her abduction by Jonah was an example of the worst possible thing happening to her at the worst possible time. She had already begun to disengage. Now she was filling up her head with distance. And soon, no one would be able to reach her.
I’m still shaken by my encounter with Emily, but I’m more determined than ever to follow through on the plan that’s forming in my mind. Kendall and I have the lunch dishes to do. She washes; I dry. We are only allowed to use the dishwasher at night. Too much power can blow the generator.
“I think we have a friend in common,” I say. “Marcus Heffernan.”
“Marcus?” Kendall looks surprised.
“He worked at the computer camp. I went there looking for Emily. She’s met him, too.”
“I’ve never really talked to Nell…Emily.” Kendall smiles, sort of dreamily, and the muscles in her face relax. For the first time, I realize that she could be pretty. “I had a big crush on Marcus. He was so nice to me.”
“You sang in that café he works in.”
“Did he tell you about that? He talked me into entering that contest. I was so nervous, I thought I would die. And then I won second prize! That was a good day.” Kendall puts away a dish. “Which was not the usual.”
“You had a hard time with your parents.”
“Yeah. How about you?”
“My mom is dead. I never really knew my dad.”
“Oh. Yeah. Well.”
A rather pathetic attempt at sympathy, but never mind.
“Have you ever seen Jonah have a meltdown?” I ask her, handing her a dish.
She looks around before answering me. “Yeah.”
“Scary, huh?”
She doesn’t answer.
She doesn’t have to.
She reaches up to replace the dish on a shelf.
“Did you know that the original house burned down?” I ask.
“No.” She takes a dish, glances at me, then back down at the dish.
“The children were trapped inside.”
She doesn’t look up, but the dish is dry, and she keeps rubbing.
“Don’t you wonder what Jonah is trying to make up for?”
“It’s none of my business,” Kendall says. “It’s none of yours, either.”
“Kendall, it is my business. It’s yours, too. The anniversary of the fire is this Friday. He’s got something planned, and it’s not a party. Where do you want to be?”
She puts the dish away. “There’s nothing we can do.”
“I wish everyone would stop saying that!”
“What are you saying, Lizbet? That—”
“My name is Gracie.”
“Gracie, then. What are we supposed to do? Swim?”
“If I said I could get us out of here, would you come?”
“You can’t—”
“Just answer the question.”
Kendall hesitates, biting her lip. “I don’t know.”
“Okay,” I say. “That’s a start.”