Chapter 15

Mother & Daughter

Lisa still held the crumpled wad of bills in her hand. “I’d like you to take the money back,” she said to George.

“You can use it to pay your divorce lawyer,” added Jamie in a cheery voice.

Lisa shot her a you’re-not-helping look.

George ignored them both and stumbled over to the large window that faced the emergency room’s small parking lot. He pressed his hands against the glass as his wife sped off with a squeal of tires. “She’ll be back,” he said. “She always comes back.”

“Dude, I wouldn’t hold your breath,” said Jamie.

The nurse stood waiting. “Mr. Green, the doctor will see you now.”

He turned and looked at her as though puzzled by who she was or what she wanted.

“Mr. Green, do you have your completed form?” she asked.

He looked toward the exit with longing, and then back at the nurse. He walked slowly to his wife’s vacant chair and picked up the clipboard with his good hand. “Yes, here it is. My wife filled it out for me.” He looked at the sheet sadly, then handed it to the nurse.

The nurse looked it over and ticked a box with the attached ball point pen. “I’ll just mark you as allergic to painkillers, and we’re all ready to go. This way, please.”

Weakly, George started to protest, but the nurse had already disappeared through the double doors. He followed, his bare feet leaving a trail of smudged, ashy footprints in his wake.

“I’d almost feel bad for the guy if he weren’t such a creep,” said Jamie.

“Indeed,” said Ellen. “George Green has quite the reputation. I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised my daughter is mixed up with him.”

Zero to sixty in two seconds, thought Lisa. That’s how fast my mother fills me with rage. She forced herself to not talk back and spoke to Jamie instead. “So what should I do with the money?” Despite her sad financial situation, deep down she wanted to burn it.

“I’ll take care of it,” said Ellen, picking the bills out of Lisa’s hand.

“Fine.” Lisa wiped her hands on her scrubs, relieved to have it gone. If anyone knew how to make embarrassing evidence disappear, it was her mother.

“And the license plate,” Ellen added to Jamie.

“No way,” said Jamie. “I’m holding on to this baby. I’m hanging it above the front door as warning for young ladies to stay on the straight and narrow.”

“Hilarious,” said Lisa.

“Jamie, please,” continued her mother, holding out her hand.

Reluctantly, Jamie handed over the license plate. “Are you going to take it to the police? You should take Lisa’s clothes too.” She picked up the plastic bag with Lisa’s torn cocktail dress. “You can have the CSI team analyze it, the license plate, and Sue’s car. Oh god, what if Sue goes to a car wash or a twenty-four-hour emergency auto mechanic? Or she might flee the country. She’s probably halfway to Canada by now.”

Ellen took the bag and tucked the license plate and money into it, then turned to Lisa. “Dear, I think you’ll agree that involving the police will only complicate matters further.”

“For once, I do agree with you, Mother,” said Lisa.

“Are you kidding?” asked Jamie looking from one to the other. “No, no, no. We want revenge, retribution, reprisals.”

“Jamie, I just want this all to go away. I want to forget it ever happened,” said Lisa.

“Lisa, that woman tried to murder you.”

“It was just a stupid accident. I’m fine now. Can we go home?”

“Yes,” said Ellen. “I think a few days at home would be good for you. Your room is just as you left it. Well, except that it’s clean of course.”

Lisa glared at her. “Not your home, Mother. Mine.” Lisa felt a wave of dizziness. She grasped the back of a chair until her head cleared, and with as much dignity as she could muster—dressed as she was in scrubs and hospital slippers—she straightened her back and walked determinedly past her mother toward the hospital’s exit. “Jamie, let’s go.”

“Young lady, the best place for you right now is with me. You need to be properly taken care of.”

Lisa turned and faced Ellen. “You don’t get to tell me what to do anymore. I’m not a child.”

“It doesn’t appear that way to me.”

“How dare . . .” The rush of anger she felt at her mother’s insult knocked her off-balance again. Her knees felt like they were about to give out.

Jamie rushed to Lisa’s side and grasped her around the waist to help steady her. Lisa put her arm over Jamie’s shoulders.

“Stop it, both of you,” said Jamie. “This is ridiculous. Mayor Salder, do you have a car?”

“Of course. It’s just outside.”

“Can you give us a ride?” Jamie asked. “Lisa will be fine at our apartment. Please. Don’t make this any worse.”

For a moment, Ellen looked on the verge of lashing out at Jamie, and Lisa could feel her friend bracing for an onslaught. To Lisa’s astonishment, her mother held back her words. She twisted her wedding ring around her finger a few times, and her anger seemed to subside. Lisa saw a look she’d never imagined would appear on her mother’s face: shame.

“Yes, of course I can give you a ride,” Ellen said, her voice quiet and more in control. “Give me a moment to take care of Lisa’s paperwork, and then we can go.” She turned to the reception desk.

“What was that?” whispered Lisa. “Did my mother actually back down?”

“I think so. She told me she’s in therapy for anger management.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. Lisa, you should have seen her when she first walked in. She gave the poor receptionist hell.” Jamie helped Lisa settle back into a chair, then sat down next to her. “I think your mom was really worried about you.”

Lisa shook her head. “No. She’s just protecting herself. Can’t have her wayward daughter making her look bad. Hiding me from the public has been her mission in life since I was thirteen.”

“Maybe,” said Jamie thoughtfully. She turned to Lisa and looked at her closely. “Listen, are you sure you don’t want to report this to the police? You obviously don’t have to do anything your mom says.”

Lisa nodded. “I’m sure.”

“All right, you nut bar,” said Jamie. “But if I ever see George and Sue again, they are going to suffer some seriously righteous indignation courtesy of moi.”

“Fortunately, the chances we’ll run into them again are slim to none,” said Lisa as she rested her head on Jamie’s shoulder and closed her eyes.

A few minutes later, they followed Ellen out to the emergency room parking lot toward a black sedan. Jamie opened the door for Lisa, and they both settled into the back seat. As Lisa closed her eyes, she heard Jamie give her mother directions to their apartment.

She must have dozed off because in what felt like seconds, Jamie tapped her on the shoulder, and Lisa saw that the car had pulled up in front of their building. Shaking off her drowsiness, she stepped out of the car, took Jamie’s arm, and headed up the concrete stairs.

Uninvited, Ellen followed them inside. Together they walked in silence up the three flights, and with each creak of the old floorboards, Lisa saw her home through her mother’s eyes. The apartment door with its unconvincing display of deadbolts. The cramped kitchen and tiny bathroom with barely enough space to turn around. And down the dimly lit hall, a pair of bedrooms. The first was Jamie’s, a room smaller than her mother’s walk-in closet. The second was Lisa’s. It had once been a small living room, complete with a dormant fireplace and built-in cabinets. Lisa walked directly there without a word and closed her door firmly. She sat on her neatly made bed and smoothed the blanket with her hand, glad to be home, surrounded by things she loved. She lay back and sunk into her pillow. Her head ached, and she longed for more painkillers but couldn’t bear the thought of getting up to fetch them. She could hear Jamie and her mother talking quietly in the kitchen and mercifully couldn’t make out their words.

Lisa heard a knock at her door, and it opened immediately, the intruder not waiting for permission. Ellen entered with two cups of tea and a bottle of Tylenol tucked under her arm. Lisa sat up stiffly and wrapped her arms around her chest. She thought about calling for Jamie, though she knew her friend was probably listening from her room next door, ready to bust in if Lisa needed her.

“I just wanted to make sure you were settled in for the night,” said her mother stiffly. She set down both cups on Lisa’s bedside table, then opened the bottle of painkillers, handing Lisa two pills.

“Thanks,” said Lisa. She gazed at the tablets in her hand for a moment before swallowing them with a sip of tea. They dissolved slightly on her tongue when they made contact with the hot liquid, leaving a bitter taste in her mouth.

“So, this is your room,” said Ellen. “It’s so . . . clean.”

Lisa’s tidy habits were an unexpected relic from the Academy, where the staff enforced strict rules about cleanliness and organization for the simple reason that it made inspections easier. It was tough to hide contraband like cigarettes, ramen noodles, and cell phones in a spare and spotless room. She’d kept her space at the Kims’ house just as neat. After moving into the apartment with Jamie, Lisa had toyed with returning to her slovenly ways, but she found that a messy bed and unfolded clothes were no longer tolerable.

Yet disorder reigned at her work desk and easel. Colored pencils, charcoals, watercolors, oil paints, sketchbooks, and canvases littered the space. A piece of white newsprint was tacked on her easel, and her favorite subject, Mount Hood, was just coming into focus. Strokes of thick charcoal pencil were hinting at deep crevices and tall craggy peaks. She was obsessed with the view of the mountain from Lost Lake and even now, years later, couldn’t let it go.

“Yeah. Nothing like my old room,” said Lisa. “What have you done with it? Filled it with interns and turned into your
reelection headquarters?”

“No. As I said at the hospital, it’s still yours. Everything is just the same.” Ellen walked around the small space. A family photo on Lisa’s dresser caught her attention. “We all look so young. Even your father,” she said. She touched the frame lightly, then continued her examination, looking at the crowded walls, taking a closer look at one or two of the paintings. “Just like your bedroom, every inch of wall covered with artwork.” Her mother smiled wistfully and cleared off a small chair next to the fireplace. She sat, wiping a tear from her eye. “I kept every picture in place, just as you left it.”

Lisa thought for a moment about showing mercy. She could let her mother have her moment of nostalgia, let her cry a little bit over her daughter and the room she kept like a memorial to her lost motherhood, but why?

“You should throw it all in the trash like you did with Dad’s stuff.”

Her mother looked up, shocked. “That’s not fair.”

“You erased him,” said Lisa, her eyes filling with tears. She’d only been home once since returning from the Academy. She’d arrived to her mother’s lukewarm welcome and wandered around the rooms. Something felt very wrong, then she realized what it was. All of her father’s belongings were gone. His office had been emptied out. Even gifts Lisa had given him had disappeared. She’d asked why. Her mother offered no explanation. Disgusted, she walked out of that house without another word, silently vowing to never return.

“He wasn’t the man you thought he was.”

“Mom, what is that supposed to mean?”

Her mother sighed. “Just that sometimes you don’t really know the people closest to you.”

Lisa wasn’t falling for it. “Or how far they’re willing to go to protect themselves.”

“What do you mean by that?” asked Ellen sharply.

“I learned a fun fact tonight from George Green. He said you used me for the sympathy vote after Dad died. You told the press I was off at some boarding school in Europe and couldn’t be bothered to come home for my own father’s funeral.”

“I did no such thing.”

“Then where the hell did he get that idea?”

“Language, young lady. When the press asked, I was simply vague. I said you were away at school and let them assume the rest. It was for your own good. I didn’t want you exposed to that media circus.”

“So you just left me there.”

“Of course I wanted you at home. But you were doing so much better. You were safe at the boarding school. They had therapists and a support system in place.”

“The ‘boarding school,’” said Lisa sarcastically. “I hate when you call it that. The only support I got was a pamphlet on surviving my grief. If it weren’t for Patrick and Jamie, I would have been completely alone.”

“Dr. Nobile said that if you left, it could harm your recovery. I wasn’t going to put you at risk.”

“You do realize the Lost Lake Academy was a complete scam, right? How did you even hear about it?”

Her mother closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead. “I saw an ad in a magazine. A colleague of your father’s recommended it too. He said that he’d had great luck sending his son there. He’d visited and thought the facilities adequate, the staff competent and their methods sound. I took him at his word.”

“Sound methods?” Lisa’s voice rose along with her anger. “You had them send masked men to pull me from my bed. I thought I was going to be murdered.”

Ellen shrugged helplessly. “I was afraid if your father and I told you about the school, you’d run away again. It seemed like the only option.”

“I never ran away. I just borrowed your car. And you called the cops on me.”

“And thank god I did. Who knows what that hitchhiker you picked up would have done to you.”

The bedroom door swung open. Jamie stood in the doorway dressed in pink pajamas and wearing a thick, green mud mask on her face. “Everything all right?” she asked brightly. “It’s getting a little loud in here.”

Ellen looked at Jamie for a long moment. “I should go.” She paused at the door. “I’ll pick you up in the morning. We’ll have brunch.”

Before Lisa could protest, her mother had swept out of the room, down the hall, and closed the front door solidly behind her. Lisa listened as her mother’s heels echoed aggressively down all three flights.

“How did you do that?” asked Lisa.

“What?”

“That thing with my mom. You show up and she starts acting human. It’s amazing. I am never spending a minute alone with her again.”

“As long as every future encounter includes her buying us a meal, I’m cool with it.”

Jamie sat down next to Lisa on the bed. “Are you okay?”

“As I’ll ever be,” said Lisa.

“Let’s get some sleep then. I’ll see you in the morning. Love you.” Jamie got up, flipped off the light, and closed the door quietly behind her.

“Love you too,” said Lisa, and closed her eyes.