Circle Nine (10 page)

And then there is a pair of arms around me, and I am scooped up onto her chest where I am able to bury my face in her shoulders and neck. She found me. I looked for her, and I couldn’t find her, but she came to me.

It’s OK,
says the little girl who’s standing next to her, a little older than me. She looks up at us sweetly.
Don’t cry. Mommy’s got you now, see?
I nod down at her, and then there is the lovely feeling that no matter what, she will always come to me. I will always be found, never alone.

The memory fades.

But later, even long after the pain in my head is gone, an overwhelming and unexplained guilt remains.

It’s disgusting what you did, Sam.
Amanda’s voice reverberates into the room from outside where she sits. I can tell from her tone that she’s upset. That’s nothing new, though, so I don’t pay much attention. Amanda’s always upset, even when she’s not upset. She exudes tense energy that makes her look constantly ill at ease. And she’s especially frustrated all the time with me, because I am what she calls a
lethargic lump.

And what exactly is that, Amanda? What is it that I
did? Sam’s tone warns her, but I know she isn’t done. They’re on the verge of another fight. I feel even more anger in the air than I did the last time they fought. I sketch harder in my journal, and the small girl peers up at me from one unfinished eye. The scene from my memory has been haunting me for days. It can only mean one thing: I had a family once. I let the knowledge roll around inside me where it makes me feel full and sickly empty all at once. I wonder and wonder how I got from who I was to who I am, from full to empty, connected to lonely; until the wonder is too much and I give up altogether, focusing on my drawing instead. It is an incomprehensible world in which we live.

Are you kidding? And it’s not even just that. It’s what you do every day. I can’t believe I never noticed it before, how sick it is. You use her, you bait her, you encourage her fantasies. It’s
 . . . She trails off. Then, more calmly,
It’s sick, Sammy. Everything’s so fucked up here.

Abby’s a thinking being. She can do whatever the hell she wants.

But she doesn’t. She does whatever
you
want. She may as well be your pet, Sam. She’s terrified of —

The rest of Amanda’s sentence is muffled by a sob.

You used me, too, Sam.

I never asked you to do anything you hadn’t done already.

My hand sketches the heart-shaped face and long, curled lashes of the woman. My back hurts where it is pressed up against the stone wall. There’s a long pause.

Then,
She loves me,
he whispers to her.
I don’t force her to be here.

She doesn’t know what love is. And you don’t treat her like you love her.

I press the pencil hard on the paper, and it cracks. But not before it draws one tiny jewel in each ear. A mouth bow-shaped and meant for talking to me. Arms strong and meant for hugging me. Amanda’s voice is getting shrill outside.

I can’t take it, Sammy! I’m leaving. And if you want me to keep my mouth shut, you’ll let me take her with me.

Shut up, Amanda.

You’re not going to stop me, Sam.

He laughs scornfully.
What are you going to do, huh? You going to be a hero? Save your precious little Abby from big bad Sam? You’re a
junkie;
Amanda, and how about the truckers in the big city? Were you too skinny? Too drugged up? Business not booming like you thought? What was it, anyway? Why’d the big plan fail, A.? Why’d you bother crawling back here? I’d love to see what you plan to do for Abby, run a tag-team operation? Make her just like you, so you can feel better about yourself? You going to be the hero here? You go right ahead.

I’m going to tell her, Sam. I can’t keep it in any longer. I’m going to tell her what you did. I’m going to take her away from you. I’ll take her out West with me to California. It’s warm there. We’ll have a life. We’ll get away from you.

I never asked you to come back!
he shouts.
We were finished! I was done with you; I found her, everything was fine. She
needs
me. You’re meddling — that’s all. You’re just fucking it all up. You came back and thought you’d mess with my head and things would be like always, and it’s driving you crazy that I don’t need you anymore.

I hear an angry howl and a tussle. I really don’t like that they are fighting. My hand goes right on drawing. Then there are loud noises and the sound of cries, and now Sam and Amanda are in the room. She grabs my wrist.

Wait, Amanda. I’m drawing. See?
I show her my picture.

Isn’t it nice, honey,
she says.
Now, come on with me.
Then she’s pulling me up off my feet, and I can only think that she’s incredibly strong for someone so skinny.

Amanda, stop,
I say.
Isn’t this one better than the others?

Yes.
She grits her teeth hard.
Now, put it down. You’re coming with me right now.
She rips my tablet from my hands and the paper tears, dividing the face in half. It lands on the floor at our feet. I scream long and loud. She’s ripped my mother’s face in half. I scream and scream and then Sam is between us.

Leave her alone,
he says over my shrieking. He tries to pull Amanda away but she’s too strong even for him. I’m afraid of her now, afraid she’ll take me away from him.

Sammy, help,
I say.

Don’t look at him, Abby! Look at me!
she shouts. Something inside me is waking up. Something about this isn’t right. I stand still and let them fight over my parts. Maybe they’ll divide me in two like the picture, and they won’t have anything to argue about anymore.

Get OFF her!
He screams this in her face and then slaps her, and she flies back and sobs on the ground, and I sob standing up. Then she’s running, running away from this hell, and he’s chasing her outside through the trees and instead of thinking of anything, I pick up my tablet and carefully line up the paper where it’s ripped and finish my drawing, and when I’m done, I hang it up on the wall next to the others. There is a striking similarity. My mother in this picture looks like Dream Girl. Amanda is not that girl.

The room around me looks brighter in the last evening light and from outside, the sunset has washed away all traces of the ugliness that just happened here. It makes the stone walls glitter like a thousand tiny prisms, and I am blinded by the beauty of it all. The breeze carries in the scent of freesia, and as I soak up these very nice things, I am happy again and unworried.

I am five or six. I am opening a gift; it is my birthday. I tear off the wrapping and toss it aside.

Say cheese,
says a woman. Another woman who looks like her, but older and wrinkled, stands behind her. She wears a fudge-smeared apron. She waggles her tongue at me and flops her fingers behind her ears, making a silly face.

I smile at them both.

The flash of a camera.

I pull out the ice skates. They’re white with pink laces, for a figure skater. I can’t wait until after I open the rest of my gifts. (There is a large stack of them on the wooden table where I sit.) I slip on the skates right away. I teeter to the door, and the older woman shakes her head at the scratches my blades leave on the floor.

I slide down the narrow pond-bank on my rear. The snow is cold through my jeans. I didn’t stop to put a snowsuit on. Then I am on the ice; I am skating, faster and faster, and the wind is hitting my cheeks in sharp painful gusts. I laugh; I am freer than ever before. I slip and I fall; I get up and do it again. I try turns and jumps. I am becoming bolder. I can’t get enough of this feeling.

I slip and fall again. This time, the blade of my skate catches in a rut when I go down, and my ankle is twisted. I feel strong arms lift me up. They carry me back up the bank to the house, where I am deposited on a sofa in front of a fireplace. The younger woman wraps my ankle with thick gauze, brings me hot tea with milk and sugar. I am allowed to open the rest of my presents: a carousel music box, a silver charm bracelet. I love coming here; this place is peaceful, happy.

I want it, this memory and all the rest, despite the way it hurts.

It was an accident,
he tells me when I ask where Amanda has gone. She was upset. He couldn’t control her. He tried. He says I was there. That I held her hands behind her back, and he pushed her to the ground. He says I was jealous. That I watched him press his body weight against hers. He says he was trying to make her be quiet so he could comfort her, but holding her down didn’t work. Amanda
has always been
was always strong and feisty. It is was a joke among us that I am the porcelain baby, she the snorting bull, Sam the circus master. I don’t remember who came up with that joke. I don’t remember any of this happening.

They got into a fight. Amanda
has been
had been edgy lately. Things were tense between Sam and me, Sam and Amanda, me and Amanda. Three’s a crowd. She told me she wanted to leave. She wanted me to come. But it’s not my fault I couldn’t. She
knows
knew I can never leave Sam. I can’t ever leave Sam. He knows my mind like it is his. And then she was gone into the fog. I don’t know what happened after that.

He says he shouted her name. That he ran outside after her, and I stood just outside and watched them running, and for once, he stresses this part, we didn’t care who saw or heard us. Things will be bad, very bad, without Amanda. He tells me that, and I know it to be true because I feel it myself. She
is
was our double-sided tape. He says he couldn’t stop her, that she shot ahead and he found her a half mile away. There was a cluster of people around her body. He had to fight through them to see her. She was hit by a teenage boy driving a Jeep Cherokee. She must not have been looking while she ran.

It happened,
he tells me.
That is what happens when you choose Circle Nine instead of staying here, where it’s safe.

I’m not going anywhere, Sammy,
I say.