Sisters in Sanity (11 page)

“Are you ready to talk about your grandmother’s letter?” Clayton asked.

“What’s to talk about?”

“I really am so tired of your obfuscation, Brit. There’s much to discuss in that letter.”

“My mom’s okay. She’s in Spokane. It’s all good news.”

“Is it really?”

“She’s not dead, so relatively speaking, yes it is.”

Clayton waved her pen and chuckled softly. This was my cue to ask her what she thought was so funny. “What?” I asked.

Now she was shaking her head. “It’s just too obvious.”

“If you’re going somewhere with this, maybe you should share, because you’ve lost me.”

“I’m not the one who’s lost you, Brit,” she said. “Let me put it another way. In your grandmother’s letter, she said that your mother refused the doctor’s help, because she feared they were all, wait, let me get this exactly.” She stopped and shuffled through my file, then pulled out a photocopy of Grandma’s letter. “She ‘thinks the doctors are all out to get her.’ Isn’t that how you feel?”

“Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not after you,” I muttered.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Nothing, a song lyric. I don’t think you’re trying to poison me or kidnap me so you can plant probes in my brain, which is the kind of stuff my mother believes, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

“You’ve missed my point. You’re being too literal. I’m just suggesting the ways in which your nature mirrors your mother’s.”

“You keep saying that. Why don’t you just ask the
question you’re hinting at: Am I worried that I’ll go crazy too?”

“To put it bluntly, yes.”

“Are your parents still alive, Dr. Clayton?”

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”

“Humor me. Is your mom alive?” Clayton was at least fifty so I figured there was a good chance she wasn’t.

“My mother is still with us. My father passed on.”

“Of what?”

“Where are you taking this, Brit?”

“Just tell me.”

“He died of heart disease.”

“Are you worried you’ll have a heart attack?”

“No more than the next person.”

“Well, my mom has a disease, too. That’s what all the doctors told Dad and me. It can be hereditary, but my mom’s mom is fine and so is her sister, so there’s no reason to think I won’t be, too.” It all sounded so logical. I almost believed it myself.

“That’s a very mature way to look at, Brit,” Clayton said. “But I suppose that if I had high cholesterol or chest pains and other signs of heart disease, I
might change my tune a bit, show a bit more concern, perhaps even try to take some preventive measures.”

“Preventive measures, like what? Shock therapy?” I was being sarcastic, but judging by the creepy smile on Clayton’s face, I was a little scared that I’d given her an idea.

As it turned out, Clayton did have shock treatment in mind for me, but not the kind with electrodes. A couple days later, she called me in for a special session. When I saw who was sitting with her in her office I almost passed out.

Dad.

I was speechless. What was he doing here? Was this the rescue every girl at Red Rock secretly hoped for? Or had something happened to Mom? Clayton took in my confusion, eating it up like candy. Then, after my discomfort had settled over the room, she deigned to explain.

“As you know, Mr. Hemphill, we don’t usually condone individual visits, but in Brit’s case, I thought
we’d make an exception.” She turned to me, wearing her phoniest smile. “Your father has generously agreed to give up a day of his family trip to the Grand Canyon to come see if he can’t galvanize your therapy.”

“You went to the Grand Canyon without me?” Somehow, I felt as betrayed by this as everything else that had happened.

“Yes, honey. It’s beautiful there. I wish you could’ve joined us,” Dad replied. I stared at him. Was he for real? I mean, did he think this was a nice social call?

“As I was saying,” Clayton interrupted. “Your father agreed to come down for the day to help us work on a few issues.” She turned to Dad. “Mr. Hemphill, I think it would help Brit to know exactly how she came to arrive at Red Rock.”

Dad nodded and looked at Clayton, who fixed him in a steady gaze. Then he looked at me. It was almost like he was asking for my help to get Clayton out of the room. And because even when I’m furious with Dad I will do anything for him, I cleared my throat. Then Dad cleared his throat. Clayton got the hint.

“Well then, let me give you two some time alone,” she said.

Dad stepped forward to hug me. His embrace felt hollow. I extricated myself from it as quickly as I could.

“You were going to tell me why I got sent here,” I said, looking squarely at him.

“Your therapists believe you’re under the impression that it was your mother’s idea.”

“My
step
mother’s idea,” I corrected.

“Right, yes, well. I should clarify now that while she thought you could use some, well, guidance, the decision to send you to Red Rock was mine.”

“Your idea?” I spat.

Dad blushed. He actually looked embarrassed. “Yes, your mother—I mean your stepmother—she thought you needed some help dealing with your—your anger, but she was actually against you going so far away,” he stammered. “I chose Red Rock. I felt it was the best place for you.”

Maybe I’d suspected this all along, but hearing it from Dad’s mouth was like a knife in the back. I looked at him, a person I had once loved without limit in this world, and I felt a flash of hatred. It was just
for a second, but it cooled my temperature to ice.

“So what sold you on Red Rock?” I asked. “The fact that it’s a thousand miles from home? Or was it their warm-and-fuzzy therapeutic approach that appealed to you?”

Not even Dad could miss my sarcasm. He ran his hands through his hair. “Please, sweetheart. We just have a short visit. Let’s try to be civil.”

“Civil? Do you think that’s why Clayton asked you here? For a tea party? She wants you to bring me down a few pegs. Which is how this place operates.”

“Now, honey. I’m sure that’s not true. I know that Dr. Clayton is stern, but she has your best interests at heart.”

It was at that moment that I finally got it:
Dad didn’t have a clue.
He didn’t have any idea what Red Rock was all about, even though he was standing right in the middle of it and could have seen it for what it was if he’d really wanted to. And maybe more importantly, he didn’t have the slightest notion why he’d sent me here. There were so many things I understood that Dad was working diligently to ignore.

“How long are you going to keep doing that?” I asked quietly. “How long are you going to bury
your head in the sand?”

Dad looked up at me, as surprised as I was, I guess, by the venom in my voice. “What are you talking about now?” he asked wearily.

I wanted to grab him, to shake him, to wake him up, but I held myself still. “Do you even know why you sent me here? Can you tell me that?” I demanded. Dad stared at me now with the same lost look I recognized from girls in CT.

“Let me enlighten you. You sent me away because you were too powerless to do anything about Mom. So you’re trying to compensate with me. You sent me away because you’re scared I’m going to…”

Dad looked stricken. “I’m scared you’re going to what?” he asked.

But I couldn’t say it out loud. That would make it real. And hearing Dad confirm it, that would have been more than I could take. Besides, Dad was suddenly looking so ashen that I was scared he was going to pass out or have a heart attack or something. Just like that, my moment of clear-eyed hatred passed, and I was back in a dreary room with my sad sack of a guilt-ridden dad. I felt tears spring to my eyes, but before they had a chance to escape, I left the office.
As I sprinted down the hallway, passing a satisfied-looking Clayton standing just outside the door, I wondered when it was that Dad had become one of the people I had to hide my true self from.

Dad had finally shown up, he’d admitted that sending me away was his decision, and Clayton seemed hell-bent on convincing me I was a loon: I’d never needed a Sisters meeting so badly in my life. But I didn’t even know how to begin to make that happen. The only person who did was locked up.

I was still mad at V. And I still felt guilty. Every day she stayed stuck on Level Two weighed on me. But even with all my conflicting feelings, I missed her. I needed her plainspoken solace now more than ever.

Two days after Dad’s visit, I was feeling so riled up that I decided to infiltrate iso and talk to V. On my
way to breakfast, I fell in with a large group of Level Three girls, and when they turned toward the cafeteria, I veered off to the wing where the iso rooms were. The halls were empty, and my heart was pounding. I felt like I was being watched from every direction.

At the end of the iso corridor, I spotted two Level Six guards chatting outside what I figured was V’s door. I crouched down, trying to psych myself forward. But I couldn’t get my legs to work. It wasn’t just getting caught or bitched out by the Sixers that scared me. It was facing V. I didn’t even know where things stood between us, and besides, she had this way of zeroing in on stuff I didn’t want to talk about. Ironically, she was a lot like Clayton that way.

So I chickened out and made my way back to the cafeteria, feeling like a miserable loser. By the time I arrived, most of the girls were getting ready to leave. I spotted Cassie and Laurel together, and Bebe, walking two paces in front of her guard, Hilary, who was carrying both of their trays. That almost made me laugh, and almost made me run up to Bebe, but I couldn’t help remembering the time she’d said Dad didn’t really want to see me. Even though he’d just visited, Bebe’s proclamation seemed truer than ever,
and I didn’t relish having her rub my face in it. Just when I thought I was totally alone—salvation. I saw Martha. This was a rarity. Martha was hardly ever around these days.

“Oh my God, am I glad to see you, Martha,” I said.

She swiveled to face me. She looked exhausted, her face pale, her eyes droopy. “Oh, hey Brit,” she said wearily.

“Are you going to school now? I’ve got to talk to you.”

Martha shook her head. “Can’t. I have to go on another one of Sheriff’s lame overnight hikes,” she said. She was practically in tears.

“Do you have five minutes? I’m desperate.”

“I wish,” she said mournfully. “I’m already in trouble because I overslept. They’re waiting for me. I get back tomorrow around lunchtime. I’ll find you then.” She gave me a helpless shrug and was gone.

The next day, I eagerly looked for Martha in the cafeteria at lunch. She wasn’t there. She didn’t show up for dinner, either, or for breakfast the next day. I looked for her in school. Not there. She wasn’t on the quarry, either. I checked to see if she was in iso or in
the infirmary or had been switched to the other class. But she was MIA. I asked Bebe, Cass, and Laurel if they’d seen her, but they hadn’t. I was getting so worried that I sought out Tiffany after group therapy.

“Hey Tiff.”

She stared at me, her eyes angry slits. It struck me then how much Tiffany disliked me, how much she resented all of the Sisters. Did she know about our secret meetings? Did she feel left out? Maybe we should’ve invited her.

“What do
you
want?”

“I was just wondering if you’d seen Martha. I haven’t seen her in a couple of days. Have you?”

Tiffany looked nervous for a second, and then she actually smiled, like the cat that swallowed the canary.

“What?” I asked

“I’m not allowed to say.”

“What aren’t you allowed to say?”

“If I told you, I’d be saying it.” I felt my fist clench. I so wanted to punch her kiss-assy face. But she had vital information, so I took a breath to steady myself.

“Has she gone home? Is she okay?”

“She hasn’t gone home, and she’s okay, as okay as
any of you troublemakers are.” Now Tiffany was actually gloating.

“Where is she? I’m really worried.”

“I’ll bet you are,” she sneered. “You and your little group. I’m sorry, but I’m just not permitted to tell you anything more.” She turned on her heel and was gone.

After my conversation with Tiffany, the bad feeling I’d had blossomed into full-on panic. Something was very wrong. That night at dinner, I found out just how wrong. A Level Five girl named Pam, whom I had never talked to before, sat down next to me.

“I’m not supposed to tell you this, but I’m going to anyway,” she said.

Pam started telling me about the most recent death march, the overnight expedition Martha had gone on. Even though the temperature had been in the nineties when the hike started, Sheriff had pushed the girls as usual. As usual, Martha was at the back of the pack. Pam said Martha had been complaining of a headache, but Sheriff just told her “less whining, more climbing,” and when Martha kept complaining, he threatened to demote her to Level Three. So she kept going.

“That night Martha said that her head hurt and
her feet felt all tingly,” Pam told me. “I could tell she wasn’t faking. I started to get worried. And it only got worse. She started to get all spacey. I went to Sheriff’s tent and told him about Martha, but he just told me to mind my own business and that she’d be fine in the morning.”

“That sounds like him. Was she better?”

“Worse. She could hardly eat the measly breakfast and she seemed really confused and was walking slower than ever. I knew something was seriously wrong, so I hung back with her, just wanting to get her down the mountain and to the infirmary. After breakfast, we started hiking again. It was blazing hot. Martha started to lose it, babbling, and calling me Anita.”

“That’s her sister’s name,” I said.

“By then I was really scared, and I ran to get Sheriff. He was totally annoyed but he followed me back to where I’d left Martha, and she’d just kind of crumpled up under a tree. Sheriff thought she was sleeping. He kept yelling at her to wake up, get off her fat ass and stuff like that. But she didn’t move.”

“Oh my God. Is she okay?”

“I don’t know. I’m pretty sure she’s still at the hospital now.”

“The hospital?” My stomach somersaulted. I was scared that I might throw up.

“That’s where they took her. And that was just because we all gathered around Sheriff and Martha and started freaking out and yelling at him until he got on the walkie-talkie. I heard she’s been in a coma since then. I’m really sorry to have to tell you this.”

My eyes welled up. “Please don’t,” Pam said, though not unkindly. “We’re not supposed to talk about this, and if anyone finds out I told you, I could get in big trouble. Please don’t cry.”

I wiped my nose and got myself together. “I don’t want to get you in trouble,” I said. “But they must know we’re going to find out what happened to her, what they did.”

“They’ve already figured out how to cover their tracks. You think Red Rock is gonna take the blame for this? No way. They’re going to blame Martha. Blame the victim. That should be Red Rock’s motto.”

That night, I didn’t have any problem keeping myself awake until two in the morning. I stole into the hall and when I saw the guard was asleep, I made my way to Bebe’s room. “Wake up,” I whispered, my hand over Bebe’s mouth. I beckoned her to follow me.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Meet me in the office. You get Cassie. I’m going for V.”

“But she’s under heavy surveillance.”

“It doesn’t matter. This matters. Ten minutes.”

Whereas two days ago I’d crept through these halls like some kind of stalked prey, this time I felt like a lion. I walked purposefully, ducking wherever there was a camera. I grabbed the pass key from its hiding place in the fake plant next to Clayton’s office and made my way to V’s room. The guard was nowhere to be seen. I knew what I was doing was dangerous, could get me sent back a level or three, delaying my leaving Red Rock for months. But none of that seemed to matter anymore. Dad seemed content to leave me here as long as he could. And Martha needed us.

V seemed to have a sixth sense that I was coming.

She was wide awake on her cot, as though expecting me. As soon as she saw me through the window of her door, she slipped out of bed. I unlocked the door, and V fell into step silently next to me. When the group assembled, I told them what I had heard just a few hours ago, what the staff at Red Rock was so desperately trying to cover up.

“Martha’s in the hospital. In a coma,” I said. The girls all gasped in horror. And then I told them everything Pam had told me at dinner, plus a few things I’d found out since then. What I didn’t tell them about was Dad. Suddenly it no longer seemed relevant.

“Get this, you know why Sheriff says Martha passed out?” I asked.

“Heat stroke, dehydration, exhaustion,” V suggested.

“Those would be the obvious reasons. No, he’s telling everyone that Martha is anorexic and has been starving herself for weeks now.”

“That is such a load of crap,” V said.

“Of course it is. But rat-fink Tiffany backed him up. She told Pam that she’d seen Martha hiding food in her sock and Tiffany told Sheriff that too. So now he’s telling everyone who asks that Martha is a victim of malnourishment because she’s been withholding food. There’s going to be an announcement tomorrow at breakfast.”

“That’s such a load of bull,” Cassie fumed. “They did this to her. It ain’t right.”

It was worse than not right. It was cruel. I kept picturing poor Martha, slowly losing it on the hike and
no one listening to her, no one trusting her, because what? She was a formerly thin girl who’d dared to get fat? What had any of us done to belong here? Cassie liked girls too much. Bebe liked boys too much. V thought of death too much. And me? Why was I here? Because I resembled my mom too much? Because I scared my dad too much?

Seeing what happened to Martha, how the school reacted to it, I finally got it. Who was screwed up—Martha, or her thin-obsessed parents? Cassie, or her homophobic mom and dad? V, or her too-busy-to-care power parents? Me, or my willfully deluded father? As I sat there and thought everything through, something sparked in me. I’d hated Red Rock from the get-go but never knew what to do about it. I relied on V to help me break rules, or Bebe to help me outwit Clayton, or Jed to fill my mind with happy thoughts. But like a volcano burbling, something was coming alive in me. Not just anger but indignation, and a new resolve. I was tired of being in the charge of cruel and clueless adults. The world was upside down. The adults had abandoned their roles. They’d surrounded themselves in a cocoon of ignorance—and then told us we were screwed up. We couldn’t trust
them anymore. There was nobody out there watching out for us, taking care of us. We had to look out for ourselves.

And to do that, I had to change. Because in spite of Dad and Clayton’s mischaracterizations, in spite of my punky hair and tattoos and affinity for guitar feedback, I was basically a good girl. I had listened to my parents when I had two of them, and listened to my dad when Mom left. I was nice enough to Billy. I didn’t take drugs or drink or steal or hurt people. I was honest and I could love people and be loved. I wasn’t the rebellious girl the Red Rock staff liked to paint me as. But I realized that if I wanted to get out and get my life back, I was going to have to become
that
girl. It was time to awaken my inner rebel, time to kick some ass.

“It’s all so awful, my poor sweet girl,” Bebe lamented.

“I hate these people,” V said. “How can they be so venal? They’re supposed to be helping us, and look what they do? They undermine us and hurt us in the name of therapy.”

“You’re statin’ the obvious, but what can we do, short of organizing a prison break?” Cassie asked.

“Enough,” I interrupted.

“Sorry,” Cassie said, raising her hands. “I was just thinkin’ out loud.”

“No, not you. Enough of them. Enough of this bullshit therapy. Enough of waiting for Clayton and Sheriff to decide when we’re fixed. Enough of our parents with their heads in the sand, warehousing us here while they ignore their own problems. The rules just changed. What we say, what we do—it’s not up to them anymore. It’s up to us. Game over.”

“I like this vigilante talk, darling. Tell us what you have in mind,” Bebe said, looking at me for the first time in ages with warmth, like the old Bebe.

“Yeah, what’s your plan?” V asked.

“I’ll tell you my plan: The end of Red Rock. For everyone. We’re going to shut this place down.”