When I opened my eyes, it was dark outside. The moon only gave off the smallest amount of light, coming through the windows near the bed, illuminating the silver of the IV stand. I lifted my head and looked around. Something had waken me up, but there wasn't anything. I saw white racks, white partitions, and white bed frames. They all floated in the darkness like ghosts. The silence sounded too keen in my ears, as I felt my heart start to hammer. Then, just as I decided that it was a dream, a sound came, from the other side of the partitions. Soft breathing. Tentative footsteps.
A light clinking of metal cut through the deadly silence. There followed another one, louder this time. This one did sound metallic though. Instead, it sounded like the person bumped into something. They said something under their breath again.
The air got cold, sharp, and even with my whole body covered, I felt exposed. I pulled the blankets to cover the lower half of my face, with enough caution to make it soundless. I didn't possess the recklessness to hide the entirety of the face. I kept my eyes wide open. My hot breath bounced against the clothing barrier, trapping me in a jail of suffocation. And, there I heard a tiny click of a switch. The room—at least the room behind the partitions—got bright. I saw a shadow, standing next to a lamp, on the screen of a partition. It was too short and small to be Arden.
It could be Jude, I thought.
The shadow grew bigger, as the person came closer to me, further from the source of light. I closed my eyes, at last, and prayed that they'd buy my pretense of sleeping.
The footsteps had a hint of apprehension, so to speak. They stopped at the foot of the bed. A moment later they came closer. I could hear the rustling of their clothes, hear their breathing. The IV tubing rattled against the stand, and my inside jumped at the sound. And as if to challenge my façade, a hand came to pull the blankets off, revealing my cannula-free vein. I could feel the hair on my arm stand up, and goosebumps arise. The urge to shiver at the sensation ran through my body. I stayed unmoved, still.
But then, the same cold hand rested on my cheek. I started and pulled back. The first thing that came into sight was a pair of wide eyes, as startled as mine. As a gasp fell from her lips, another metallic clunk rung out. Mary Eunice knelt down for whatever she dropped. Her face was on the same level as mine, only for a split second, before I pushed myself up.
Her empty hand flew to my shoulder. "Please. You don't need to get up," she said, as her hand pressed me down. Her voice had a feeble, yet demanding tone, as if she feared that I would leave her.—I would've left her, if I had anywhere else to go at all.
I lay down on my side again, but kept my muscles tight. The lingering ghost of coldness her hand left gave me a funny feeling in the cheek. A sensation tiptoeing between tickling and tingling. And the more I paid attention to it, the worse the tingling became. I dug my nails into the pillow, not to scratch or rub the cheek. Then, when her gaze found mine, the untreated tingles spread inside me like a virus, like an infection.
I had no desire to start a staring contest with her.
She pulled up a chair. She put a can on the edge of the bed, fiddling with it, as she cleared her throat. "A candy apple," she said, with a failed smile. "My stepmother taught me apples are the healthiest food on earth."
The can had undesigned decorations of dents here and there. They were quite noticeable among the printed flowers.—I figured she dropped it more than once. Her fingers caressed those craters, as though it could somehow restore the surface to its original smoothness. She removed the lid, then, and tilted it so I could see the inside. In the little light that the tin walls allowed in, the brown coating on the apple glistened.
"I thought—" she said. "Your body needs it, especially right now."
She moved it closer to my face, encouraging me to take it. The thick, sticky scent of peanut butter leaped to my face, and my stomach had a cramp. But, contrary to the negative reaction of the stomach, my mouth still watered. I only glared at it, though.
She then pulled it out by the stick. "Oh— Look, it has nuts on it!" she said. "You aren't allergic to nuts, are you? My aunt Celeste had lots of allergies."
I said nothing.
The candy apple hovered in the air for some moments. Then, as Mary pretended a smile, it went back into the can. "Maybe later," she said, "if you don't feel like eating right now. But don't let anyone see it. Sweets aren't allowed in this house." She placed the can on the nightstand, next to the glass of water.
I turned over, so my back would face her. I waited for her to leave, but I only heard her suppressed sighs. One after another, as though they were the reincarnations of words that died in her throat. The tubing rattled against the stand again.
"Why aren't you hooked up to it?" she said. "You know it's for your health."
I kept my mouth shut.
"Here, let me." Her fingers brushed against my arm, and I shook her off.
I used to throw a fit like this, when I was a child. I'd wrap myself up in my bed, glaring into nothing, with my bottom lip stuck out. This always prompted my mother to come in. I'd stay wordless, motionless, as she sat on the edge of the bed. A few sighs would escape her lips, then. Sometimes, the light in the hallway came into my dark room, and created a shadow of her on the wall. And her shadow would shake her head at my irrational temper, at my stubbornness, the blood of my father that ran through my veins. I always hated that. Then, with a "Talk ta me," her hand would touch my hand or shoulder, to make me face her. I'd pull blankets over my head and grumble. But in the end, her perseverance always prevailed.
Mary had none of such persisting essence in her. She gave up after my first rejection.—I would've been satisfied with just that, if the memory of my mother hadn't come back to harrass me. And perhaps, because of this, I didn't make a violent demand for her departure.
Mary took a shaky breath. And with a tremor in her voice, she apologized. "You have every right to be angry with me," she said. "I let you stay in the basement for too long. I shouldn't have waited until Mr. Sánchez told me you were sick. I should've known better than to—" A sob tore from her throat. She sniffled. "I wanted to come here sooner, but Sister Jude said—" Her voice trembled, harder than I'd ever known, to the point it was almost a string of spurious words. But I managed to hear her say, "You could stay angry, but I can't live if you hate me. You can't hate me. Please don't hate me."
Why is this girl so . . .
Even with my eyes fixed on her shadow on the wall, I could see her scrunched-up face. I stared at the shadow, for more moments.
I turned my head to her, and my body followed.
Red was her face, her eyes in particular. Her bottom eyelashes stuck to the wet skin, more tears rolling down her hot cheeks. She'd had her bangs cut a little, I noticed, because I could see the bottom edge of her brows now. Under her pink, runny nose, her lip struggled with a quiver. All of the muscles of her face twisted, in agony, but at the same time, with such ease.—There was once a time when I would've killed anyone who dared to make her look like this.
"You are," I said, "a stupid girl." My voice sounded eerily calm.—Or Judge might have described it as 'the calm before the storm.'
Her face contorted again. "I know," she said.
"No, you don't. You don't know anything. Because if you did, you wouldn't be here. You wouldn't be begging for my forgiveness."
"But—"
"Stop it."
"I hurt you—"
"No—" I sat up. "I hurt you. Why can't you understand that I betrayed you? Me. Not you! I used you, so I could go somewhere better. Somewhere without you!" My throat began to ache at the outburst. "Don't you get it? You were just a pawn. You weren't as important to me as you thought you were, okay? You should be furious, not crying!"
Of course, it only made her crying even harder. But she shook her head, with her lips pursed, like a little girl.
"I forgive you," she said, as she rubbed her right eye.
Forgive me! Oh, how wonderful that sounded! How revivified it made me! Surely, they would bestow upon her a crown of sainthood while she still lived, and would build statues of St. Mary Eunice all around the world. Such nobility. How terrible it made me.
I wanted to strangle myself with the IV tubing.
"Didn't Jude cane you?" I said. "Didn't she skin you alive, for trusting me and falling into my trap?"
She dropped her gaze to her lap. A tear fell onto her hands there. "But, I knew you wanted to be free," she said. "I can never blame you for wishing for freedom. And I think— I think, even if I'd known, I would have let you. If you could see Miss Wendy again—"
"Oh, fuck you." I felt my neck veins pulsating, blood rushing to my head. "You are pathetic. You're pitiful, more than I ever thought. You act like a merciful saint, but all you really do is run away and refuse to see the truth. Just like a stupid, pathetic little girl!"
I shouted the last word, and she winced at that.
"You would've let me use you?" I said. "No, you wouldn't have been able to defend yourself if you'd known! There's nothing you could've done, but to watch me and cry for help!"
"Please, Miss Winters, please don't shout." Her sobs drowned out the plea.
"Don't you fucking pretend that you care about me, when you've done nothing to defy Jude!"
If I had anything in my hands, I would've thrown it against the wall. My nails dug into my palms. All the shouting inflamed my throat, so much I tasted blood. My vision blurred.
Mary shook her head again, more violently now. Though in defiance, miserable whimpers still leaked from her tight lips. She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, the way one would put towels under a door to prevent water from seeping in. But, the sounds transformed themselves within her, and leaked from her eyes nonetheless.
"Then—" she said. "Then, what must I do with these feelings? You said— You promised you wouldn't run away. Don't you know, that— That you are the most important person in my life?" Her hands rose to wipe tears, but only smeared them all over her face. "Every morning, you are the first person I look for. When I woke up after the night, I still looked for you. And to learn everything . . . I didn't know what to believe. I was scared of going to sleep, because I thought you'd be gone again, for good. And I— I thought— I hated myself for feeling relieved to know you were still there, in the basement. You— Don't you know?" She rose her face, and her eyes bored into mine. "You're very dear to me. Even if I'm just a— A pawn, if I could be in your life at all, then— I could do nothing but to forgive you. I have no other choices."
For a brief moment, even in the midst of the chaos, I found myself in awe of her, of her self-destructive faith. So blind, so dazzling.
I lay back down. Tears made a small wet patch on the pillow.
"It's dangerous, Mary Eunice," I said. "You shouldn't put so much faith in another person."
Despite everything, she gave a weak smile. "Sister Jude once said I was never good at doing anything in moderation."
"You'll end up like me."
"If loving you makes me insane," she said, "I will gladly take it." Her voice regained calmness, her lip without a quiver.
"I'm not worth it."
"Yes, you are. You deserve everything good in the world, and everything that makes you happy. And I prayed every day that I could be one of those things."
"I'm not an angel, Mary Eunice."
She dropped her gaze to her lap. "I know," she said. "You are more real than that."
She raised her hand and brushed her hair out of her eyes. It was then I took notice of the bandages around her fingers, only of her left hand.
"What happened to your fingers?" I asked.
Her wet cheeks colored, as she played with the edge of a bandage. "I always ask someone else to do sewing for me. But—" She cast a glance at the coat over the bed frame. "Your coat was missing a button. Did you know that?"
"It's not mine," I said. "I stole it from you."
"It is yours now," she said, with clear certainty in her eyes.
I knew then, she would give her life to me in the exact same manner. No doubt, no reluctance, no trepidation. If I were to say to her, It's not my life, she would say, It's yours now.
I rested my hand, palm up, on the very edge of the mattress. Mary stared at it, in puzzlement. But when our eyes locked, and when I didn't look away, she took it with both of her hands. I felt the rubbery surfaces of the bandages, with its edge floppy with her tears.
"I want to forgive you," I said. "But I don't know if I could."
"I will do anything. Anything."
She had no idea, as clueless as she'd ever been.
"But— None of that matters," I said. "You can't change the past, or bring back the dead." As I stared at our hands, I felt her puzzled gaze.
"Dead? But, you are still here, with me."
I shook my head. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and said, "Tell me about Olga."
In her eyes, a new light of awareness emerged. Things were falling into places inside her head, as she slowly, very slowly, pulled her hands away.
"How did you know?" she said, in such a pitiful tone.
"Grace told me."
She shrunk even smaller. "They were very close, I forgot."
"Tell me. I want to hear it from you."
Then she spoke, little by little, sometimes stopping to take a strangled breath. The more words she uttered, the shakier her voice became. She kept talking. I wished there'd be some kind of a plot twist, like in the movies. Something Grace didn't know, failed to tell me, or hid from me. I waited for that moment, where Mary turned out to be the protagonist of this story, and revealed Grace's ulterior motive.—But the story was as I knew it, only in more detail and through Mary's lens.
She didn't look up, not even once. But I saw a drop of tear after another falling straight onto her lap, like a loose faucet. By the time the storytelling reached the inevitable death of Olga, her hands glistened, as if she was fresh out of the shower.
I handed her a towel that was in the nightstand.
"What happened to her body?" I asked.
She wiped her hands. "I don't know. Sister Jude and Dr. Arden usually take care of it— I mean, of them."
"Did they bury her here?"
"I don't know. I don't know. I don't know," she said. "I didn't think anything of it. I was young and ignorant. And I tried to forget about her, because— Because Sister Jude said it was for the best." She choked back her sobs. "I did forget about her for years, but when you came, you came with her."
"Because of our sexuality?"
She shook her head. "No, it's deeper than that. Your confidence, intelligence, compassion . . . You made me feel protected like— Like she used to."
And both of us betrayed her the way she'd never imagined.
"Every time I looked at you," she said, "it was like looking at her. And at night, I started to have these dreams." She lifted the towel to her face, pressing it into her eyes. "I'm standing in her room, wathing her sleep in the bed. I have this—" Her fingers fiddled with the white towel. "—this black bottle in my hands. I make her drink it. The poison. I want to stop, but my body doesn't listen to me. I kill her, and I can't save her."
She clutched the towel to her chest, as she curled up in a ball in the chair. Her forehead rested on the edge of the bed. Her shoulders shook. The vibration of it traveled through the mattress, echoing inside me, too. My heart ached. But I didn't know if it did only for Olga, or for her and Mary. I put my hand on Mary's cheek. The contact made her flinch. She lifted her face, and when she saw my face, she wrapped her hands around mine, as though the salvation was in my touch.
"I'm so stupid and weak and blind," she said between her whimpers. "I should've protected her. I should've stood up to Sister Jude."
The lump in my throat was big. I didn't know my voice could pass it. "You should've," I managed to say.
.
It would have been easy, if it had been only us, if our own forgiveness could've healed those scars, and brought back the dead. But it wasn't our tears and penitence Grace wished for. And we couldn't listen to Olga anymore. We could only hold onto each other, even if it might not suffice.
After all of that, our emotional stamina seemed to have run out. We couldn't utter another word. My eyelids were swollen, the extra weight of them making it a chore to keep my eyes open. I imagined it was the same for Mary, as she sometimes nodded off. Every now and then, she would almost fall off the chair. She'd jerk awake, let out something between a whimper and a sigh, and look at me. I think seeing me there reassured her. I think, like she said to me, she feared that I might disappear on her again. So, every time she smiled with her tired eyes, I'd tightened my grip on her hand, and tell her to go back to sleep.
I watched her like this until it was time for her to leave. Before her departure, she insisted on hooking me up to the IV.
"I don't want to be doped up," I said. "It messes with my brain."
She nodded once, hesitantly. "But promise me you will eat the apple. You have to eat something."
I promised I would, and bade her good morning.