Would I live to make that discovery?
Would I live to graduate from high school, go to college, meet my love, and get married?
Would I have children?
Would the distance between where I was sitting and the door to this hellhole in which I was trapped be the last and only distance I would ever travel? Every prisoner, every other kidnapped person, surely wondered the same things. Could I outlive the frustration and fear?
I had a new one. Suppose something happened to Anthony. How long would it take before someone came to this house? He seemed to have no one. Eventually, someone would come, of course, but would it be too late for me? Would the food run out? New nightmares were pounding on the door, trying to get in.
Just as I was about to turn away from the window, I caught the shadow of something moving. I strained to look to the right, and then I saw a shadow again, and I began to scream. I screamed as loudly and as hard as I could. Then I waited, hoping. Suddenly, something furry appeared, and a rabbit looked in at the window. I could see its nose twitching as it sniffed. The disappointment weighed so heavily on my heart that I sank quickly onto the chair and then stepped off and put it back where it was.
Mr. Moccasin sat by his bowl watching me.
“Stop looking at me!” I screamed at him, and then I stepped threateningly toward him. I didn’t want to hate him, but I hated everything about this place and everything connected to Anthony. “How can you like him?” I shouted. The cat walked slowly and arrogantly along the wall and found a new place to sit. We stared at each other, and then I threw myself onto the bed and closed my eyes.
I didn’t sleep because I was tired.
I slept to escape.
9
Haylee
The psychiatric nurse came in the afternoon. I didn’t know Daddy had definitely decided to go ahead and hire her. I was still in my light-pink pajamas, barefoot, bored to death since I was still not returning phone calls or answering the phone. Except for the ringing of the phones downstairs, the house was as quiet as a class taking a test.
I was never fond of self-imposed silence. When Mother would put me or both of us in the pantry to punish us for something, I was always crying and screaming inside myself. She’d listen at the door to be sure we weren’t talking to each other, and if we did, we’d get more time in the “box.”
Every hour, at least half a dozen people called, many of them students in our school, girls we knew, girls I hung out with, and some boys. I could tell by looking at the phone and seeing the caller ID. It was hard to resist answering, but I did.
One time, I had to go to the phone because it was my grandmother Clara Beth, who insisted that Daddy let her speak with me. We hadn’t seen her in nearly two years. I always felt that for a grandmother, she was way too formal with us, sometimes reminding me of a mean grade-school teacher like Mrs. Cabin, who could burn you with her furious glare. At least, that was how I felt. Sometimes when she reprimanded me, I’d walk out of her room rubbing my face.
Nana Clara Beth had a voice as sharp as Mrs. Cabin’s. She talked to Mother in a similar way, and Mother was just as cold in return. When I was younger, I found it odd that my mother and her mother were so distant. It was the first time I wondered if a mother could dislike her own child or vice versa.
“How are you handling this situation?” she asked me as soon as I said hello.
I wanted to say with kid gloves or something equally stupid, but instead, I simply said, “The best I can, Nana. It’s not easy to lose your sister, especially if she’s a twin.”
Most of my friends and Kaylee’s called their grandmothers warmer things, like Granny, Nanny, or Nana. Some even had loving nicknames for them, like Kelly Graham, who called her grandmother Dolly, which had nothing to do with her grandmother’s real name. She said she had called her that since she was a very little girl and had never changed it, whereas I wished I could get away with calling her Clara Beth instead of Nana. I never really felt she was a Nana.
“Well, I’m sure your mother is worthless when it comes to helping the authorities or you and your father with this,” she said. “When she would get a splinter in her finger, she would cry and scream so hard that her father would want to take her to the emergency room. So?”
“She’s very upset, yes,” I said. I thought it was a little bit too harsh to say worthless or to compare Kaylee’s abduction to getting a splinter in your finger. At least I wouldn’t say it, even though it was probably true, and I especially wouldn’t have expected a mother to say it about her daughter. Maybe Mother defended us and bragged about us so much because her mother had not done so when it came to her. After all, what if it had been me?
“It all sounds like a mess, a terrible mess. When things like this happen, Haylee, you have to become far more mature overnight. You don’t want your father or anyone having to worry about you now, too,” she warned. “Be sure to help out at the house.”
“I will,” I said, wanting only to get off the phone.
“We’ll think about coming there,” she added, but it sounded weak, as good as saying Someday we’ll see you, which she had often said.
“Okay, Nana Clara Beth.” I think it annoyed her for me to say her full name like that, so I was sure always to do it.
“Is your father still close by?”
“No. He went upstairs to see about Mother,” I said, even though I had no idea where he was at the moment.
; “Tell him I’ll call again soon.”