My father called me twice the first week. The first time was to be sure I was comfortable and happy. The second time was to talk about Haylee.
“I thought you should know what’s happening, Kaylee. If you don’t want to know, just tell me, but I wasn’t going to shut you out of it all without your telling me to do so.”
When I realized why he was calling, I left my room and went outside for privacy. When we were nearby, Mother used to warn her friends who were talking about other women that “little pitchers have big ears.” People, especially girls in Cook Hall, snooped on one another.
Claudia, like everyone else at Littlefield right now, believed I was an only child. Probably, if I was going to trust anyone with the truth, Claudia would be the best one. The girls who spoke to her did so solely because she was part of Marcy’s and my group from Cook Hall. She didn’t actively pursue any friendships other than what she had with us. Except for Marcy, who did it because she thought it pleased me, no one asked her personal questions. I did tell myself that if I needed to confide in anyone here, Claudia would be the one, because whatever I told her would never find its way from her lips. It would almost be like talking to myself. Right now, I saw no urgent need to do it.
“What’s happening with her, Daddy? I do want to know.”
“Dr. Alexander called me yesterday. Haylee’s catatonia was still severe, so they wanted to begin electric shock treatments.”
“Electric shock?”
“Yes.”
“Did they do it?”
“They did it just an hour ago, Kaylee.”
Despite the cruel thing Haylee had done to me and all the deceit that followed, I couldn’t erase the years we had spent together being more like conjoined twins than merely identical. For most of our lives, whenever one of us suffered pain or an illness, the other did, too, if not actually, then virtually. Of course, it was mostly psychological, but that didn’t make it less painful for one of us than the other. Mother taught us early on that when one of us caught a cold, the other would for sure, and that always seemed to happen. She even began giving medicine to both of us, even if the other showed no symptoms yet. When we were little and one of us cut herself on something, Mother would cut the other in the same place—a finger, a hand, a leg, whatever. We were taught that each of us must always feel what the other felt. We must think of ourselves as halves of the same person.
There was some reality to it. Neither of us could be allergic to something without the other also being allergic. We suffered cavities in the same teeth, which absolutely shocked the dentist. If one of us developed a cough, Mother gave the other the same cough medicine, and soon after, we were both coughing. Maybe we began to cough out of sympathy or simply because we wanted to please Mother, but whatever the reason, we did it. It happened.
Standing there in the late-afternoon twilight, miles and miles from Haylee, practically in another world, I could still empathize with her. I even grimaced with pain as I did more than simply imagine the electricity passing through my brain; I felt it. My jaw stiffened. My whole body hardened with expectation. I felt myself tremble.
“Kaylee?” my father asked when I was silent for too long.
“What happened?” I asked after regaining my breath.
“It worked,” he said. “She’s much better.”
“So you visited her?”
“Yes. I had to, both for her sake and your mother’s.”
“Yours, too, Daddy. She’s still your daughter.”
“Right. I saw her, but I didn’t speak to her. Anyway, I wanted you to know so you wouldn’t blame yourself for any of this. Don’t tell me you didn’t, Kay
lee,” he added quickly. “You wanted to punish her, get even somehow, and you believe you did.”
“Yes,” I confessed. We had discussed it, but now, with Haylee getting this painful treatment, I felt more guilt than pleasure. It was still true and maybe always would be. Everything I did to her, I did to myself, and vice versa, whether she wanted to admit it or not.
“Anyway, it’s over,” my father said. “Her therapy has begun again. Dr. Alexander and I decided I would visit her next week. I’ll call you after I do.”
“Okay.”
“You can’t let this interfere with your good progress, Kaylee. You’re going to have a better life now, and that’s that,” he said firmly. “What’s happening to Haylee she brought on herself.”
“All right, Daddy.”
“Are you making new friends?”
“Yes, and I like my teachers and the classes.”
“Good. Your mother finally asked me about you.”
“Did she? I did call to speak with her, but Mrs. Granford said she was sleeping, and she never called me back.”