Neither of us spoke for quite a while. I stared out my window. Just before we were home, she told me that for the first time since I had arrived, she had to go away that coming weekend with Mr. March.
“It’s a traditional thing we do this time every year. We meet some of Donald’s old friends in San Francisco and go to Carmel. I’ll leave very specific instructions with Mrs. Duval, who is quite capable of looking after things, and after you, while I’m gone, and I’ll call often.”
“I’ll be okay,” I said.
“Of course you will. Why shouldn’t you?”
I thought she might add that Alena had always been okay while she was gone, but she said nothing more. The night before they left, both Mr. and Mrs. March warned Kiera not to take advantage of their absence. Even Mr. March sounded firm and threatening. Kiera kept her head down and didn’t come back with any smart remarks. The last few days, she had come home right after school and shut herself in her room, and when she returned from her therapy sessions, she not only shut herself in her room but also refused to come down to dinner.
At first, I thought all of this was her way of playing her parents again. She was hoping to punish them for forcing her to fulfill her obligations to the court and continue the therapy she hated, but she said nothing about it to them when she was at dinner. To my surprise, in fact, she showed them her math and science tests, on which she had received high-B grades.
Mr. March looked very pleased. “This is very good, Kiera,” he said. He turned to Mrs. March. “Some people just take a little longer to wake up to what’s important.”
“Yes,” she said, but she didn’t look as convinced about any change as he did. “Do keep it up, Kiera.”
Because of some change in her schedule, Kiera had a therapy session on the Friday the Marches left for their extended weekend holiday. As usual lately, when Kiera returned, she went directly into her room and asked that her dinner be brought up. I ate alone. Both Mrs. Duval and Mrs. Caro kept appearing to talk and keep me company. They both seemed nervous for me.
“Don’t worry,” I told them. “I’ve eaten alone many times.”
“I’m sure you have, dearie,” Mrs. Caro said. She sighed deeply and returned to the kitchen.
Afterward, I watched some television and then practiced some music Mr. Denacio had given me. By nine-thirty, I was feeling tired enough to go to sleep and prepared
for bed. After I put out the lights and slipped under my blanket, I listened to what I thought of as the grand house’s sad silence, but suddenly I heard a different sound. I listened harder and then rose and pressed my ear to the wall between Kiera’s suite and mine. I was sure of it now. She was crying. It wasn’t someone on television. It was Kiera.
Full of curiosity, I put on my robe and stepped into the hallway and up to her door. I stood there for a moment, listening. Again and again, I heard the distinct sound of her sobbing. It was a sound that every part of me should enjoy, I thought, but I didn’t feel the satisfaction I would have expected or hoped to feel. I even tried to ignore her sobbing and turn to go back to my suite, but it was as if my feet were glued to the floor. I had no idea what I expected, but I knocked softly. Her sobbing continued, so I knocked a bit harder, and then it stopped.
“Who is it?” I heard her ask.
“Sasha,” I said, anticipating some nasty remark to send me back to my own suite. Instead, she opened the door.
She was in her nightgown. Her hair looked as if she had been standing in an open convertible going seventy miles an hour. She wiped tears away from her cheeks and turned to go back to her bed, surprising me again by leaving her door open. I stepped in and closed it behind me.
“Why are you crying?” I asked. She lay on her back, staring up at the ceiling.
“It’s the therapy,” she replied.
“Oh,” I said, waiting for her to complain, but she surprised me again.
“It’s been giving me nightmares.”
“Nightmares?”
I stepped closer to her bed. I saw that she had taken off her clothing quickly, tossing it every which way, a blouse on the floor, her skirt on a chair, socks and shoes at another place on the floor, her panties beside them. In fact, the room looked as if someone had entered it in a rage and attacked it. Books and magazines were on the floor by a table, and items on her vanity table were turned over, uncovered, and scattered.
“What sort of nightmares?” I asked.
Still looking up, she spoke like someone in a trance. “Nightmares about that night. I can’t get your mother’s face out of my mind. I told my therapist, and he said that was good.”
She finally looked at me.
“Can you imagine that? He said it was good, good that I see her almost every night now, good that I dream about that night. I don’t sleep. I feel like I’m coming apart inside, and he nods and says, ‘You’re making progress, Kiera. That’s good.’
“Every time I go to see him now, I begin to shake. He has this calm, soft voice, but it doesn’t make it any less painful. And it makes it painful to look at you,” she added in a louder, strained voice, her lips trembling. She turned away to illustrate her point.
I certainly didn’t want to feel sorry for her, but I couldn’t get myself to say anything nasty, either. I was waiting, probably hoping for her to do or say something that would drown any sympathy I could possibly have for her, but she sobbed and then wiped her eyes and sat up.
“What I hate about him, my therapist, is how low he makes me feel without saying anything. It’s like he’s become a mirror.”