3: 3

When I came to, the back of my neck was still throbbing.

Only Godfrey and Vanessa sat at the edge of the bed.

Seeing my eyes open, Godfrey tucked the blanket in around me.

"Jemima, I've thought it over. I'm not going to divorce you."

"Making Vanessa live her whole life with no name, no title beside me. That's the punishment I'm giving her."

Vanessa didn't refuse it.

"Jemima, don't pity me. I deserve all of this."

"It's my fault for hoping for what I couldn't have, for falling in love with another woman's man."

Hands joined, the two of them discussed how they would punish each other.

How funny.

I wanted to curse at them, but all that came out was a muffled whimper.

That was when I realized I was strapped down hard to the hospital bed, a bite guard forced into my mouth.

Godfrey stroked my forehead, his voice gentle.

"You've been too worked up lately."

"I have no choice but to send you here, to a psychiatric hospital, for treatment."

"Once your moods settle and you stop hurting the people who love you, I'll bring you home."

The people who love me?

The ones who tricked me into marriage, killed my baby, and then worked together to lock me up in here?

I closed my eyes, refusing to look at them any longer.

Godfrey spoke as if it pained him.

"Don't worry. I won't let everyone turn their backs on you."

Over the next few days, they brought Malcolm in every day.

Vanessa pushed the boy up to my bedside.

"Say hi to Mommy."

Malcolm called out the word, sullen and unwilling.

Godfrey looked at me tenderly.

"He has your baby's blood in his body."

"Just tell yourself your own child is still alive. Isn't that better?"

Malcolm started singing that there's no one in the world like Mommy.

I thrashed in a rage, the bed frame rattling and banging.

Godfrey pressed the call button.

"Doctor, she's having another episode."

"Increase the dosage a little more."

I tried to explain to the doctor that there was nothing wrong with me.

Instead, the doctor took out a stack of papers.

On top was the involuntary commitment consent form, signed by my parents and my brother.

Behind it was a video my best friend had recorded.

In the video she was crying so hard she could barely breathe.

"Jemima's gotten more and more violent since the shock she went through."

"She doesn't just hit me. She's tried to hurt the child too."

"Please, you have to cure her."

The dosage grew larger by the day.

My hands began to shake, and my mind grew slower and slower.

Even when Malcolm, while Godfrey was gone, ran up to my bed and spat at me.

Called me a "wicked old witch who deserved to have her kid die."

I couldn't stir up a single ripple in myself anymore.

Godfrey, though, decided I was better.

On my birthday, he took me out of the hospital.

My parents, my brother, and my best friend gathered around the dining table, gifts they'd carefully prepared laid out on top.

My mother held a dress up against me.

"This used to be your favorite brand."

My best friend set the newest handbag in my arms.

"I stood in line two days to get this. Surely you can forgive me now?"

My father frowned and pressed me.

"Everyone's trying to cheer you up. Don't ruin the mood."

They put a birthday hat on me and sang around me.

My brother cut the first slice of cake and brought it to my mouth with his own hand.

The cream went in, and I couldn't taste the sweetness.

Even swallowing had become hard.

"Good, isn't it?"

My mother asked, expectant.

I couldn't taste it.

Those drugs had long since taken my sense of taste.

Before I could even shake my head.

My brother slammed the rest of the cake into me, hard.

Cream and fruit smeared all over my face.

He jabbed a finger at me and roared.

"Jemima Fox, what in the world do you still have to complain about!"

"We didn't even claim Vanessa, all for your sake! Are you only happy once you've driven her to her death?"

4: 4

I looked at my brother's furious face.

And what came to mind was the way he used to hold me like something precious.

Once, a boy at school snatched my apple.

He chased that kid down and made his life hell for a whole semester.

When did it start to change?

Was it when Vanessa moved in with us for her college applications, and the caring little messages he'd send me every day just stopped?

Or was it when I came home for the holidays and found my room had become Vanessa's room?

I couldn't untangle it, and I didn't want to anymore.

“The doctor said suppressing my emotions looks like this.”

I repeated it calmly.

My parents didn't believe me.

“Because of you, Vanessa has to be a single mother for the rest of her life!”

“She suffered so much as a child, and it took everything we had to get her back!”

“And now she has to walk on eggshells around you!”

Erica watched me too, her expression complicated.

“Jemima, you're not the same. You used to be such a kind person.”

Godfrey came over and put a protective arm around me.

“Don't push her. She's just sick.”

“Once she's better, everything will be like it was.”

Like it was?

Kept stupidly in the dark by every one of them.

Thinking my life was happy?

I turned my body aside, away from Godfrey's reaching hand.

He sighed and pushed me into the room off to the side.

“Get some rest.”

Not that resting was optional.

I was strapped tight to the wheelchair by the restraints.

There was nothing I could do but close my eyes.

Outside the door, the laughter started up again.

Vanessa and Malcolm had everyone smiling and delighted.

Malcolm told on me in his hurt little voice.

He said that back at the hospital, when the others weren't around, I'd spat at him.

My brother couldn't sit still. The next second, the door was flung open.

He carried in a bucket of ice water and dumped it over me, soaking me head to foot.

“Jemima, you really are getting worse by the day!”

Malcolm ran in and pretended to explain on my behalf.

“Don't be angry, Uncle. Jemima just misses her little baby so much that she can't accept me right now.”

“I believe if I just act a little more like that little baby, Jemima will like me.”

My parents came in behind him.

“You prepared so many things for that child back then.”

Godfrey opened the closet and pulled out a dust-covered box.

The safety lock charm I'd finished so early.

The little wooden horse I'd carved with my own hands.

After I lost the baby, I locked them all away.

If anyone so much as mentioned them, I'd fall apart.

But now, all I had left was calm.

Malcolm's eyes lit up as he dug through the box, turning each thing over in his hands to play with.

His hand slipped.

The jade charm dropped to the floor and shattered.

Everyone looked at me tensely.

I didn't even lift an eyelid.

But Godfrey watched me, his brow drawn tight.

“No scene? That's not your temperament, Jemima.”

“You're thinking about how to get back at us, aren't you?”

“I won't give you the chance.”

He took out his phone and, right in front of me, called a fully locked-down psychiatric hospital two thousand miles away.

He told them to send people immediately to take me.

When two big men lifted me onto the transport van, I didn't say a word.

Godfrey's eyes went red.

“Jemima, I don't have a choice here.”

“Whenever I have time, I promise I'll come see you.”

I didn't look at him. I just gave a light wink to the staff who'd come to collect me.

Godfrey still didn't know.

There was no future between us.

Among that stack of documents he'd just signed was a divorce agreement.

Godfrey took his people home.

And found several officers waiting at the front door.

A girl who looked faintly like me climbed out of the patrol car, crying.

She rushed straight to my parents.

Threw herself into their arms and sobbed until she couldn't breathe.

“Dad, Mom! I finally found you.”