Cross My Heart, Hope To Die

She thought of Ethan’s mother shuffling past the living room window, wearing a threadbare robe. She’d had cancer … but did she also have psychological issues? Before Emma could stop herself, her fingers reached for the file and pulled it out. Her breath caught in her throat when she saw the patient’s first name printed precisely on the cover. It wasn’t Mrs. Landry’s file at all. It was Ethan’s.

Emma’s fingers tightened around the edge of the manila folder. Maybe it was a different Ethan Landry. It had to be a common name. There had to be an explanation.

Deep in her gut, though, she knew. This was Ethan’s file. Her Ethan.

Ethan had told her not to come here, and now she knew why. What was in it? What had he hidden from her? Suddenly Emma felt angry and deeply hurt. She had shared everything about herself with Ethan—things she’d never told anyone, the worst stories from her foster homes, stupid childhood fantasies, her most private secrets.

Emma took a shuddering breath, then slipped Ethan’s file back where it belonged. She couldn’t betray his privacy, no matter how betrayed she herself felt.

“It doesn’t matter,” I told her. “It’s not why we’re here. Now hurry,” I said, as we both heard footsteps approaching. Emma tensed. But whoever it was walked past the records room, and she let out a breath of relief.

Emma shook her head quickly to clear it, then flipped to the back of the drawer. MELVILLE, MENDEL, MENDOZA—there it was: MERCER. She pulled out the file and laid it flat across the drawer. On top was Becky’s most recent admittance form and a scrawled copy of her prescriptions. Behind that were her session notes, stapled into a clear plastic folder like a kid’s book report. They were written in Dr. Banerjee’s neat, slanting cursive.

Patient is despondent and unresponsive, was all that was written under one day. Another note read:

Patient refers constantly to some “terrible act” she has performed. Have cross-checked with her police record, but nothing seems to correspond with her guilt complex. She will suffer these delusions of persecution until she is able to confess.

Some of Becky’s sketches were included in the notes, the same intricate and abstract filigree that filled the notebook Emma had found in the attic. Patient’s art shows both incredible creativity and crippling level of compulsion, Dr. Banerjee had written on the back of one of them. Increased dosage recommended.

None of this was anything Emma didn’t already know. She turned a few pages.

Patient talks frequently about the daughter who was taken from her. She seems convinced the child is being brainwashed and fantasizes about stealing her away.

The paper rattled in Emma’s hand as she started to tremble. A daughter taken from her? Did that mean Sutton? Had she come back to Tucson in August to take Sutton away from the Mercers? Had Sutton fought her—and lost? Emma kept reading.

The little girl was born twelve years ago this month. It seems to bring back bad memories for Ms. Mercer and exacerbates her episodes.

Twelve years ago this month. That couldn’t mean Sutton or Emma.

There’d been another baby.

I inhaled sharply. Becky had another daughter?

The world spun around Emma. She clung to the file cabinet, feeling as if she might fall and bring the whole room crashing down on top of her. Rapid calculations shot through her mind. Becky had left Emma when she was five—thirteen years ago exactly. Right around the time she would have realized she was pregnant again.

Jealousy and excitement fought for control in Emma’s mind. Becky had traded her in for this new baby. But the note said that the girl had been “taken” from Becky. What if her second sister was suffering through the foster care system just as Emma had?

Emma and I had the same questions: Where was she now? Could Emma track her down? Was she safe?

Then Emma took a deep breath. She could think more about her other sister later. Right now she had to keep looking for answers. Flipping rapidly through the notes, she found the most recent session at the back of the folder. Something had primed Becky for that fit.

… finally, we are making progress in processing Ms. Mercer’s guilt and grief. She admitted to me today that a few short months ago she actually met her first daughter in Sabino Canyon. It apparently did not go well. She still won’t tell me the entire story, but something happened between them that triggered this most recent episode.

Dr. Banerjee didn’t seem to have gotten anything more specific than that. There were a few more scribbled notes, including several medication adjustments that looked increasingly dire to Emma’s eye. She pawed through the pages, desperate for more.

A door banged loudly down the hall. She jumped and fumbled the folder, sending pages fluttering in every direction. Distant chatter grew louder as Emma lunged to gather the scattered forms. She shoved the folder back in the drawer and slammed it shut.

“I’ll grab Mr. Lindon’s file,” said a female voice in the hallway. Emma took a deep breath, then cracked the door and peeked out. A short dark-haired nurse was coming around a corner. Emma couldn’t leave now without getting caught. She looked around wildly, but there was no place to hide in the cramped space. Then her eyes landed on the door hinges and she realized the door opened inward. She flattened herself against the wall, silently praying the door wouldn’t open hard enough to hurt her. With a soft click, the door swung back against her. She held her breath. She could hear the nurse humming softly to herself. Dust tickled her nose—the urge to scratch it was almost painful. She clenched her fists tightly at her sides.

A drawer slid open, and Emma heard the sound of paper rustling as the nurse shuffled files.

Go away, Emma and I thought together. Get the files and go. But the nurse seemed to be taking her time.

The door pressed back against her as another nurse stopped in the doorway, leaning against it. “Hey, Marliz, there’s cake in the break room. It’s Huong’s birthday.”

“Someone’s got these files all jumbled,” complained the first voice. Emma gritted her teeth. She must not have put Becky’s file back where it belonged.

“Well, if that’s the worst thing that happens today, we’re in good shape.”

Marliz laughed. Her voice was high and girlish. “I guess it’s nothing compared to a breakout.”

Emma could hear the second woman step into the records room, lowering her voice. “Did you hear the latest about the Mercer woman?”

The words sent Emma’s body rigid. She bit down on the inside of her cheek.

“I heard that when they cleaned out her room they found a photo of her kid,” continued the second voice. “You know, the girl who was visiting when she flipped out? Anyways, they find this picture tucked away under her mattress. Except she had scribbled all over the girl’s face with a ballpoint pen, over and over until she ripped through the picture. Like she was trying to scratch her out or something.”

“Oh my God. Do you think she’s actually violent?”

“Who knows? I tell you what, Mar, I’ve been working on this floor for almost thirty years, and Rebecca Mercer is one of the worst I’ve ever seen. I don’t understand why her family can’t just keep her on her meds. Every time she gets off, it’s worse and worse. We couldn’t even get a complete sentence out of her this time around.”

“Don’t you think the daughter should know she’s at risk? A woman that crazy, there’s no telling what she’ll do.”

“I agree, but supposedly scribbling on a photo isn’t violent enough to merit breaking doctor-patient confidentiality.” The woman sighed. “Found that file yet?”

“Got it,” said Marliz. “Now let’s get some cake before it’s all gone.”

The door swung closed. Emma kept her back to the wall and slid slowly down to sit on the floor, her heart racing.

The nurse’s words echoed in her ears. Like she was trying to scratch her out or something. If the folder had been ambiguous, the photo made everything clear.

I had been a mistake, and our mother had finally figured out how to erase me.

26

YOU BETTER GET THIS PARTY STARTED

“That looks amazing,” Madeline said, watching Emma smudge slate gray eyeliner along her lid. “I love that color on you.”

The girls were in Charlotte’s enormous bathroom getting ready for the party. The room was decorated in gray stone tile and Caribbean blue glass. Fluffy white towels hung from the racks. Collages of the Lying Game girls hung in heavy frames on the walls—Sutton, Madeline, and Charlotte mugging in front of a giant fiberglass cowboy, the Twitter Twins making ironic gang signs in cocktail dresses, Laurel carrying a laughing Sutton piggyback.

Emma blinked at herself in the mirror, her eyes transformed into those of a smoldering starlet. Gabby sat at the vanity while Lili stood behind her, wrapping one of her sister’s long blond locks around a curling iron. Through the open door to Charlotte’s bedroom she could see Laurel zipping Nisha into her dress, the hot pink silk perfect against Nisha’s dark skin. Madeline stood next to Emma in her bra and panties, applying a fiftieth layer of mascara to her already long eyelashes. Charlotte was downstairs, putting the finishing touches on the decorations.

“I could live in this bathroom. Like, just in this bathroom and never leave,” Gabby said, looking around. Emma privately agreed—the room was bigger than some of her old foster homes. A Jacuzzi-style tub occupied a pedestal at one end of the bathroom, a mini sauna next to it. A shower with six different heads took up the opposite corner. The bathmats were thick and soft, and the whole room sparkled pristinely with the cleanliness only a full-time housekeeper could maintain.

“Ew,” said Madeline, wrinkling her nose. “Who wants to live in a bathroom?”

“Well, maybe I’d build a separate bathroom off the bathroom,” Gabby admitted.

I perched on the edge of the counter, filled with a wave of longing as I watched my friends. How many times had we done this before parties, gossiping and plotting pranks while we helped one another get ready? Watching my life through Emma’s eyes, I’d realized how much we teased and undermined each other. It was nice to be reminded that we’d done things like this, too.

“Hold still,” Madeline said, turning Emma to face her. She held up an eyelash curler and pressed the trigger a few times threateningly. Emma tried not to move as Madeline fixed her lashes.

“Is everything okay?” Madeline asked quietly as she pulled the curler away, looking curiously at Emma. “You seem tired.”

Emma sighed. She’d felt shell-shocked and hollow since the hospital, unable to fully process everything she’d discovered. Becky had another daughter. Becky had defaced the picture of Sutton—or was it of Emma? And the most hurtful of all, Ethan had lied to her, had hidden something huge and important. What could Ethan have done to end up in the psych ward—and for a while, if the size of the file was any indication? Was it for something so awful he was afraid she’d be scared off?

She tried to smile at Madeline. In spite of everything, Emma was determined to have a good time tonight, to shut off the part of her mind that was stressing and just enjoy a few hours with her friends. More than anything she wanted to stop wondering what Ethan was hiding. She picked up the red plastic cup she’d left on the counter and took a long, slow sip of cranberry juice and vodka. The alcohol stung the back of her throat.