Part 24 (2/2)
”It's a miracle you're not wearing m-my lunch.” She's not exaggerating. Maggie's dealt with carsickness since I've known her. Trips to camp were always a special kind of h.e.l.l.
We head slowly for the door, and even Maggie checks the address again. It doesn't seem possible, the Millers in this cold, steel-coated contraption. If the Millers I knew moved, they'd move to a cottage in the woods, where birds sing and pies are perpetually being cooled on windowsills.
The door swings open and a person who must be Mrs. Miller appears.
”May I help you?” she asks, looking at Maggie instead of me. She sounds like Mrs. Miller. She's wearing her standard summer uniform-a white polo and a khaki skirt-but Mrs. Miller does not sport nine-piece luggage sets under her eyes.
She also doesn't frown. Not ever. I saw Mrs. Miller at her father's funeral, and she smiled so much, I felt like crying for her.
Mags and I stand there, both of us trying to speak and not finding a single word we practiced the night before.
Mrs. Miller looks at me then, and the recognition is immediate.
”Oh!” she says, and her hand goes up to her mouth. Her eyes go wide, and every single bit of color drains out of her. For a minute, I'm sure she's going to scream. Or maybe even pa.s.s out. But instead, she just shakes her head, looking completely shocked.
”My Lord, Chloe Spinnaker. How did you find-” She stops herself, cementing that toothpaste commercial smile I know so well into place. ”What on earth are you doing all the way out here?”
I finally find my voice. ”h.e.l.lo, Mrs. Miller. I'm so sorry we didn't call, but I didn't have a number.”
”We brought you this,” Maggie says, pulling out a gift bag of maple nut cl.u.s.ters, a handmade candy from a shop downtown that somehow finds its way into every Ridgeview home on Thanksgiving.
It's a weird tradition. Small town or whatever. But Mrs. Miller takes the gift like we're offering her a newborn baby to hold. Like she's never seen anything so perfect or precious in all her life.
”That's the sweetest thing,” she says, still cradling her sacred plastic bag of candy. Then her smile falters, as if she's not sure what to do. She looks around once, and then her grin is back. ”Won't you both come in?”
We follow her inside with little shuffling steps. I can feel Maggie's tension right along with my own. It's not like we hung out with these people. Or at least we didn't until I got sucked into the Secret Study Sisterhood or whatever.
”I'm so sorry,” Mrs. Miller says. ”What's your name again?”
”Maggie. Maggie Campbell.”
”Oh, of course! Noreen's daughter.”
”One and the s-same.”
She leads us into the kitchen, and I go cold all over. It's like being in The Twilight Zone. The room isn't just similar to the one in their old house in Ridgeview. It's as close to a carbon copy as it can be.
The same rooster clock sits above the kitchen sink. The same country dish towels hang on the k.n.o.bs of the cabinets. All of the baskets and antique crocks I remember from her old house are lined up on the concrete countertops, doing their best to battle the sterile feel of this place.
Mrs. Miller serves us hot chocolate, though it's got to be eighty-five degrees outside. Still, we sip it politely while she prattles on about the proper way to stuff a turkey. Maggie, a devout vegetarian, pales noticeably as Mrs. Miller instructs us on how to remove the bag of giblets after yanking out the turkey's severed neck.
And then, when she's finished rewiping the counter and discussing poultry technique, her smile shuts off. It's so abrupt, it's like someone flipped a switch. I half expect her head to spin around or something, but she just picks up her own mug and then sets it down again without taking a drink.
”I suppose you're here for Julien,” she says.
Maggie and I exchange a quick look. I smile tightly.
”We are.”
”I'll call her down if you like. She's just up in her room,” she says, her smile so brief it's like a twitch. ”But I should warn you...”
”Warn us?” I ask.
Mrs. Miller folds her hands, one on top of the other. ”Girls, I don't know how to say this. We'd tried very hard to keep this all quiet...”
Her voice has trailed off, but I know she's not done. So we wait. And after a bit, she blinks a few times and seems to come back to life. ”Julien has been...ill. We didn't want people's pity, so we decided it would be best not to reveal her diagnosis.”
”Diagnosis?” Maggie asks.
”She has...schizophrenia.” It's like the word is being choked out of her. She pauses to take a drink of her cocoa, and I can't help thinking she's trying to wash that word right out of her mouth. ”Apparently, it's a disease that runs in my husband's family. Julien was beginning to show symptoms in the last month we were in Ridgeview.”
”Is that why you left?” I ask, and immediately decide I shouldn't have. It's like laying all my cards on the table.
To my shock, Mrs. Miller nods. ”We wanted a fresh start for Julien. Her disease has taken a very aggressive course. We wanted her to get the best treatment, and there are doctors here that were recommended to my husband. To both of us.”
No, this isn't that simple.
”I was s-so surprised Mr. Miller could leave his b-business,” Maggie says.
Mrs. Miller cringes like she's been dunked in ice. Her shoulders tense, and her eyes cut away.
”Can we see her?” I ask again, trying to bring back the open lady who seemed so ready to talk before. ”I've really missed Julien.”
”She misses you too,” she says, smiling sadly. ”She should be out of the shower, so I'll go get her. Now, again, she has been medicated, but even then her handle on lucidity isn't consistent.”
”So it c-comes and goes?” Maggie asks, frowning.
Mrs. Miller's face is crunching with sadness, so I try to explain, drawing from the little I've read. ”Schizophrenia can force people to sort of detach from reality. She might be fine one minute-”
”And then she might start talking about The Wizard of Oz as if it's happened just next door,” Mrs. Miller says. Her expression is pleasant again, but her eyes hold so much pain, my own chest aches.
”Are you sure you're prepared for this?” she asks.
No. No, I'm definitely not. But I nod anyway.
Chapter Twenty-Two.
Mrs. Miller leaves us to wait in a small living room with crushed velvet couches and antique tables. It's all very Jane Austen. All that's missing is a guy in a starched s.h.i.+rt. And maybe tea service.
We sit on the edge of the couch with our hands in our laps, too freaked out to say a thing. I hear voices at the top of the stairs and then footsteps descending. I don't even know how it's possible, but I tense up more.
Julien enters, dressed in khaki shorts and a couple of blue tank tops layered over one another. Her hair is still long and pale, curling at the edges just like a shampoo commercial. And her smile is the carbon copy of her mother's. White and wide. And one hundred percent normal.
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