Part 42 (1/2)
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When they were gone, I ran into the house. Nick and Alison had left my bags beside the door. I shut the front door and looked into the living room. Alison and Nick were grinning at each other, and then they looked back at me. ”What? What's going on?” I said. I knew they were up to something.
Mom came out of the kitchen and into the living room. The sight of her made me feel warm. She was smiling, and I could tell that she was glad to have me home.
Alison turned to Mom and said, ”Can we show her now?”
”Yeah! I'm sure Kristen would like to see it,” Mom said. ”Let's show her.”
”Show me what?” I asked.
”Come on!” Alison squealed with happiness.
Alison grabbed my hand and led me downstairs to the bas.e.m.e.nt hallway. Mom and Nick followed with my bags. My bedroom was down there. I could only imagine what she couldn't wait to show me. I opened the door to my bedroom and turned on the light. Nothing in my worst nightmares could have prepared me for what I saw. It wasn't blue, it wasn't orange, and it wasn't even white, like the walls of the hospital. It was pink! My whole room had been painted pink. From the ceiling to the new paint on my old wooden bed frame and dressers. Everything was pink. I held onto Janine's blanket and hugged it, almost scared.
”She likes it!” Alison inaccurately observed.
Nick shook his head when I looked at him. He knew what I was thinking. I looked at Mom, and she was smiling in a way that I wanted to deny.
I made myself walk deeper into that strange room. I looked around. My books were in place. There were new sheets and a new quilt on the bed. My notebooks were as I had left them. Those looked like the only things that were in the right place. Mom turned to Alison and Nick.
She said, ”Go upstairs and set the table for dinner. Kristen and I will be up in a minute.”
Alison gave me another hug and Nick kissed my cheek. They ran upstairs in a race to try to beat each other to the kitchen. When we were alone, Mom walked over to my dresser. She put her hand on a silver-toned jewelry box. That jewelry box had not been there before I had gone into Bent Creek. It was bejeweled and dazzling to the eye. It looked too elegant to be mine.
”Do you like it?” she asked me.
”Who does that belong to?” I asked.
Mom laughed. ”It belongs to you, silly girl.”
”Really? But it's so pretty.”
”That's why she brought it here for you,” Mom said.
”Who brought it?”
”Lexus brought it for you when she came over to help us paint your room. Alison picked out the color. I couldn't very well have you come home with your room the way you had it. The walls were covered in black and your sheets were well, you know. Lexus had the idea to come over and help me get things ready for your return. Since you are better now, we thought you'd start fresh.”
I carried my bags over to the closet. I opened the door. I looked up, shocked, when I saw that the shelves and walls were completely empty.
”Where are my ninja swords and the daggers? Where are my knives?”
”Don't you like your jewelry box? Look inside,” she said. ”You have earrings, necklaces, rings, and other cute stuff. You don't need to collect those knives anymore. Why don't you collect jewelry?”
My head began to ache. ”You got rid of them?”
”Don't be angry, Kristen. You'll get them back when I see that you are ready to have them. Now, I don't think it's a good idea for you to have those things in here. Look at this!” She pulled out a gold necklace with a little fairy pendant dangling from the center. The fairy's wings didn't look as sharp as my b.u.t.terfly pendant. I was sure that was her and Lexus' intentions. Mom came towards me with that necklace. She held it over my head and placed it around my neck. Then she stood in front of me to admire the necklace.
”All right,” she a.s.sured herself. ”I'll let you unpack and get yourself prepared for dinner. Did you thank Jonathan for bringing you home?”
”Of course,” I said. I wanted her to leave me alone already.
”Good,” she said. ”We're going to Lexus and John's engagement party next week.” She was smiling her forced and ridiculous smile.
I didn't smile back. I didn't want to be fake anymore. I was too tired, and I was too freaked out by that strange and uncomfortable room. It didn't feel like mine anymore.
As Mom walked out of the room, I began to shut the door. Mom stopped it from closing with her foot. She said, ”No. I want this door to stay open from now on.”
”I can't shut my bedroom door?”
”No,” she said. ”I want you to keep it open. Things are going to start changing around here. If I have to make changes in order to keep you from slas.h.i.+ng your wrists and being completely depressed, then you are going to work with me and make some changes too.”
It started to feel like home again. I knew it wouldn't take too long.
As Mom walked towards the stairwell, I started to close my bedroom door. She turned around and looked at me. I hesitated. She saw me hesitate. She turned away, and as soon as I heard the first stair creak underneath her foot, I slammed shut my bedroom door. I made sure to do it hard and loud enough so that she could hear it. I locked the door and waited. I pressed my ear to the door and, for a second, I heard the stair creak again. I smiled. She was coming back toward the door. But then I heard her storm up the stairs.
I looked around my room. I could smell the nauseating fresh paint. It had Lexus' personality written all over it. I made my way over to the dresser that had no mirror in it. I thought back to the day I'd smashed that stupid mirror with my hands. Mom had never replaced it, convinced I'd only do it again. Maybe I would have destroyed it again if there were a mirror in the frame.
The only thing I saw was that precious jewelry box. The anger inside of me swelled to an unbearable crescendo. Not being able to hold it in any longer, I swiped my hand across the surface the jewelry box sat on. Calmly, I watched it violently crash to the floor. The box disa.s.sembled upon landing, and the beautiful jewels that decorated the box smashed and broke apart.
Relief washed over me as the jewelry spilled out of the box. Little pendants and gorgeous crystals and jewels rolled underneath the bed and scattered in other places throughout the room. Pieces of jewels cracked, snapped, popped, and were destroyed. All of the chaos and the new disarrangement defined exactly how I felt inside.
CHAPTER 54.
Before going into Bent Creek, I didn't have to worry about Mom being angry with me for keeping my door shut. It was always closed. No one bothered me. I could just sit for hours inside the dark, black walls of my room. Mr. Sharp and I would talk for hours after doing homework, after work, and after Lexus left to go on her dates with John. I closed my door, but I always opened it back up.
It wasn't until the day when I'd found that letter from Jack asking for Mom's forgiveness, that I'd felt I did not ever want to have to open my bedroom door again. Was it hopelessness? Was it fear? Did I fear her forgiving him? Did I think that she really would go to his parole hearing and put Nicholas through that again? Would she really put all of us through that again?
She banged on my door in the morning. The banging was angry and loud. I woke up, startled. Then I realized that this was the moment I had been waiting for since I'd left Bent Creek. The morning of the day that I got my st.i.tches removed.
I could hear Mom yelling from the other side of the door. She couldn't open it. I'd begun locking my bedroom door ever since coming back from Bent Creek.
”Kristen! Kristen! Open this door! Kristen!” She almost sounded panicked.
I opened the door, fully dressed and ready to go. I just looked at the sore expression on her face, almost wanting to laugh.
”Don't you ever -” she caught herself. ”Kristen. I thought I told you to keep this door open from now on.”
”What do you want me to do, Mom?” I said as I pushed past her. ”You want me to get dressed with my bedroom door open from now on?”
She followed me up the stairs. I felt as if she was on my back as she yelled, ”Don't start with me this morning! We are not going to be like this. I'm not going to argue with you. You keep the door open, and that's it. You hear me?”
”Fine,” I said under my breath.
”I can't understand you. I asked you a question.”
”I said that is fine, Mom.”