Chapter 45 Amelia Blue
“There’s something we need to discuss.”
I wish I had the data on precisely how many times that particular sentence has been uttered, so I could calculate what percentage of the time it was followed by something good versus something neutral versus something bad versus something catastrophic.
Then I would know, statistically speaking, what to expect from Dr. Mackenzie right now.
From the solemn look on her face, I don’t imagine it’s anything particularly good.
Then again, I don’t think I’ve seen her smile since I’ve been here.
Sure, I’ve seen plenty of that therapist half smile that’s supposed to make you feel like you’re confiding in a friend, but not one real smile, the kind that reaches the eyes or precedes a laugh.
Someone should tell therapists that their half smiles and nonresponses make them seem less than real, as though you’re pouring your heart out to a simulation rather than an actual person.
(Not that I’ve poured my heart out to Dr. Mackenzie.)
“What?” I sound like a sulky teen. It’s midafternoon, and milky winter sunlight streams in through the glass walls.
I feel strangely hungover, as though my body is having trouble metabolizing the fight Edward and I had last night.
A nurse was here earlier, to check my vitals, run an EKG.
Maybe Dr. Mackenzie wants to discuss the results of my tests.
I shiver from my spot on the couch, wondering what secrets my bloodwork revealed.
I never asked exactly what they’re testing.
There’s a fire in the fireplace, filling the cottage with a warm, smoky scent that somehow reminds me of summertime, someone grilling hot dogs and hamburgers in their backyard, family dinners, children running through sprinklers.
I move one of the couch cushions to my lap, covering my (empty) stomach, imagining it round and full.
“I think we should talk about your bingeing and purging.”
I glance at the kitchen: Are there hidden cameras after all? At once, I’m on my feet, looking up at the canned lights above the marble island.
“Amelia?” Dr. Mackenzie prompts, following me to the kitchen.
I climb onto the counter, reaching up to the ceiling. Somewhere on this property, is someone watching a recording of me stuffing calorie after calorie into my mouth? My hands tremble as they trace the ceiling.
“How long have you been watching me?”
“What?” She holds up her arms as though she thinks she can catch me if I lose my balance.
“You said you’d check on me twice a night, at two a.m. and five a.m. My very first day here, you lied to me.”
“I didn’t. Amelia, no one is watching you.”
“Then how do you know about the bingeing and purging?”
“Maurice noticed less food in the kitchen each morning. Izabela cleaned up after you in the bathroom.”
Maurice is standing at attention beside the stove, a soldier waiting for orders. One word from the doctor and he might grab me, restrain me, perhaps sedate me. Could it have been Maurice I saw in the woods the other night?
I fall into a crouch, swing myself onto the floor. I suppose there’s no need for cameras when you have spies.
“Please, Amelia.” Dr. Mackenzie sounds so reasonable. That’s another thing they must teach therapists in school: how to sound perfectly calm even when there’s legitimate cause for alarm so patients feel crazy when they’re simply having a normal human response. “Sit down. I want to talk to you.”
In the past twenty-four hours, the bingeing has gone from my secret to something known by Edward, Dr. Mackenzie, Maurice, and Izabela. (Though Maurice and Izabela have probably known for days.) I wrap the fingers of one hand around the opposite wrist and squeeze so tight it hurts.
Georgia was right: There’s a cleanliness to starvation, an order.
Hunger is disorganized. Vomit is messy. I’m proud of my ability to starve.
I started when I was so young, skipping breakfast before third grade to see what would happen.
Then skipping lunch every day of fifth grade to prove that I didn’t need the kind of mother who remembered to cut the crusts off her daughter’s sandwiches.
I sit on the couch and Dr. Mackenzie settles into the chair across from me.
“I don’t want to talk about the bulimia,” I say finally.
I fell hook, line, and sinker for the stereotype of the bulimic as a failed anorexic, as though bulimia isn’t also a disease of extraordinary denial, as though it doesn’t take enormous discipline to do something as unnatural as sticking your fingers down your throat to rob your body of food.
“I don’t think you have bulimia,” Dr. Mackenzie answers, surprising me.
I fold my arms across my chest. “I’m bingeing and purging.”
“Yes, and those are the behaviors of bulimia, but I think it’s your anorexia manifesting in a new way.”
It’s the first time Dr. Mackenzie has said something that hasn’t been said, in some form, by one of the many doctors who came before her.
“It’s not only that you don’t know how to eat—you don’t know how to be hungry. Your brain has tricked you into believing that hunger is all or nothing.”
Hunger is all or nothing. My bingeing is proof.
Dr. Mackenzie continues. “No one ever modeled hunger for you.”
Is she kidding? Georgia modeled nothing but hunger.
As though she can hear my thoughts, Dr. Mackenzie continues. “Your mother was an addict—you were raised in the chaos of her seemingly infinite hunger. Your grandmother was the polar opposite: keep everything tidy, orderly, don’t lose control. Between the two of them, you never saw moderation.”
Dr. Mackenzie adds, “Children of narcissists often struggle to find a middle ground between self-absorption and self-erasure. They don’t believe that they can do something as simple as celebrating their birthday without sucking all the air out of the room.”
I feel an unexpected lump in my throat. I’ve always hated my birthday.
“Amelia, are you willing to talk about any of this?” she asks. “If you can’t be open with me, then we’re not going to make much progress here.”
For years, doctors have remarked on my progress. The ones who tried behavioral therapy, family therapy, IFS. They all said I would get better.
Slowly, like my head weighs a thousand pounds, I nod at my doctor.
Dr. Mackenzie’s gaze flickers to Maurice, and he walks toward us, a bowl in his hand. As he approaches, I see that the bowl is filled with dry Cheerios. (More likely, some healthier, whole-grain, organic alternative.)
Therapists always start like this when initiating cognitive behavioral therapy. Cheerios, M&M’s, jelly beans. Something easy to count.
“I don’t want to force you to eat like the therapists you’ve had in the past,” Dr. Mackenzie says as Maurice puts the bowl down on the coffee table in front of me. “I want to teach you to eat when you’re hungry and stop when you’re full.”
I look at the bowl. The cereal is the color of cardboard.
My hand feels like it’s in slow motion as I reach for the bowl, like I’m moving through thick syrup. I try to take a deep breath, but my throat won’t cooperate. Maybe they’re pumping something in through the heating vents that’s changing the quality of the air.
I intend to select three pieces of cereal.
I mean to bring each one to my mouth, to chew, to swallow.
I definitely don’t plan to pick up a handful and toss them at Maurice, the spy who gave me away.
I don’t mean to crush another handful beneath my feet into the carpet, creating another mess to punish Izabela for telling Dr. Mackenzie what she saw.
I don’t intend to pick up the bowl and hurl it across the table, nearly hitting Dr. Mackenzie in the face.
I don’t want to smile when I see the bowl smashed into pieces on the ground, the tiny little O’s of cereal mixed among pieces of shattered pottery.
That’s the sort of thing Georgia would do.
I wait for Dr. Mackenzie to shout at me, to tell me I could have seriously injured her. But she doesn’t move from her chair, doesn’t crouch to clean up the mess that I made.
Instead, she says, “I wish we had more time together so I could try to give you what you need, but this place doesn’t work that way.”
This isn’t how it works at other treatment centers.
There, you refuse to eat and they lock you in your room until you cooperate.
They threaten you with a feeding tube, explaining the process of sewing it to your nose with such detail that you know they’re getting sadistic pleasure from it and some part of them wants you to be difficult so they can force-feed you.
“You’re sending me home?” I sound breathless, as though I’ve been running. “Because I wouldn’t eat a few lousy Cheerios?”
I say it like the cereal is beside the point. If it were so unimportant, then why couldn’t I eat it?
“I’m afraid there’s no choice in the matter,” Dr. Mackenzie answers. “I was hoping we’d make some progress today and I’d be able to convince the owner to make an exception—”
She makes it sound like today was my last chance, a test I didn’t know I was taking.
“I’m not ready to leave,” I protest, desperate. I need more time. I have to make it to the house in the woods. I have to find Georgia’s file. “I’m sorry. I’ll try again.”
Dr. Mackenzie shakes her head slowly.
“Amelia, you need to leave the property as soon as possible.”