Chapter 56 Amelia Blue
I turn, coming face-to-face with an older woman, wild white hair tumbling over her shoulders, hanging down almost to her waist. Her grip is tight on my wrist, and in the dim light coming from my phone, I can see veins protruding on the back of her hand.
“Florence,” she says, “can you ever forgive me?”
“Florence?” I echo. My heart thumps in my chest. I try to remember the last time I heard my mother’s name—her real name—spoken aloud. Naomi never says it. If she must mention Georgia, she refers to her only as your mother, as though anything else she ever was no longer matters.
“Georgia. I know. You wanted us to call you Georgia, and we refused. We said it was part of your therapy. Like taking your phone, when really we just needed to keep you quiet. What if you’d made a statement that contradicted ours?
No, no—we had to take it, even you can understand that.
And who’s to say it didn’t benefit your therapy? ”
This woman participated in my mother’s therapy? I compare her to Dr. Mackenzie, to what Edward has told me about his doctor. I can’t imagine her sitting on one of the cottages’ white couches, crossing her legs and asking Georgia, And how did that make you feel?
“It was a good deal for you, too, you know. You got to benefit from our facility almost for free, the best care money could buy.”
I look down and notice that the woman’s bare feet are bleeding. She must have walked through the shattered glass I left by the front door.
Again, she says, “Georgia.”
“I’m not Georgia,” I murmur, unsure whether this will calm or agitate her. The woman simply shakes her head. I try to pull my arm away, but her grip holds fast.
The truth is, I look like my mother. Not just the nose I wasn’t supposed to inherit, the pale skin. I didn’t see it until after she was gone: the way my upper lip thins when I smile, the way my hair frames my face.
“My husband wanted to take the business for himself,” she says. “You know, Georgia, what it’s like to have a husband like that. He gets the credit while you do all the hard work.”
The woman wears a stained nightgown beneath a too-big flannel robe with frayed cuffs. Her mouth hangs open, slack, her teeth blotchy and stained. I smell alcohol on her breath.
“He only wanted to calm you down. He didn’t know what he was doing. He gave you too much.”
Blood drips from the cut on my arm onto her pale skin, snaking between her fingers.
“I was trying to save my son. You understand, don’t you? You’re a mother, too.”
The woman squeezes my wrist so tight that I think I may never be free of her.
“Your body was so heavy,” she says.