Taylor Hanson
"What do you say, what do you do, when it all comes down?"
--Bush, "Come Down"
"What do you say, what do you do, when it all comes down?"
--Bush, "Come Down"
"Hi," I said as casually as I could, not quite succeeding.
"What's going on?" he asked, crossing his arms and waiting as if he had just caught me making out with my girlfriend on the couch when I was supposed to be baby-sitting my younger siblings.
"Um, this is Annie," I said, pointing over to Annie, who looked up when she heard me say her name. She had pasted an innocent expression on her face. I hoped I was the only one in the room who could see what was behind that innocence.
"I'm a nurse here," she said suddenly, standing up. "Uh, I've been helping take care of Taylor. We've sort of gotten to be good friends."
"Oh," my mother said, her voice translating the fact that she wasn't quite sure what to think. "We're Taylor's parents," she said, sticking out her hand. My mother was always a person who liked to establish whatever authority she held right straight away. "I'm Diana and this is my husband, Walker."
"It's nice to meet you," she said, now pasting a smile on her face to complement the innocent expression she had pasted on before. She shook the hands of both of my paernts with that smile and then added, "Taylor's a good guy. You did well."
I felt my eyebrows arch in surprise and my heart swell with something close to pride when she said that. Pride, mostly, for her. In the time I had had to myself to think about what her coming meant, I had often wondered if she was bitter toward my parents because they had gotten to raise her son and she hadn't. It made me proud in a way, and also very relieved, to know that she didn't seem to be.
"Thank you," my mother said, beaming at me. My attention was focused on Annie, who was also smiling at me, but it was a secret smile. She even winked at me. The grin I wore grew wider.
"Well, I really must be going," she said. My grin suddenly faded. Leave? I didn't want her to leave. I wanted to talk with her more. Why was she leaving already? "Maybe I'll see you later, Taylor. And remember, rest. I don't want you getting out of bed by yourself again like I caught you doing when I came here." She wagged a mock stern finger at me.
I laughed. "I pressed the call button six times," I complained, going along with the story. "No one came and I really had to go."
She grinned at me before once again turning to my parents. "Bye."
"Bye," my mother said, smiling. Well, she had convinced my mother.
"It was nice meeting you," my father said, frowning quite deeply. His frown made me nervous. I didn't know for sure, but I guessed that he had probably been pretty close with Annie, and that meant that he probably knew her well enough to recognize her mannerisms. I didn't even want to think about what he might do if he found out she was my real mother. Even if there was a chance that it could be a positive reaction, I had a feeling that there was a bigger chance that it would be a negative one.
Annie turned away from my parents and toward the door, which she disappeared out of.
"She seems nice," my mother commented, sitting down in the chair Isaac had pulled up to the bed upon entering the room. Right after teasing me about Viagra. I turned red at the thought.
"Yeah, she is," I said, watching the place where she had last stood as if she would suddenly reappear in the same spot. I liked her. For some reason, I didn't feel like I should, but I did.
"Is she a fan or something?" my father asked skeptically, sitting in another of the chairs, a bit farther away from my bed. "Is that why she's so friendly with you?"
"I don't know," I said, beginning to wonder if she was a fan myself. Another thing I had forgotten to ask her about. "She didn't mention anything about it if she was."
He nodded, seeming to be a little bit comforted by that, but I could see that the wheels were turning in his mind and he was secretly trying to figure out who she was.
"A nurse, huh?" he said. "How come she wasn't in uniform?"
I hesitated, wondering what good reason a nurse would have for wandering into a patient's room without their uniform on. "Uh, she was off duty. I think she had somewhere to go after work and had to change here. Something like that." That was all I could come up with.
"Oh." Again, the wheels were visibly turning.
"We saw a police officer coming down the hall when we were on our way to your room," my mother said as if she were simply commenting on the weather. I felt my stomach lurch as the comment sunk in and the question that was to inevitably follow was accurately predicted. "Was he here?"
I opened my mouth to say something, but, not knowing what I planned to say, closed it again.
"The doctors told us that a police officer might come in to question you about what happened," my fathr added, making it so I couldn't get out by lying to them.
"Yeah, he was here," I said, defeatedly looking to my fingers, which I had pulled out from under the sheets after Annie had left.
"He couldn't have been here long," my mother said. "I mean, if Isaac was here and then him and then that nurse, there wouldn't have been very much time for him to question you."
"He didn't get to it," I said, staring down at my hands. "Or he didn't get to do much of it."
"Why?" my father asked. I couldn't read his expression.
"I wouldn't answer his questoins," I told him.
"Oh, Taylor," my mother said, sounding a little disappointed. "You have to tell someone what happened. If you don't, it'll just bottle up inside of you and then what?"
"I'm just not into talking about it yet," I insisted, my full attention now on my fingers.
"You're just going to make it harder for the people who have to figure out how to help you if you keep from them what happeend to you," my father tried. Then, seeing I was unconvinced, he went on. "They keep this stuff confidential, Tay. They probably wouldn't even tell us if you didn't want them to."
"But it'd be nice if we knew," my mother added, looking at her hands, too.
That was easy to say when she didn't actually know what had happened. In my opinion, anyway, it certainly wasn't nice to know. And then what would she think of me after she knew? What woudl they all think of me after they knew? No, it wouldn't be nice to know all the things I had done.
"I just...I can't talk about it yet," I said, beginning to sound desperate. I knew they meant well, but their questioning was starting to hurt me. Their lack of understanding that I couldn't tell anyone was hurting me. What if he found otu that I told someone? Would he come back and just do it all over again, only kill me this time?
"Not even to us?" my mother said.
Especially not to you, I thought. I can't hurt you that way.
"Stop!" I shouted suddenly, surprising both them of them enough to get them to both practically jump out of their seats. I felt my eyes fill with tears for maybe the third time that day. I was really getting sick of crying. Pretty soon it was going to get so I would have cried myself dry. Not that I had much to cry about. It was probably my fault. "Stop trying to get me to talk about it. I won't. I can't. I'm sorry."
"Taylor...you have to tell someone...," my father told me.
"I know, I know I do," I said. "But I can't. I can't now."
"Taylor...," he said again.
"No!"
"Taylor, come on." He was getting impatient now.
"No!" I shouted again. "And don't call me Taylor."
The statement surprised even me. I had been thinking about it in the back of my mind ever since I had found out the truth about who she was upon awakening from my dream. But I never would have purposely said it aloud. Maybe it was just a subconscious way to change the subject. A very, very stupid way to subconsciously try to change the subject.
"What?" my father breathed rather than said. It was like I had punched him in the stomach.
"Don't call me Taylor," I repeated slowly. "It's not my name."
C'mon. You know you want to.
Index
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Fifty