Elena Vanishing by Elena Dunkle

Susannah says. “When I first saw you, I thought you were old. But you’re very young.”
    Her voice sounds disappointed, as if she needs something desperately, but I’m not it.
    She doesn’t see perfection
, whispers the voice in my head.
What about your makeup? Have you checked your makeup?
    But I’m not allowed to have my makeup bag here.
    My face burns. “Actually, I’m seventeen,” I say.
    Susannah smiles, opens her journal to a blank page, and begins to write. We sit in silence. Bathroom break is announced. I need to go. But I need people not to look in my toilet when I go, so I stay where I am.
    Now it’s time for art therapy group. Groups are mandatory, so I get up. Susannah doesn’t. She reaches out to touch my arm.
    She whispers, “I am going to be here forever.”
    In art therapy, we’re doing something with construction paper. I’m too tired to grasp what it is. Then a staff member calls me out of the art room and walks me through a door she unlocks. She says the psychiatrist will be meeting with Mom and me.
    It feels strange to walk into a normal-looking office and be able to sit down on a couch next to Mom. After what I’ve been going through, I expect her to be on the other side of a glass wall, talking to me through an orange phone.
    Mom looks upset.
    â€œThey called me last night,” she says, “but they wouldn’t tell me where you were. Good Lord! What made that goose egg on your forehead?”
    She doesn’t look any happier when I tell her.
    The psychiatrist comes in—another psychiatrist. He’s short and neatly dressed, and he has the sloping shoulders and comfortable belly of a penguin.
    Mom starts talking right away.
    â€œAll the literature I’ve been able to find,” she says, “explains that pseudoseizure patients don’t really go unconscious, and they take care not to hurt themselves. But what about that bruise? And I’ve seen my daughter stuck with a needle while she was unconscious, and she didn’t react. What’s causing these blackouts, and what exactly are they? Are they related to the thyroid problems the hospital found? Elena’s never blacked out a single time before this summer.”
    That’s not true. I think I did black out once before. But I’m not going to remember that.
    â€œI couldn’t say,” the psychiatrist answers. “It’s too early to tell.”
    â€œToo early?” asks Mom. “What do you mean? Why too early? She’s been in hospitals now for almost a month. They ran so many tests on her that her chart’s an inch thick. What data do you need?”
    â€œWell, I haven’t had time to look at her chart yet.”
    I watch Mom struggle to hold on to her good manners. It’s nice to be on the sidelines and see someone else get angry for a change.
    â€œElena’s been here for twenty-four hours,” she points out. “You knew she was coming for a week. You could have asked for her chart at any time. When is someone going to look at her chart?”
    The psychiatrist smiles disarmingly. “These things take time,” he says.
    â€œI can appreciate that you have your routine,” Mom says. “But we’ve already spent the time. My daughter has been in the hospital for a month, and in spite of all the care they could give her, she’s done nothing but lose more weight. Protocols, feeding pumps, the whole nine yards—she’s still below the weight she was the day she went in.”
    Relief floods through me. After weeks of not knowing, I almost have my number again. I don’t know what it is, but I know what it isn’t: as much as it was the day this all started.
    Take
that
, you damn psychiatrists!
    â€œYes, well. Their protocols weren’t like ours,” this psychiatrist says with a touch of pride.
    That washes the happy feelings out of me again.
    He’s right
, says the