Haunted by Lynn Carthage Page A

“I tried .”
    Mom came bustling into the room, cooing, agitated, “Sweetie, it’s okay, it’s okay.”
    â€œHi, Mom,” I said miserably.
    â€œGood morning, darling.”
    As soon as Tabby was in Mom’s arms, she stopped crying. Mom carried her over to the changing table to change her diaper, throwing the wet one in the trash with a heavy thwack. It seemed like a perfectly normal morning. Mom squirted antibiotic cleanser on her hands, then wheeled around to set Tabby on the floor. Together they went to the dresser to pick out her outfit for the day.
    â€œMom, I have to tell you something . . .” My voice was so soft she didn’t hear me over the loud squeal of the dresser drawer grinding open.
    â€œOw!” said Mom. She flicked her hand back and forth furiously, and paused to peel off the remnants of a broken nail. “That’s what you get with a dresser that’s sat for decades warping and swelling.”
    â€œOkay, Mama?” asked Tabby.
    â€œYes, yes,” said Mom. “Things could be far worse.”
    Oh yes, Mom, far worse indeed. But I held my tongue, ashamed. I’d done nothing to help Tabby . . . and Mom wouldn’t believe me anyway. She’d scorned me when I’d tried to tell her about Madame Arnaud before.
    â€œI have a boo-boo, too,” said Tabby.
    â€œLet me see,” said Mom. Tabby pulled up the sleeve of her Dora the Explorer pajamas to show the fairly deep puncture wound on her arm, surrounded by brown-blue bruising.
    Unreal.
    â€œMy God!” said Mom. “How’d you do that? A nail on this goddamn crib?” She kissed the wound and instantly began investigating the crib for an exposed nail.
    But I stayed crouched next to Tabby, staring into her eyes, terrified. “It was her, wasn’t it?” I asked. While I’d crashed onto the floor in a faint or whatever it was, she’d hurt my sister somehow. I was right there, powerless.
    â€œI should have gone over everything,” said Mom. She sounded on the verge of tears.
    â€œIt was Madame Arnaud,” I said. Mom continued to run her hands up and down the slats of the crib.
    The wound was horrible, a strangely adult sight on such pristine skin. Tabby had never been blemished by anything. She was still too young for scraped knees and the assorted injuries of childhood. Cradle cap was about the worst thing her skin had ever experienced.
    â€œI’m so sorry,” I whispered to my little sister. “This is my fault. I should have fought harder.”
    Mom muttered to herself, as she kept looking the crib over. She even pulled out the mattress to look underneath, as if Tabby had the strength to lift a mattress her weight rested on.
    â€œIt’s not the crib,” I said. “Stop looking. Listen to me. It’s Madame Arnaud.”
    I followed her hurried stride to the master bedroom, as Tabby did, where she rooted around for some Neosporin in her still-unpacked carry-on. “We’ll have to find you a pediatrician here,” she said as she slathered it on Tabby’s arm. “Thankfully, I know you’re up to date on your tetanus shot.”
    â€œTell her, Tabby,” I urged. “A woman came in big, red skirts, right?”
    But Tabby was absorbed in the Band-Aid Mom was putting on her.
    â€œTell her, Tabby!” I shouted. Was it just my imagination that nothing I said ever got heard?
    Tabby asked for another Band-Aid and Mom put it on her other arm, a mirror, a bit of symmetry.
    â€œTell her!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.
    And then I got it.
    This wasn’t happening. I was in another hallucination: auditory, visual. Who knew where I really was: Asleep in my bed? Under supervision in a psychiatric hospital? Maybe the whole move to England was a long, extended delusion.
    â€œI see,” I whispered to Mom, to Tabby, involved now in layering Band-Aids in cross-hatch patterns. “It’s