The Family (11 page)

The room erupted into arguments comparing Twig to Kamela. Suddenly it seemed as if everything about the two girls was up for discussion. Voices shouted across the room. Twig slumped into her chair and hugged herself. She pushed her nails into her arms to distract herself from the pain in her head.

“Fantastic!” Yasmine cheered. “Get it out. Get all of these feelings and resentments out.” She punched her arms in the air to encourage them.

The screaming continued and escalated.

And then Kamela was the only one screaming. Standing over Twig, shrieking, “You seduced my father! How could you?” Kamela started to cry. Everyone was silent.

“Twig, I think this is a really good time for you to confess your sins,” Yasmine said quietly. Twig wanted to strike out at Kamela, make her go away. But more than anything she wanted to get back to her bed. She wanted to diffuse the situation and leave. She took more deep breaths to calm herself and then began to speak.

“Kamela, I honestly don’t know what to say. I know this is hard. Hard and weird and…” Twig paused.

“Just admit what you’ve done, Twig. Stop acting like you’re a perfect angel.”

“You do sound sneaky, Twig,” Yasmine said. “Just say what you are thinking. A minute ago you looked like you wanted to push Kamela away. I sensed anger there. Did you want to push her away? Did you want to hit your sister, Twig? Speak the truth.”

Twig looked at Kamela. She had weaved different shades of pink ribbon through her coal-black hair. It looked like something Twig would do. Twig briefly imagined the two of them stacking rocks into sculptures and crushing red clay to paint their toenails. Too bad they couldn’t be friends.

“I didn’t seduce your father,” Twig finally said, plainly and quietly.

“You cold witch!” Kamela shouted back.

“Fine, here’s my truth,” Twig said. She was beginning to tremble with anger, but she kept her voice low and even. “Don’t my feelings count? Even if I am not shouting them or screaming them? It doesn’t make them less sincere.”

The room was still silent, all eyes now on Twig.

“Continue, Twig,” Yasmine said.

“I am not being sneaky because I am trying to tell Kamela that I understand how awkward this is for her. For both of us.” Twig turned to face Kamela directly. “We have grown up together, and now I am supposed to marry your father. I sincerely apologize for the pain this is causing you.” Kamela rolled her eyes at her. “No! Don’t do that,” Twig said, still quietly but with force. “He chose me. You can make up all the lies you want about me being a tramp, but he
chose
me. I did not do anything wrong.”

“You must have seduced him. You must have.” Kamela started to cry.

“Did you seduce Adam, Twig?” Yasmine asked.

“No!” Twig said. “I don’t even know
how
to seduce someone!”

Twig thought about Leo. Had she flirted with him? If she had, she knew she had never done
that
with Adam.

“But that’s just it, Twig.” Kamela’s voice was cooler now. “You float around here like you’re better than everyone—”

Twig interrupted her. “Why would you say that?”

“She’s crazy like her mother is,” Schuyler chimed in.

Twig thought Schuyler was an idiot, but that comment still hurt.

“It’s not that you think you are better than everyone else.” Sophie was speaking now. Twig’s head snapped toward her. Was she taking Kamela’s side? “It’s more like you—like you just act differently, beat your own drum. That’s it! You march to the beat of your own drum.” Sophie looked pleased with herself for finding these words. Twig quickly glanced at Ryan. He was shaking his head and looking at the ground. Twig knew Sophie meant well, but she was not helping.

“I need to talk about the other night. The night of the attack.” Ryan’s voice pierced the tension in the air. A dove song.

“Ryan, we can do that, but I’m not sure the girls are through,” Yasmine said softly.

“Girls? Are you through?” Ryan asked, looking from Twig to Kamela.

“I’m done,” Kamela said through tight lips.

“Yes,” Twig added, thankful for his distraction.

Ryan began to speak, sharing his fears that the attackers could come back at any time. As Ryan spoke, Twig’s heart went out to him. He was genuinely disturbed by the events of the other night.

But Twig was not. She didn’t think there was any real threat. There was something weird about Avery’s comment to Doc. She hadn’t seen any cars following them when she had stolen a look. The part of her that had been conditioned to love and revere Adam hated herself for implying that he was lying, but in her heart she didn’t believe there had been any real danger. She didn’t know the details, but she suspected Adam had been behind it, had orchestrated it in some way.

And then there was Anna. Now that she thought about it, Twig was suspicious of Anna’s confession. Anna was from the outside world. If Dr. Young was right, and infection couldn’t be transmitted through thought, then how could Anna have brought on an attack through her thoughts? And if Anna had just come from the outside world and knew the truth about infection, she would know that thoughts are just thoughts. Did Adam make her come to him with a false confession?

There was no way to get any answers. She would just have to push these thoughts deep down inside. Forget about them, if she could.

Twig turned her attention back to Ryan as Yasmine and the others asked him questions and responded to what he was saying. She wondered if Ryan fantasized about leaving. Now that she had left the compound, she could imagine there might be more possibilities for him on the outside. Maybe he could live life as a homosexual. Find a partner who felt like he did. How alone he must feel at times. She wanted to reach out to him, say these things to him, but they had decided a long time ago that they wouldn’t out each other at Meetings, even though that’s exactly what they were supposed to do. Instead, she just kept her eyes on him, sending him silent strength.

20

Slowly, Twig began to feel better. Physically, that is. After a week, the headaches became less frequent, and her head began to clear. They hadn’t taken away her anti-seizure medication when they’d stopped her pain pills. Though she’d been faking, it was nice not to live in fear of having a seizure. Doc said he was pleased that she had not had another episode and that the threat of seizure would cease after a month. She knew she wouldn’t be going back to the hospital for another CT Scan. She would just have to have faith that Doc knew what he was talking about.

After two weeks of a very modified schedule (which included more regular sleep than she could ever remember experiencing), she began to slowly re-enter life on the compound. She wasn’t yet sent to the work in the fields, and she was given a lighter schedule of classes and lectures. She helped groom the horses, especially Sapphire, as best she could, but she wouldn’t be able to ride until her cast was off. She went to yoga and just lay quietly on her back, head propped up, breathing. Listening. Listening with new ears. Despite her best efforts to stop it, the seed of doubt inside her had managed to grow into a tree of complicated questions. It had flowered into a new habit of questioning. Questioning everything.

The biggest problem with the United States, besides racism, is capitalism. Capitalism is its church. Capitalism disgusts me like nothing else. Citizens of the U.S. are lazy. They build nothing. And then they consume in a mad attempt to fill the emptiness inside them. For the same amount of money that could house a family for a month, a woman of privilege will buy a pair of shoes and let an underprivileged family starve. She’ll do this month after month. These people build nothing. They plant nothing. What they grow is pain, starvation, and insurmountable debt. In our Family, if one person eats, everyone eats. If one person starves, everyone starves. We are a collective.

Ever since she’d returned from the hospital, Twig noticed she was having trouble listening to Adam’s voice on the intercom. She found herself analyzing what he was saying. He spoke about the United States a lot. And it was never good. Leo and Hazel were from the United States. They were unlike anyone she had ever known. Would Hazel buy a pair of shoes instead of feeding a family?

In the few weeks that passed after her accident, Twig noticed the Family begin to treat her differently. Everywhere she went, people congratulated her on her engagement. They told her she was truly blessed. That she was a blessing herself. They went quiet when she entered the room, a little like they did for Adam. Some people even seemed a little scared of her.

Other people were angry. She received little shoves here and there. Little insults. Subtle, hardly noticeable. Nothing she could quite confront them about. Not that she would. But she could feel their anger.

During those few weeks, Twig felt isolated. She still hadn’t had the chance to really talk to Avery, to ask her any one of the questions on her growing list. There just wasn’t an opportunity. They were never together for long enough. If Twig had a little pocket of time, Avery was nowhere to be found. If they were at the cottage at the same time, Evelyn was there, too. She was comforted by Avery’s promise of their date. She might be able to talk to her then. One more week. One more week, and Twig would get her cast off.

* * *

Finally, the day arrived. Twig sat in Doc’s waiting area, scanning the room as she waited for him to come out of his office. The walls were decorated with pencil drawings of anatomy. Twig looked at the images and thought about drawing. She used to draw more. All she had available was graphite. Sometimes she would create dust from leaves and flowers to add color, but she had stopped doing that long ago and started her “paintings.” Twig wondered where these drawings came from; what Doc’s life had been like before he came to the Family. Doc’s lore was missing from the Family Tree. Twig had never really thought about it until now, but Adam had never told Doc’s story.

After Adam had met Farriss and Yasmine, they had set up a small Family unit in New York City. Twig liked to think of the three of them there. Adam said they had lived in a place called Greenwich Village. Yasmine would describe wonderful cafés that had chairs on the sidewalks. She said she had loved to watch the people go by while they indulged in French pastries and big cups of coffee or hot chocolate. Twig could picture a young Yasmine. She imagined her in a pair of old jeans with a yellow silk scarf braided into her wild afro of dark, curly hair. A city-girl version of Sophie.

Adam had met Tina in New York. She’d been a journalism student at one of the universities there. Sadness fell over Twig as she thought about Adam and Tina, recalling how they met. Adam used to drape Tina with compliments about her intelligence and political awareness, telling her how impressed he was by her. Tina would blush. She was genuinely in love with Adam and always had been. In fact, it seemed as if they had both been so in love with each other. What had happened? Twig wondered if she herself would have fallen in love with Adam if they had been the same age when they met. If Twig had been a graduate student in Manhattan, had her own apartment and her own life. If Adam had draped her with compliments about her intelligence rather than grabbing her neck.
You are mine now
.

“All right, Twig. Come on in. Let’s take a look at that arm.” Doc had opened the door to his office.

Twig looked around. Usually, a woman named Maya came to get her when Doc was ready for her. Maya was always in the room during examinations. Twig had never really been alone with Doc.

“Where’s Maya?” she inquired.

“I needed her to run an errand. She should be back any minute now,” Doc answered, waving Twig toward his office. “Do you want us to wait for her?”

There was something in Doc’s tone that made Twig think the only answer was “no.” She would have preferred Maya be there. She had so many questions about Adam and the Family, and Doc was part of those questions. Having someone else there would have made her more comfortable.

Twig tried to smile. “No. It’s okay. I’m ready to get this off and get back to yoga.”

Doc nodded. “Of course. No downward dogs for you for a while, though. Don’t put weight on your arm for another month.”

Twig sat on the cold metal table covered in white paper. She was aware of Doc watching her.

“Can you take off your sweater?”

“I can just push up the sleeve. Is that okay?” Twig answered casually. Now she really wished Maya were here.

“I’m worried I’ll cut your sweater when I cut the cast off.”

“Oh,” Twig replied. “Of course.” She would need Doc’s help because the arm of her sleeve was a bit too narrow. He came close to her and helped her work the sweater over her cast. Twig was aware of her arms, her neck, all suddenly exposed. Doc’s hands were freezing and he smelled faintly of medicine.

Doc quickly became absorbed in his work as he used a pair of surgical scissors to cut off the layers of fiberglass and plaster in her cast. She no longer felt his gaze upon her.

“That was a lot of excitement, wasn’t it?” Doc continued to cut and did not lift his eyes as he spoke. “We never really had a talk about it.”

“What’s that?” asked Twig.

“The announcement of your engagement, the accident, and then the hospital.” Doc continued to look down.

“Oh. Yes. Yes, it was,” Twig answered.

Doc stopped cutting for a moment and looked up at Twig. He parted his thin lips and smiled.

“How are you feeling about your engagement, Twig?” Doc carried the cast to the small silver trashcan across the room. Twig looked at her wrist; it was pale and had a purplish, green hue. She held it gently in her other hand and turned it over tenderly. “Just needs a little sun.” Doc had returned and was by her side. He looked down at her.

“I’m okay. My head is spinning a bit—figuratively speaking.” Twig was trying to be genuine, but this was the first time she had spoken to Doc since she had talked to Dr. Young. She hadn’t even seen Adam since the night they’d left the hospital. He hadn’t been around lately, and she had been glad for this. She didn’t know how it would feel to be around him, so full of doubt and questions, the way she had been lately. She feared he would sense it.