I can’t remember many specific details of the accident, but the fear I felt that day is still crystal clear in my memory. I have nightmares all the time. They’re always the same—a few blurry images and a mesh of chaotic sounds, but I’m paralyzed with terror so strong I can’t breathe until I wake up screaming. The dread itself is the main focus of the dream.
If the sun weren’t blaring so rudely into my face, and my body didn’t ache from the five-and-a-half hour flight from Boston, I’d have thought I was back in my dream. I was that terrified as I sat in the driveway looking at what was to be my new home.
So far, I’d only seen the view from the car between the airport and my father’s house up in the winding hills above Los Angeles. It was enough to know that LA was nothing like Boston—despite what the traffic on the freeway would have me believe.
I wished it were only the change of scenery that I was scared of. I spent eight weeks in intensive care and was then in a rehab center for another six months. Eight months of hospitalization total, and now I was being released into the care of the man who’d walked out of my life ten years ago—him and the woman he’d left me for, along with the two daughters he’d replaced me with.
“I should warn you that Jennifer has probably cooked up some sort of welcome home surprise.”
“Not a party?” I gasped, my terror exploding into something that might finally kill me. I never thought I’d live through a hell most people couldn’t even imagine, only to be offed on my first day out of the hospital by a group of random strangers wanting to welcome me home.
“No, of course not,” my father assured me. “It’s nothing like that. Your new rehabilitation team stopped by last week and prepped the whole family. Jennifer knows meeting a lot of new people will be too overwhelming at first. I’m sure it will be just her and the girls, but there’s probably a nice dinner waiting for you along with welcoming gifts, and possibly decorations. She’s very excited to meet you.”
I couldn’t say the same.
When I didn’t respond, my dad glanced at me with that look of helplessness he’d been watching me with since I came out of my coma and found him sitting beside my hospital bed. It’s a look that is seventy percent pity, twenty percent fear, and ten percent awkwardness. It’s as if he has no clue what to say or how to act with me—probably because he hasn’t seen or talked to me since I was eight.
He cleared his throat and said, “You ready, kiddo?”
I would never be ready.
“Please don’t call me that,” I whispered, working hard to speak around the lump suddenly clogging up my throat.
He blew out a long puff of air and tried to smile. “Too old for that now?”
“Something like that.”
In truth, I hated the nickname because it reminded me of Mama. She always called me her little mu?eca, or baby doll. When I was about six, Dad started calling me kiddo. He said it was because I needed an American nickname too, but I think it was because he’d been jealous of the relationship I had with Mama even back then.
“Sorry,” Dad said.
“It’s fine.”
I opened the car door before the awkwardness choked us to death. Dad came around the car to help me get out, but I brushed him off. “I’m supposed to do it.”
“Right, sorry. Here.”
As I moved my legs out one at a time, he handed me my cane and waited as I slowly pulled myself to a stand.
It took effort, and it wasn’t pretty, but I could finally walk on my own again. I was proud of that. The doctors hadn’t always thought it would be possible, but I pushed through the pain and regained a lot of my range of movement. The scars were bad enough. I didn’t want to be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of my life, too.
I was glad for the slow walk up the driveway. It gave me the time I needed to brace myself for what waited inside.
Dad waved a hand at the house in front of us. “I know it doesn’t look like much from the front but it’s bigger than it appears, and the view from the back is spectacular.”
Didn’t look like much? What did he expect me to think of the two-story postmodern multi-million dollar house in front of me? He’d seen the small two-bedroom apartment Mama and I lived in back in Boston. He’d been the one to clear it out after Mama’s funeral.
Not knowing what to say, I just shrugged.
“We had your room set up on the ground floor so that you won’t have to use the stairs except to get to the main family room, which is only down a short flight of steps. You also have your own bathroom and we’ve had it converted so that it’s now handicap accessible. Everything should be all ready for you, but if it proves that the house doesn’t work, Jennifer and I have already talked about finding something new, maybe down the hill in Bel-Air where we can get a nice ranch-style.”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath in an attempt to not glare or say something rude. He spoke as if I would be here forever, but I was so gone as soon as I was allowed.
I had a moment of weakness during a low point in my rehabilitation, and I tried to take my own life. I’d been in the hospital for three months at the time, with no end in sight. I could still hardly move, I’d just had my seventeenth surgery, I was told I’d never walk again, I missed my mother, and I was in so much physical pain that I just wanted it all to end.
Nobody blamed me for my actions, but now nobody believed that I wasn’t a threat to myself anymore. I planned to stay in Boston, finish the school I’d missed online, and then go to Boston University when I was ready. I was eighteen and had the money saved, but when my father realized what I was planning, he had me legally declared mentally incompetent and forced me to come to California with him.
It wasn’t easy for me to be civil with the man. “I’m sure the house is fine,” I grumbled. “Can we please just get this over with so I can go to bed? I’m exhausted and I really hurt after traveling all day.”
I felt bad for being short with him when I saw disappointment flash in his eyes. I think he’d been hoping to impress me, but he didn’t understand that I’d never had a lot of money, and I’d never needed it. I was content with the humble lifestyle I had with Mama. I never even used the checks he sent every month. Mama had been putting them in a bank account for years. I had enough in there to pay for college—another reason I would have been fine on my own.
“Sure, honey—” He paused and winced. “Sorry. I suppose that name is off the approved nicknames list, too, huh?”
I grimaced. “How about we just stick with Ella?”
Inside, the house was as immaculate as the burn center. It probably had alarms that went off if a speck of dust landed anywhere. My rehab team would be thrilled. The place was posh and the furniture all looked highly uncomfortable. There was no way this house would ever feel like home.
The new Mrs. Coleman stood in an enormous kitchen, setting a silver platter of fruit and dip on a granite countertop when we came around the corner. I think the tray might have been actual silver. When she noticed us, her entire face lit up into the hugest, brightest smile I’d ever seen on anyone. “Ellamara! Welcome to our home, sweetie!”
Jennifer Coleman had to be the most beautiful woman in all of Los Angeles. Hair as golden as the sun, eyes as blue as the sky, and lashes that reached all the way to the moon. Her legs were long, her waist was tiny, and her giant boobs were perfectly round and perky. Bombshell was the only word that came to mind.
I don’t know why I found her beauty surprising. I knew she was a professional model—print and commercials, not fashion. She did things like shampoo and skin cream commercials, so she actually looked healthy and not skinnier than a crack addict.
Judging from the size of her house, she must have done pretty well for herself because my dad may have been a big shot lawyer, but U.S. attorneys didn’t have outrageous salaries. Back when he lived with us, we had a moderate house in the suburbs, but we certainly weren’t driving a Mercedes and living up on a hill in a house with its own gate.
Jennifer stepped forward and gave me a careful hug, kissing the air next to my cheek. “We’re so excited that we finally get to have you here with us. Rich has been telling us so much about you for so long I feel like you’re already part of the family. It must be a relief to be in a real home again.”
Actually, leaving the rehab center was one of the scariest things I’d ever had to do, and being here was the opposite of relief. But, of course I didn’t say that. I tried to think of something that was true and not too insulting. “It’s a relief to be off the plane.”
Jennifer’s smile turned sympathetic. “You must be so tired, you poor thing.”
I swallowed back annoyance and forced a smile. I hated people’s pity as much as I hated their stares, if not more. Before I had to figure out something to say, my two new stepsisters came bursting through the front door.
“Girls, you’re late.” Jennifer sounded irritated, but she’d plastered that big, phony smile back on her face. “Look who’s home!”
The two sisters slammed into each other as they came to an abrupt halt. They were twins. Not identical, I didn’t think, but they looked so similar that if not for the haircuts, I bet I’d still mix them up. I knew from pictures Dad had showed me that Juliette was the one with long blonde locks that fell in silky waves halfway down her back, while Anastasia had a sleek, angled bob that swept across her face and came to a sharp stop at her chin. It was so perfectly coiffed that she looked as if she’d stepped straight out of a hairstyle magazine.
Both girls were as gorgeous as their mother—same blonde hair, blue eyes, and perfect figures. And they were both so tall! I’m a modest five foot six, and they both towered over me. Of course, they were both wearing heels that gave them at least four extra inches, but I bet they were still both pushing five-ten without the shoes. They were over a year younger than me, but could easily pass for twenty-one.
Not bothering with any kind of hello, Anastasia lifted a hand to her chest. “Oh man, I’m so glad your face isn’t messed up.”
Juliette nodded, eyes wide. “Totally. We looked up pictures online of burn victims, and, like, all of them had these hideous scars on their faces. It was so gross.”
My dad and Jennifer let out matching nervous laughs and went to stand by the twins. “Girls,” Jennifer admonished mildly, “it’s not polite to talk about people’s deformities.”
I flinched at the term. Was that what she thought of me? That I was deformed? My face may have been lucky, but my shoulder down the right half of my body and everything from my waist down was covered with thick, raised pink scars that popped in contrast to my naturally-tanned skin.
My dad pulled both girls close to his sides, tucking one into each arm. In their heels they stood at almost the same height as his six feet one inches. I remembered him being a decent-looking man, but he was really quite handsome standing next to his picture-perfect family. He still had a full head of thick brown hair, and, of course, my bright blue eyes. “Honey, these are my daughters, Anastasia and Juliette. Girls, this is your new stepsister, Ellamara.”
He grinned proudly, flashing his perfect lawyer smile as he squeezed both girls. The creases around his eyes hurt my heart. Smile lines. He’d obviously spent his life laughing a lot. I also noticed the fact that he’d called the twins his daughters. Not stepdaughters.
Ignoring my desire to curl up into a ball and cry, I lifted a hand out in greeting. “It’s just Ella. Ella Rodriguez.”
Neither girl took my hand. “Rodriguez?” Juliette scoffed. “Shouldn’t it be Coleman?”
Letting my hand fall back to my side, I shrugged. “I changed it to my mother’s maiden name when I was twelve.”
“Why?”
“Because I am a Rodriguez.”
Both my stepsisters looked as though I’d somehow offended them. I had to clench my jaw to keep from spouting obscenities at them in Spanish. My glare slid to my father. “Where’s my bag? I need to take my medicine, and then I need to rest. My legs feel swollen.”
. . . . .
Jennifer argued with her girls in heated whispers as my dad led me across the main floor of the house to my room. I didn’t care that they were fighting about me. I was just glad to have the introductions over. Hopefully now I could avoid them as much as possible.
I sat down on my hospital-style bed that would elevate at both the head and feet, and swallowed a couple of pills before I looked around my new room. The walls were a soft yellow—no doubt intentionally so, because some doctor had told my father that yellow was a soothing, cheerful color. Honestly, it wasn’t that bad, but the furniture was this awful frilly white set that made me feel like I was six years old again. It was hideous.
“Do you like it?” Jennifer asked hopefully. She’d come into the room and taken her place at my dad’s side. He wrapped his arm around her waist and kissed her cheek. It took some serious effort not to cringe at them.
Again, I chose my words carefully. “I’ve never had stuff this nice before.”
Dad picked up some kind of touch-screen remote. “You’ve got to see the best part.” He grinned as he began pushing buttons. “I can show you how to use this later. It controls the TV, stereo, lights, fan, and windows.”
“The windows?” My windows were controlled by remote?
Dad puffed his chest out and with one last tap on the screen, the floor-to-ceiling sheer white curtains along the far wall slid open, revealing an entire wall of windows with a sliding door in the middle. Then, with another touch of a button, the sunshades on each window rose up, letting a flood of light engulf the room.
Dad opened the door and stepped out into the sunset onto a wooden balcony that overlooked the whole city of Los Angeles as far as the eye could see. Beyond the balcony, the ground dropped off out of sight. Apparently, the house was on the side of a cliff.
“You have the best view in the house. You’ll have to come out here and look at all the lights after dark. It’s really something to see.”
Given California’s reputation for earthquakes, I found the prospect of standing on that balcony a bit disturbing.
Dad came back in and once the sunshades and curtains were all back in place, he turned to me with a hopeful expression. He caught me eyeing the laptop on the desk with trepidation. It was silver and looked as thin as a pancake. I’d always wanted one of those, but somehow it didn’t seem so appealing anymore.
Dad walked over and flipped the laptop open. “I hope you don’t mind the change. The computer you had in your apartment was so ancient. I thought you’d like this better. I had someone back up the hard drive before I got rid of it. I also got you a new phone since yours burned.” He picked up what looked like an iPhone in a hot pink case and handed it to me. “We added you to the family plan—unlimited everything, so don’t worry about calling your friends in Massachusetts. It’s not a problem at all.”
I cringed. I hadn’t contacted any of my friends since the accident. By the time I was capable of calling people, so much time had passed that I figured everyone had already moved on. I was going home with my dad and wouldn’t be going back, so I never saw the point of trying to keep in touch. Now that I was thousands of miles away, I really didn’t see the point.
My dad must have realized this too because he forced a brittle smile and rubbed the back of his neck as if he was suddenly extremely uncomfortable.
“Thanks,” I said. “So, um, where are all my things?”
Dad’s face relaxed, as if I’d just asked an easy question on a much safer topic. “Everything from your bedroom, except for the furniture, obviously, is packed in boxes in your closet.”
In my closet? “How big is the closet?”
Jennifer found this funny. “Not as big as mine, but I doubt you have the shoe problem that I do.”
I didn’t want to tell her that my mother and I both had a shoe problem. We had the same size feet and must have had a truckload of shoes between us. Not that I’d be wearing any of them ever again. No open-toe sandals or heels of any kind for me now—only special shoes that therapeutically support my burned feet and scream “grandma.” They’d fixed my hand, giving me enough movement back that I was able to write again—sort of. I was still working on making my handwriting legible, but they couldn’t entirely save my toes.
“We left everything in boxes because we thought you’d want to unpack and arrange things yourself,” Dad said. “But if you’d like help, we’ll be happy to do whatever you need.”
“No. I can manage. What about Mom’s stuff, and the rest of the apartment?”
“I packed everything that looked significant—pictures and things, and some of your mom’s belongings that I thought you might want. There wasn’t much, just a couple of boxes worth. They’re with your things. Everything else I got rid of.”
“What about the books?” My heart started pounding in my chest. My bookshelves were not in this room, and I seriously doubted they were in my closet. “What did you do with all of my books?”
“All those books in the living room? I donated them.”
“You what?”
My dad flinched when I yelled and got that panicked expression back in his eyes. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I didn’t realize—”
“You gave away all of my books?”
Maybe it was a stupid thing to lose it over after all the emotional stress I’d been through that day, but I simply couldn’t handle the thought of my books being gone. I’d been collecting them for years.
Ever since I’d learned to read, it’d been my favorite thing to do. Mama had been giving me books for my birthday and Christmas—and sometimes simply because she felt like it—for so long it’d become a tradition.
I’d gone to book signings and conventions all over the northeast and had dozens of books signed by all of my favorite authors. Every time I’d go to Mama with that look in my eye she’d laugh and say, “Where to this time?” At each signing, I had someone take a picture of Mama and me with the author and taped the picture to the inside cover of the book it went with.
Now, the books, the pictures, and the memories…they were all gone. Just like Mama was gone. I’d never get them back, and I could never replace what I’d lost. It was like losing her all over again.
My heart broke into a million tiny pieces, shattered beyond repair. I burst into uncontrollable sobs, rolled over on my bed, and curled up into a tight ball, wishing I could somehow block out the pain.
“I’m sorry, Ellamara. I had no idea. You weren’t awake to ask. I can get you new books, though. We’ll go this week and you can get whatever you’d like.”
The thought of him trying to replace that collection revolted me to my core. “You don’t understand!” I screamed. “Please, just go away.”
I never heard the door click shut, but no one bothered me after that until the next morning. I cried for hours until I passed out from exhaustion.