For reasons I can’t pinpoint in the adrenaline-filled moment, I feel relieved by the offer. Her mere presence. “Okay,” I say. “Is it all right with your dad?”
“Yes. I told him you were coming over. But I’ll text him,” she says, then runs around my car and gets in. The second her door is closed and her seatbelt fastened, she pulls her phone from her jacket pocket.
As I do a quick three-point turn, then make a right on Ordway, I ask Lyla to tell me more about her conversation with Polly.
I feel her looking at me as she hesitates, then says, “She told me that she has proof it wasn’t her who took that picture of me. And that there are other pictures, too. Of other girls.”
“What kind of pictures?” I say.
“You know…embarrassing…sexual-type pictures she doesn’t feel like she can tell Mr. Q or her parents about.”
As things start to come into horrifying focus, I clench the steering wheel to keep my hands from shaking. “Lyla?” I say. “Did Finch take these pictures?”
“Yes. Along with Beau, apparently,” Lyla says softly. “I might not have believed her…but Polly sent me one of them tonight. It was of me. And Finch. When I was passed out. And it was…really bad.”
“Oh my God,” I hear myself say, my heart shattering.
As I press down on the gas pedal, I am bombarded with images of Finch. The perfect newborn baby sleeping in my arms. The spirited five-year-old, making rutabaga stew on the steps of the Parthenon. The ten-year-old at the beach, building sand castles with Julie’s girls, only half his age.
I just can’t believe it. What’s happening now. The person my son has both slowly and suddenly become.
And yet I do. Because sometimes you just can’t see the things that are the closest to you.
* * *
—
BY THE TIME we pull into Polly’s driveway, my focus has returned to her, and what we need to do in the moment. All the lights are on and two cars are in the driveway. I take it as a hopeful sign, although I can still think of a bad scenario, too.
“What should we do?” I say, as if Lyla’s the adult and I’m the child.
“I dunno. Go ring their doorbell?” Lyla says, just as a figure passes by one of the front windows. “Is that her?”
“I can’t tell….It might be her mom,” I say.
“We should probably just go find out,” she says.
“Yeah,” I say, but I feel paralyzed with fear.
Lyla, on the other hand, swings open her door and gets out of the car. I stare at her, marching toward the house, amazed by her bravery. I make myself follow, reaching her as she’s ringing the doorbell, noticing how much her stoic profile resembles her father’s.
A few seconds later, we can hear someone coming to the door. I hold my breath, then stare into Mr. Smith’s eyes. His first name suddenly escapes me.
“Hello, Nina,” he says, looking first startled and confused, then angry but calm. “What brings you here so late?”
As I open my mouth to reply, he shifts his gaze to Lyla and says, “And you are…?”
“Lyla Volpe. The girl from the photograph,” she says, talking quickly and utterly matter-of-factly. “But we’re not here for that, Mr. Smith. We’re here because you and Mrs. Smith weren’t answering your phones…and neither was Polly. And I’m…we’re…really worried about her.”
He furrows his brow and says, “Worried how?”
“Um…Well…Polly called me earlier today. And she sounded really upset….”
“She is upset,” he says, shooting me a harsh look.
“Is she here?” Lyla presses onward.
“Yes. She’s in her room,” he says, now looking full-fledged pissed. “But she has nothing more to say about this.”
Meanwhile, Polly’s mother appears over his shoulder. “Yes. None of us do,” she says.
“I know,” I say. “And I’m so sorry for overstepping…but could you just…check on her? Lyla’s worried that Polly may be in trouble….”
“Just what are you suggesting?” Mrs. Smith says, her voice ice cold, pushing past her husband.
“I’m suggesting that your daughter may be trying to hurt herself,” I say, my voice finally conveying my sense of panic.
I watch as their expressions drastically change, both of them spinning away from us and flying up the spiral staircase. Mr. Smith takes the steps two and three at a time, his wife not far behind. I feel frozen again but manage to turn and look at Lyla, her expression mirroring the way I feel. One second later, we hear horrible shrieking. First them calling Polly’s name, then frantic shouts for us to call 911. Lyla finds her phone first, her fingers dialing those three dreaded digits.
“I’m calling to report an emergency,” she says, her voice shaky but slow and clear. “I think someone has tried to kill herself….Yes, just now…a girl…seventeen….The address?…Hold on….” She looks at me, wide-eyed with fear.
I blank for the second time in minutes, unable to conjure even the street name. What is wrong with me, I think, as Lyla heads right up the stairs, shouting, “I need your address! I’m on with 911!”
I hear more hysterical screaming. Then nothing. A second later, Lyla reappears at the top of the staircase, wildly motioning at me. “Mrs. Browning! You need to move your car! An ambulance is coming!”
In a state of shock, I do as I’m told, running to my car, then back to the foyer, where I pace and pray. For both Polly and Lyla.
It is totally impossible to process. Both where I am and what I am watching unfold, second by second. Only a few hours ago, Polly was my mortal enemy, and now I am standing in the corner of her enormous bedroom, the walls painted a muted gray-lavender, witnessing the most intensely personal, gut-wrenching moment of her life. A moment that could possibly end in her death.
Her parents are here, too, of course, both of them hysterical, and no less so since the arrival of two paramedics—a badass all-female team doing what I’ve seen so many times on Grey’s Anatomy and countless other shows and movies. Checking Polly’s vitals. Moving her from her canopy bed (the same one I’ve admired in the Restoration Hardware Teen catalog) onto a stretcher. Cutting her black sweatshirt right down the front with a huge pair of scissors. Ripping open packages of vials and other supplies. Inserting a tube down Polly’s throat. All the while, they talk to each other in a foreign medical language, while trying to keep Mr. and Mrs. Smith at bay.
At one point, when Polly convulses and her mom really starts to freak out, one paramedic looks up at me and shouts for my help. “Get her back,” she says.
“Mrs. Smith. Let them work!” I say, rushing forward to hold her arm for a moment. Before I retreat again, I get an unwanted closer look at Polly. Her body is completely limp, her skin pale. Yet, thank God, she still looks more asleep than dead. Then again, I’ve never seen a dead person. I pray that Polly won’t be my first. She just can’t die.
I look away from her, returning my gaze to the empty bottles of Ambien and Maker’s Mark that her dad was holding when I first ran into the room and that are now on the floor next to the bed. Her mom’s pills and her dad’s booze—details gleaned when the paramedics first arrived and asked their questions. How many pills were left? How much whiskey was still in the bottle?
At least a dozen, Mrs. Smith said.
Half a bottle, Mr. Smith said.
I wonder now whether the combination was purposeful. Polly’s one-two punch to her parents, whom she felt she couldn’t talk to in a crisis. Or maybe, actually, her relationship with them was more like mine with my dad. Maybe Polly loved her parents so much that she would rather die than see shame on their faces.
If only she could see how much worse this is. How much more painful, even if she winds up being okay.