Look Closely - Laura Caldwell [82]
“Is that how Caroline felt?”
Dr. Adler gave me another one of his calculating stares. “You must be a trial lawyer.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You notice the use of generalities in semantics.”
I didn’t respond.
Dr. Adler made a barely audible sigh. “This topic—your mother’s death, I mean—was somewhat of a bone of contention with the staff here at the time. Dr. Sammeth and the counselors felt Caroline was reacting typically to this event…” He trailed off.
“But you felt differently?”
He gave a slight nod. “To me, her feelings on this issue seemed to be closely tied to another strong emotion.”
“What was that?”
Dr. Adler shifted in his seat, and for the first time, I sensed he was uncomfortable. “Caroline had a certain irrational hatred.”
“Toward a certain person?”
“That’s right.”
“Was it my father?”
“No.”
“Who then?” I was beginning to get exasperated.
“I’m afraid,” he said, placing his hands on the desk, “that it was you.”
19
My foot lifted off the brake and stepped on the gas. I signaled a left merge onto the highway. I saw the outlines of the city in the distance. But I was removed from all of it. In my mind someone was chanting over and over, She hated you, she hated you, she hated you.
Dr. Adler had explained it well enough, I suppose. Her emotions about me had to do with the fact that I was taken care of by my father, he said. I had been sheltered, while Caroline was sent off to a boarding school alone, unprepared. It was perfectly natural, he said. He was sure Caroline no longer felt like that.
“She was making me a quilt,” I said stupidly. I was slumped at the back of that cushy chair by then, unable to keep my rod-straight posture, unable to care anymore that the height difference might give Dr. Adler some kind of intellectual advantage. What did it matter? My sister hated me.
“Excuse me?” Dr. Adler said.
“I spoke to her husband, and he said she was making me a quilt.”
“Well, that’s excellent. As I said, Caroline had stopped focusing on that irrational hatred of you by the time she left us. When I’ve corresponded with her over the last few years, she seemed very happy with her husband.”
My eyes met Dr. Adler’s over his desk, the unspoken thought between us—if Caroline was so happy, why had she gone missing?
Keeping one hand on the wheel now, I fumbled through my purse for my cell phone. I hit the speed dial for Maddy’s number. Not home. Again. No answer on her cell phone, either. The shock was growing into something more panicky. My sister hated me! I had to tell someone.
Matt. I should call Matt. I owed him a phone call anyway. I called Information for his number and stopped to pay a toll while the call was connected.
He answered almost immediately with a gruff “Hello,” like the first time I called.
“Matt, it’s Hailey,” I said. “How are you?”
“Same.”
“No word?”
“Nothing.” He said the word so quietly that it broke my heart. There was a pause, then he said, “Have you talked to your father?” He had so much contempt in his voice now that he made the words your father sound like “that serial killer.”
“Yeah, I have,” I said.
“What did he say about Caroline?”
“We talked about her going to boarding school and stuff like that, and—”
“Hailey, I’m sorry to be rude, but I don’t care about that. I want to know what he said about Caroline’s disappearance.”
Oh, God. How to tell him that I’d never even gotten to that topic because I’d been too upset about the fact that he was lying to me, telling me pretty tales about Caroline at Yale and in Paris. “We didn’t exactly get there,” I said.
“What? You didn’t even ask him? You promised me!”
“I know, but I—”
“What?”
“I didn’t think he’d tell me the truth. But look,” I said, rushing on to a different subject, “I just found out something else about Caroline. I went to Crestwood Home. You know about her stay there, right?”
“Yes. But how do you know?”
“I saw some