“Oh, does it bother you?” she said the night before at supper, meaning the milling crowd outside. He looked back at her, speechless.
“Of course it bothers him, Avery,” their mother snapped. “It bothers me too. It would bother anyone but you.” His mother sounded as if she were at her breaking point, drained of energy. She’d already lost the argument with Avery about the television interview. She’d finally agreed to let her do just one, in a controlled environment.
Michael has a lot of confused feelings. He was genuinely glad to see Avery again, relieved that she was unharmed. He’d been so worried about her, and so concerned about his mother—he feared that his mom might break down and never recover, and with his dad gone, she was all he had left. But now Avery’s back, and it’s like she never left, only worse. Now she’s acting like she’s famous, and the thing is, she really is famous. He feels like he’s living in some awful reality TV show, only none of it feels real.
He gets dressed and makes his way to Avery’s bedroom. He taps on her door.
“What do you want?” she asks.
He opens her door. Alone with his little sister, he finds he’s a bit tongue-tied, not sure how to say what he’s come to say. He knows that his mother and father each see Avery differently. His mother thinks much better of Avery than she really should. But that’s because Avery plays differently to each of them. She is one Avery to her mother and a different Avery to her father. Their dad quite frequently sees through her, and so does Michael. She doesn’t pretend so much with them. But she’s still his little sister. “I wanted to ask you something.”
“What?” Now she’s giving him her full attention.
He plucks up his courage to ask the question he needs to have answered. “Did Derek ever do anything to you, in the tree house?” He feels his face flushing.
She looks at him in surprise. “Derek? No. Why?”
“Jenna told the police you told her you had a boyfriend. The police thought it might be Derek.”
She laughs dismissively. “I made that up.”
He stares at her for a moment. “So it was a lie.”
She shrugs as if to say so what, and he turns away in anger.
Fifty-six
Avery is ready. She’s wearing a light-blue dress and her hair is braided neatly down her back. She’s been secretly practicing her facial expressions in the bathroom mirror upstairs, telling her story silently to her reflection, mouthing the words.
The technicians have been in the house for a while now, buzzing around like bees, disrupting things and making lots of noise. They’ve rearranged the furniture in the living room and in doing so seem to have taken over the entire house. Her mother is clearly distressed by all of it, while Michael hides in his bedroom. Avery knows he wishes this would all go away. She hopes he comes out of his room to watch her interview. Her father is supposed to arrive soon, before they begin. Avery wants him there too. She wants to be seen and heard. Large floor lamps with hot, bright lights are set up in the living room, where chairs have been placed for Avery and the interviewer—the prominent television journalist Casey Wong—to sit.
“Five minutes,” a man says, as Avery watches Casey, who is sitting in a chair in the kitchen, having her makeup touched up. Avery has had makeup done, too, which makes her feel like a movie star. She wonders if someday she might be an actress. The idea thrills her. Will she be pretty enough? she wonders. She doesn’t know yet. She would have to be thinner. Her mother was pretty—Avery has seen photographs—but she isn’t anymore.
They move her into the living room, into her assigned chair. Now that she’s sitting here, under the lights, with everyone looking at her, she begins to feel nervous. She can feel her heart racing. She tells herself that it’s just excitement—finally, her moment in the spotlight! She and Casey have already had a little chat earlier, when they were setting up, so they could get to know each other, and so Casey could set her at ease. Casey’s big brown eyes are kind and empathetic. Her mother chose Casey Wong because she is always so kind and sympathetic to her guests. She’s not aggressive, like some of them, her mother had said. When she talked to Avery, all the bustle in the background faded away, and Avery felt like it was only the two of them in the room. That’s what Casey said, “just two friends, having a private conversation.”
Now Avery lifts her eyes to the side of the living room. Her father has arrived and stands near her mother, looking grim. She resents him for it. Why can’t he be happy for her? He’s just worried about himself, she thinks, about how bad all this makes him look. But everyone already knows why Marion did what she did. The police have released the facts, as they understand them. Now she’s going to give her side of it, her personal story, of what it was like for her. Her mother looks as if she’s going to be sick, as if she’s the one about to be interviewed. Michael has come down from his bedroom now, but he won’t catch her eye. None of them even gives her a thumbs-up, she thinks grudgingly, and she’s about to go on national television. Sometimes she hates her family.
Casey comes up beside Avery and takes her seat, flashing a warm smile at her. “You’re going to be great,” she whispers. The crew fusses over the mics, the light meters. Everything must be perfect.
The man on the periphery of the living room counts down. “Three, two, one . . .”
Avery watches him do the countdown and feels a spike of adrenaline. She swallows. And then she has no time to think because Casey is introducing them, and Avery’s throat has gone dry.
“Avery,” Casey begins warmly, “you are so brave to agree to tell us your story—a story that has transfixed the nation. And I’m so honored that I’m the first journalist you’re going to tell it to. Thank you.” Avery nods, smiles uncertainly. “I know this will be difficult, so take your time, and just relax,” Casey says gently. Avery nods again.
“Avery, we all know the basic outlines of what happened to you—you disappeared on Tuesday, October 12—just over a week ago. At first it was thought that you disappeared on your way home from school. Your parents declared you missing, and a massive manhunt was underway. Can you tell us what happened that day?”
Avery finds her voice. She starts slowly, but gains confidence as Casey nods encouragingly at her. She tells how her father found her in the kitchen.
“What happened when your father came home?” Casey asks gently.
“We had an argument, and he left,” Avery says. She glances briefly at her father, and she sees the relief on his face. He owes her one, she thinks. No one outside their family—except the police—knows he hits her. She tells how she went to a neighbor’s house, Marion Cooke’s, how she had considered Marion a friend, and how she woke up in the basement, locked in, unable to escape.
Casey looks at her sympathetically, shaking her head, her eyes like warm pools. “I can’t even imagine. What were you feeling when you found yourself a prisoner?”
“I was scared.”
Casey nods again. “Of course you were! It must have been so frightening.” Her voice is soothing, her expression one of concern. “Did she restrain you?”