Harriet closed her eyes. Sitting up had made her feel sick to her stomach all over again. Scarcely had she laid her head on the pillow than her mother was back again, this time with a glass of water and an aspirin.
“Maybe you’d better have a can of broth,” she said. “I’ll call Mother and see if she has any.”
While she was gone, Harriet climbed out of bed and—wrapping herself in the scratchy crochet afghan—trailed down the hall to the bathroom. The floor was cold, and so was the toilet seat. Vomit (a little) gave way to diarrhea (a lot). Washing up at the sink afterwards, she was shocked to see in the medicine-cabinet mirror how red her eyes were.
Shivering, she crept back to her bed. Though the covers were heavy on her limbs, they didn’t feel very warm.
Then her mother was shaking down the thermometer. “Here,” she said, “open your mouth,” and she stuck it in.
Harriet lay looking at the ceiling. Her stomach boiled; the swampy taste of the water still haunted her. She fell into a dream where a nurse who looked like Mrs. Dorrier from the health service was explaining to her that she’d been bitten by a poisonous spider, and that a blood transfusion would save her life.
It was me, Harriet said. I killed him.
Mrs. Dorrier and some other people were setting up equipment for the transfusion. Someone said: She’s ready now.
I don’t want it, Harriet said. Leave me alone.
All right, said Mrs. Dorrier and left. Harriet was uneasy. There were some other ladies lingering around, smiling at Harriet and whispering, but none of them offered any help or questioned Harriet about her decision to die, even though she slightly wanted them to.
“Harriet?” said her mother—and with a jolt, she sat up. The bedroom was dark; the thermometer was gone from her mouth.
“Here,” Harriet’s mother was saying. The meaty-smelling steam from the cup was ripe and sickening.
Harriet said, smearing her hand over her face: “I don’t want it.”
“Please, darling!” Fretfully, Harriet’s mother pushed the punch cup at her. It was ruby glass, and Harriet loved it; one afternoon, quite by surprise, Libby had taken it from her china cabinet and wrapped it up in some newspaper and given it to Harriet to take home with her, because she knew that Harriet loved it so. Now, in the dim room it glowed black, with one sinister ruby spark at the heart.
“No,” said Harriet, turning her head from the cup continually nudging at her face, “no, no.”
“
There it was again, under her nose. There was nothing for Harriet to do but sit up and take it. Down she gulped it, the meaty sickening liquid, trying not to gag. When she was done, she wiped her mouth with the paper napkin that her mother offered—and then, without warning, up it came again,
Harriet’s mother let out a little yelp. Her crossness made her look strangely young, like a sulky babysitter on a bad night.
“I’m sorry,” Harriet said miserably. The slop smelled like swamp water with chicken broth mixed into it.
“Oh, darling, what a mess. No, don’t—” said Charlotte, with a panicky catch in her voice as Harriet—overcome with exhaustion—attempted to lie back down in the mess.
Then something very strange and sudden happened. A strong light from overhead blared in Harriet’s face. It was the cut-glass ceiling fixture in the hall. With amazement, Harriet realized that she wasn’t in her bed, or even in her bedroom, but lying on the floor in the upstairs hall in a narrow passage between some stacked newspapers. Strangest of all, Edie knelt beside her, with a grim, pale set to her face and no lipstick.
Harriet—wholly disoriented—put an arm up and rolled her head from side to side, and as she did it, her mother swooped down, crying loudly. Edie flung out an arm to bar her. “Let her breathe!”
Harriet lay on the hardwood floor, marveling. Besides the wonder of being in a different place, the first thought that struck her was that her head and neck hurt:
How did I get here? she asked Edie, but it didn’t come out quite the way it was supposed to (her thoughts were all jumbled and crunched together) and she swallowed and tried again.
Edie shushed her. She helped Harriet to sit up—and Harriet, looking down at her arms and legs, noticed with a strange thrill that she was wearing different clothes.
Why are my clothes different? she tried to ask—but that didn’t come out right either. Gamely, she chewed over the sentence.
“Hush,” said Edie, putting a finger to Harriet’s lips. To Harriet’s mother (weeping in the background, Allison standing behind, hunted-looking, biting her fingers) she said: “How long did it last?”