"I guess," Mich.e.l.le agreed. "Actually, at first I thought they were the same, too. But they"re not. Amanda"s real, and the doll"s not."
"What do you and Amanda do together?"
"Talk, mostly. But sometimes we go for walks together."
"What do you talk about?"
"All kinds of things."
Tim decided to try a shot in the dark. "Was Amanda with you the day Susan Peterson fell off the bluff?"
Mich.e.l.le nodded.
"Were you in the graveyard?"
"Yes. Susan was saying mean things to me, but Mandy made her stop."
"How did she do that?"
"She chased her away."
"You mean she chased her off the bluff?"
"I don"t know," Mich.e.l.le said slowly. The thought had never occurred to her before. "Maybe so. I couldn"t see-it was foggy that day.... Mom said it wasn"t, but it was."
Tim leaned forward, and his face grew serious. "Mich.e.l.le, is it always foggy when Amanda is with you?"
Mich.e.l.le thought a moment, then shook her head. "No. Sometimes it is, but not all the time."
Tim nodded. "What about your other friends? Do they know Amanda?"
"I don"t have any other friends."
"None?"
Mich.e.l.le"s voice dropped. Her eyes seemed to cloud over. "Ever since I fell off the bluff, n.o.body wants to be my friend."
"What about your sister?" Tim asked. "Isn"t your sister your friend?"
"She"s just a baby." There was a long silence, but Tim was reluctant to break it, sure that Mich.e.l.le was about to say something. He was right.
"Besides," Mich.e.l.le added, her voice little more than a whisper, "she"s not really my sister."
"She isn"t?"
"I"m adopted. Jenny"s not."
"Does that bother you?"
"I don"t know," Mich.e.l.le hedged. "Amanda says..."
"What does Amanda say?" Tim urged her.
"Amanda says that ever since Jenny was born, Mom and Dad don"t love me anymore."
"And do you believe her?"
Mich.e.l.le"s face took on a belligerent quality. "Well, why shouldn"t I? Daddy hardly even talks to me anymore, and Mommy spends all her time taking care of Jenny, and-and-" Her voice trailed off, and a tear slid down her cheek.
"Mich.e.l.le," Tim asked gently. "Do you wish Jenny had never been born?"
"I-I don"t know."
"It"s all right if you do," Tim told her. "I know how mad I was when my little sister was born. It just didn"t seem fair. I"d had my parents all to myself for so long, and then all of a sudden there was someone else. But I found out my parents loved me just as much as they ever did."
"But you weren"t adopted," Mich.e.l.le countered. "It"s not the same." She stood up. "May I go now?"
"Don"t you want to talk to me anymore?"
"No. At least, not right now. And not about Jenny. I hate Jenny!"
"All right," Tim said soothingly. "We won"t talk about Jenny anymore."
"I don"t want to talk about anything anymore!" Mich.e.l.le glared at him, her face set stubbornly.
"What do do you want to do?" you want to do?"
"I want to go home," Mich.e.l.le said. "I want to go home, and find Amanda!"
"All right," Tim said. "I"ll tell you what-I have to talk to your parents for a few minutes. Let"s get you a c.o.ke, and by the time you finish it, I should be done with your father and mother. How does that sound?"
Mich.e.l.le seemed about to argue with him, but suddenly her anger dissipated, and she shrugged. "Okay, I guess."
Tim opened his office door for her and smiled encouragingly at June and Cal. "We"re going to get Mich.e.l.le a c.o.ke," he told them. "You can go in-I"ll be right back."
"Thank you," June murmured. Cal made no response at all.
They were waiting when he got back, June sitting nervously in the chair Mich.e.l.le had occupied a few minutes earlier, Cal standing at the window, his back stiff. Even though his back was to him, Tim could sense Cal glaring. He sat down in his chair and fingered Mich.e.l.le"s file.
"What happened?" June asked.
"We had quite a conversation."
"And do you agree with my wife? Do you think Mich.e.l.le"s crazy?"
"Cal, I never said that," June protested.
"But it"s what you think." He faced Tim. "My wife thinks both Mich.e.l.le and I are crazy."
The expression on June"s face, a combination of exasperation and pity, told Tim everything he needed to know.
"Mr. Hartwick-" June began. Then she floundered.
Tim came to her rescue. "Why don"t you call me Tim? It makes things easier. Dr. Pendleton? Can I offer you a chair?"
"I"ll stand," Cal said stiffly, maintaining his position at the window. June shrugged, her face lifted to his, and Tim understood the gesture immediately. He decided, for the moment, not to press Cal.
"We talked about this friend of hers-Amanda," he told June.
"And?"
"Well, as far as I can tell, she seems to think Amanda is real. Not necessarily physically real, but definitely a person other than herself. A person who exists independently of her."
"Is that-is that normal?"
"In a small child, say a three-year-old, it"s not that unusual."
"I see..." June said. "But not for Mich.e.l.le. Am I right?"
"It may not be all that serious," Tim began, but Cal had turned away from the window and interrupted him.
"It isn"t serious at all!" he said sharply. "All she"s done is dream up a friend to get her through a rough time. Frankly, I don"t see what all the fuss is about."
"I wish I could agree with you, Dr. Pendleton," Tim said quietly. "But I"m afraid I can"t. Your daughter is in the midst of some very serious problems, and unless you"re willing to face them, I don"t really see how you can help her."
"Problems" June repeated. "You said problems. You mean more than her adjusting to her-her condition?"
Tim nodded. "I"m not even sure her leg is the main problem. In fact, I"m almost sure it"s not. It"s her sister."
"Jenny?" Cal asked.
"Oh, G.o.d, I was afraid of that," June moaned. She turned on Cal. "I told you. I"ve been telling you for weeks, but you wouldn"t believe me!"
"Dr. Pendleton, Mich.e.l.le doesn"t think you love her anymore. She thinks that, because she"s adopted, you stopped loving her when you had a baby of your own."
"That"s ridiculous," Cal said.
"Is it?" June asked, her voice hollow. "Is it really?"
"It seems her friend Amanda told her so," Tim said.
June stared at him blankly. "I"m not sure I understand."
Tim leaned back in his chair. "Well, it"s not really all that difficult to put together. Mich.e.l.le is having some thoughts and feelings right now that are totally foreign to her. She doesn"t like them. In fact, they"re tearing her apart. So she"s invented Amanda. Amanda, essentially, is the dark side of Mich.e.l.le"s personality, and Mich.e.l.le simply transfers all her-how shall I say it? Uglier? I guess that"s a good enough word-she transfers all her uglier thoughts and impulses-the ones she can"t even bear to take responsibility for-onto Amanda."
"Isn"t that what they call projecting?" Cal asked, his voice filled with a hostility that Tim chose to ignore.
"As a matter of fact, yes, it is. Except that this is a particularly extreme form. The term projecting projecting usually implies the projection of one"s own problems onto someone else, but the someone else is usually quite real, A good example would be the faithless husband who constantly feels that his wife is cheating on him." usually implies the projection of one"s own problems onto someone else, but the someone else is usually quite real, A good example would be the faithless husband who constantly feels that his wife is cheating on him."
"I"m aware of the definition," Cal said.
Tim decided he"d had enough. "Dr. Pendleton, I get the feeling you"d rather not be hearing any of this. Am I right?"
"I"m here because my wife demanded it of me. But I think we"re wasting our time."
"Maybe we are," Tim agreed. He folded his hands placidly and waited. He didn"t have to wait long.
"You see?" Cal asked June. "Even he says we may be wasting our time. If you want to go on with this, you"ll have to do it alone. I"ve heard enough." He started toward the door, then turned back. "Are you coming?"
June met his gaze, and when she spoke, her voice was calm. "No, Cal, I"m not. I can"t make you listen, but I"m going to. If you want, you can wait for me. Otherwise, you can take Mich.e.l.le, and I can walk home."
Tim, who had been watching Cal carefully, was sure he saw Cal flinch slightly at the mention of Mich.e.l.le, but he said nothing, waiting to see what Cal would do.
"I"ll wait," Cal said. He left the office, closing the door behind him. When he was gone, June turned back to Tim.
"I"m sorry," she said. "He-well, he just can"t seem to face any of this. It"s been terrible."
Tim was silent for a moment, allowing her her anguish. Then he said, very softly, "I think I can help Mich.e.l.le. She"s under a lot of pressure-her physical condition, for one thing. It isn"t easy for a child suddenly to become a cripple. On top of that, there"s the whole thing with Jennifer. And, of course, the whipped cream on the cake is her father"s att.i.tude. All together, it"s putting Mich.e.l.le under a lot of pressure, and things are coming loose."
"Then I was right," June breathed. It was as if a weight was being lifted from her shoulders. "Why does that make me feel so much better?"
"It"s always better," Tim a.s.sured her, "to understand a problem. It"s when you don"t know what"s going on that you feel completely lost. And at least, with Mich.e.l.le, we know what"s going on."
Mich.e.l.le sat in the teachers" lounge for a few minutes, sipping at her c.o.ke. She liked Mr. Hartwick-he listened to her, and believed her when she told him about Amanda. He didn"t tell her Amanda was a ghost, or not real, or anything like that. Idly, she wondered what he was telling her parents. Not that it would make any difference. No matter what he said to them, they wouldn"t love her anymore.
She wandered out of the teachers" lounge and onto the back stairs of the school. Billy Evans was sitting on a swing, kicking at the ground, trying to get the swing going. He was all alone, and when he saw Mich.e.l.le, he waved to her, beckoning to her. She threw away the empty c.o.ke cup and started down the stairs, leaning heavily on her cane.
"Hi," Billy said. "Will you push me?"
"Okay."
She began pushing him. He laughed happily and began begging her to push him harder.
"It"s too high," Mich.e.l.le said. "You shouldn"t even be on these swings. You should be on the little ones."
"I"m big enough," Billy replied. "I can even walk the backstop."
Mich.e.l.le glanced out to the baseball diamond, where a makeshift backstop had been constructed from two-by-fours and some wire mesh. It stood about eight feet tall and was some twenty feet long. Mich.e.l.le had seen some of the older boys, the boys her age, scrambling up it, then walking its length. But the younger boys, the boys Billy"s age, never dared.
"I never saw you," Mich.e.l.le said.
"You never looked. Let the swing die down, and I"ll show you."
Mich.e.l.le stopped pushing, and Billy let the swing go through its arc once. Then, as it reached its forward peak, he jumped off, landing on his feet and running out toward the baseball field.
"Come on!" he called over his shoulder. Mich.e.l.le started after him, moving as fast as she could, but by the time she reached him, he was already scrambling up the wire.
"Be careful," she warned him.