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"How do you think this would look if they came to visit and found you like this today? How do you think this would reflect on me? I'm capable of running a multimillion-dollar business, but not looking after one crippled girl? It would be a terrible embarrassment. Grant would wonder if I was as capable as I seem to be and he'd have every right to wonder.

"Your mother would run from the sight, of course. She would get so upset she would have to rest, and he would go to her and have to comfort her. We can't let something like that happen; we can't let that ever happen." she said.

I was too tired and in too much pain to stop her from babbling, but her words registered and I did feel shocked and a little terrified by the crazed look in her eyes when she rattled on and on.

I screamed when she washed some of the cuts and bruises, the soap cutting into me like tiny teeth.

"It's all your own fault, all the pain. Pain's good when it teaches you something. Hopefully, this time you'll learn," she said. As she worked, her eyes continued to widen and narrow like some telescopic lens being opened and closed.

"What do you mean, this time?"

She looked lost in a daze, her lips trembling softly above her teeth.

"We have to put antiseptic on it. Sister dear." "I'm not your sister!" I screamed.

Her eyes blinked and then she pulled up stiffly.

"It's just an expression," she said curtly. "You don't have to get so uppity about it. We'd be better off if you now thought of me more as your sister and not some distant aunt anyway."

I closed my eyes and groaned. I've got to get out of here. I thought. Her mind is like some clock that stops ticking and then starts at a different hour or on a different day.

When she put the antiseptic on, she did it with a vengeance, enjoying my screams and cries. I know it was supposed to be good, but in her hands, it was like some Chinese torture invented nearly two thousand years ago. Finally, it was over.

"You'd better lie down for a while," she advised.

I sat there, breathing hard, struggling to regain my composure. but I was exhausted and the pain was coming at me from so many different places. I was on the verge of passing out. Too weak to oppose her, even with shouts, I did little to prevent her from lifting me and swirling me onto my bed.

"I imagine you didn't even eat," she said, standing over me and breathing hard, her narrow shoulders lifting and falling. Her eyes drifted and she blinked rapidly. When she looked at me now, it was as if she was looking through me.

"I don't understand how you continue to look so well with the junk food you eat. You never even had a pimple problem and if you did have an occasional ugly little bump, you acted as if it was Mount Vesuvius erupting on your cheek or something," she said.

"What are you talking about. Aunt Victoria?" I asked in a voice that was barely a whisper.

'Of course you wouldn't remember. Anything ugly you block out immediately. Go to sleep. I have work to do," she said and started out.

"Wait." I called weakly. She didn't turn and a moment later, she was gone.

I'll rest. I thought. I'll rest and get back my strength and then I'll get out of here. She's going mad, drifting in and out of her own unpleasant memories. I let my eyes close and in moments, I was asleep.

I had been so exhausted from the ordeal. I slept hours and hours. In fact. when I awoke, the twilight had already begun and clouds made it even darker. Without a light on in my room, it looked so dreary. I groaned and pulled myself forward on my elbows, but the aches in my arms and in my hips were so great. I cried and collapsed on the pillow.

"Aunt Victoria,' I called. "Aunt Victoria!"

I waited. Except for the sound of the wind, now stronger, brushing over the windows and the walls of the house. I heard nothing. Was she even here? My head began to pound and I realized I hadn't eaten a thing all day and not even sipped a little water. My lips felt like two strips of sandpaper.

"Aunt Victoria!"

How could she not hear me? I was shouting now at the top of my voice?

"Are you here?"

The hallway looked dark. She was probably not here. I thought. I looked at my wheelchair. She had left it too far from my bed. Back to crawling if I wanted to get into it. I thought, but just the thought of making that effort exhausted me again. I might as well decide to climb Mount Everest, I lay there, trying to think of what I could do. The pain in my head felt like a band of electricity stretching from one temple around to the other like a crown of static.

"Aunt Victoria, please answer me if you're here," I pleaded. but I heard nothing.

Maybe she was in her office on the phone and that was why she didn't hear me. I continued to listen hard, waiting for a sound to indicate I wasn't alone in the house, but the silence lingered and seemed even deeper.

I called again and again and lifted myself on my elbows and shouted as well. Still nothing.