The Twin Missing From the Family Photo novel · Chapter 16 of 24
Chapter 16: The Attic
"What will he do to you?" I asked.
Ivy looked down the hall toward the dining room, where the clink of dessert plates had started.
"Not here," she said. "Come up."
She led me past my old bedroom, now Ivy's dressing room, and the linen closet, and pulled the cord for the attic stairs.
The steps came down with a groan.
She climbed them one at a time, with the cane hooked over her arm, and I came up behind her.
It was the attic where we used to hide at nine, with a flashlight and a bag of pretzels.
The old mattress was still there, under a sheet.
Ivy sat on it and I stood, because I was too angry to sit.
"You said you'd do it at the gala," I said. "You let me come to that table tonight and sit through his version."
"I let you sit through it for twenty-two years."
"That is not an answer."
"It is the only one I have."
Her voice cracked, and she pressed her lips together.
"Say what he'll do."
"When I was sixteen, I told Aunt I was tired of being sick," Ivy said. "I said I wanted to go to school like everyone else. She told Dad. He said I was confused."
"Confused."
"He admitted me to the third floor of his hospital for nine days. I was on his wing. The nurses called him Doctor and called me poor thing." She said it flatly. "He has my medical power of attorney, Carrie. I signed it at eighteen, because I didn't know what else to do with a paper he handed me. He can say I'm unwell and I'll be upstairs by midnight."
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