“I don’t know enough about it to sound intelligent,” she said modestly. “Brain injuries are new to me.”
“They’re new to a lot of neurologists in the field too. New information is published every year. Think about it. I want you as a guest speaker. You can talk about what you’ve been through with Emma. She’s taught me several things too, and every case is different. Her IQ must have been incredible before the accident.” Whitney had lent him some of the DVDs of the episodes of The Clan, and he was impressed by Emma’s performance, and her strength in delivering her lines on a very emotional dramatic show. Whitney had played a few of them for Emma, but she seemed to have no interest in them, and no recollection that the actress on the screen was her. Her role on the series hadn’t emerged from her dormant memory bank yet, and there was no way of knowing if it ever would. There were other things they thought she needed to remember first, like the accident that had killed her mother. That was the real nucleus of the trauma and was the memory most likely to open up the rest. But there had been no recent breakthroughs since she went to find her old house, and she was content to play games and try new apps on the iPad.
Belinda and Sam joined them on Thanksgiving too, since neither had local family to be with, and they were a congenial group. Whitney prepared a delicious meal. Bailey helped carve the turkey, and Brett and Emma had made all the pies from recipes Brett had gotten from her mother in Salt Lake. Whitney had learned by then that Brett was the youngest of nine children and had twenty-nine nieces and nephews, which explained why she was so good with kids, along with her nursing skills.
Emma signed several times during lunch, and joined the conversation, and as soon as the meal was over, she went upstairs to her room and lay down on the bed. Whitney was sure she was thinking about her mother, and it saddened Whitney too that her sister wasn’t there with them. It was hard to believe that she was gone forever, and that it had only been four months since the accident.
“Is she okay?” Bailey asked Whitney when she came back downstairs after checking on Emma, and she nodded.
“I think she misses her mother. I think the things she does remember are hard for her. Maybe all that she’s forgotten is a mercy for her. At least she doesn’t need to feel sad about it. You can’t miss what you don’t remember,” she said with a sigh.
“Are you doing okay?” Bailey asked her gently and she smiled.
“I guess I’m like Emma that way. It depends on the day.”
“Have you given any more thought to the conference?” She hesitated, not sure what to say. “You’ve still got time to decide. You have a lot of good firsthand information to share, about living with a brain injured child, and the psychiatric aspects of it.”
“Maybe.” She wasn’t convinced yet, although medically she readily admitted the subject was fascinating. But her personal experiences were too close to home, and she didn’t want to violate Emma’s privacy.
All in all, it was a surprisingly nice Thanksgiving, better than she had expected. She was startled when Emma’s agent, Robert Jones, called the next day.
“How’s our girl doing?” he asked with interest. Whitney didn’t particularly like him, although she knew her sister had, and thought he was great for Emma’s career. “I’ve been getting a lot of calls recently, asking when she’ll be ready to go back to work. I’ve had some inquiries for other series, and a Disney movie, and some product endorsements. Whenever you think she’s ready, the work is there. She’s still a hot property, more so than ever with the sympathy factor. No one has forgotten her yet.”
“She’s not ready,” Whitney said firmly without going into detail. His comments smacked of exploitation to Whitney and made her angry.
“Don’t let it sit too long,” he warned her, “we don’t want producers to lose interest. She’s still a valuable commodity.” That wasn’t how Whitney viewed her, although she knew her sister had.
“She’s a little girl, Robert. She’s got a lifetime in show business ahead of her, if that’s what she wants.”
“She must miss the show,” he said in a wheedling tone that made Whitney’s skin crawl. He was the epitome of everything she hated about Hollywood. Her father had been a cut above him, and of a much higher caliber as an agent, but the theories were all the same, as far as she was concerned, and she wasn’t going to let him take advantage of Emma. He couldn’t anyway, since she couldn’t even talk, which he didn’t know and Whitney wasn’t about to tell him. He had a big mouth. “Well, keep in touch. I’ll send you some scripts after the holidays,” he said hopefully, and Whitney couldn’t wait to hang up. She wanted to keep people like him as far away from Emma as she could. Whatever Paige’s views had been on the subject, Whitney was never going to let anyone exploit Emma again. Paige had given her a career as a child star, and Whitney wanted to give her the life of a child. What Emma would want one day when she recovered remained to be seen. As long as Whitney was in charge, those decisions would be up to Emma, and no one else.
Chapter 9
Despite their different interests and philosophies about life, the one thing that Paige and Whitney had always agreed on was their love of the holidays. Christmas had always been a big event in their family, with elaborate decorations and lots of presents, an enormous tree lit up on the front lawn, and another one in the living room. When they were children, their family had celebrated on Christmas Eve with a black tie dinner, and their mother had always worn a glamorous evening gown, with a new piece of jewelry their father had given her. Even after she was gone, the girls had helped their father maintain their family traditions. After his death, Whitney put up a tree every year and Paige and Emma had come to dinner, wearing pretty dresses, and they had exchanged gifts on Christmas Eve after dinner, and met again for lunch the next day. Their celebrations were less formal once their parents were gone, but the sisters had spent Christmas together every year.
Whitney had always spent several days decorating a tree she could barely get into the house, with an elaborate angel sitting on top, and beautiful ornaments Whitney had collected for years. She was determined that this year should be no different. She wanted Emma to have a wonderful Christmas, even if they were going to be alone. Their family had shrunk dramatically, and the memories would be overwhelming for Whitney, remembering her parents and her childhood and now her sister, but she was planning to decorate a tree in her living room, as she always did. And she bought a new red velvet dress for Emma to wear on Christmas Eve. She clapped her hands when she saw it and Whitney tried it on her. It fit perfectly. Four days before Christmas, she took Emma with her to pick out a tree and had it delivered to the house.
Whitney had brought several boxes of decorations from Paige’s house, and planned to use them, so they’d look familiar to Emma. She had also brought a collection of music boxes that Paige had put on her mantel every year. Her favorite had been an antique one with an angel in it, and a crèche with baby Jesus. It played “Silent Night.” Whitney set them all on the mantel carefully, and Emma paid no attention to them. They didn’t seem to be familiar to her, and she watched with fascination as Whitney stood on a ladder hanging ornaments on the tree. Brett even got Emma to hang a few on the lower branches, and she smiled and chattered in gibberish as she did it. Whether she remembered their earlier Christmases or not, she enjoyed the process and how pretty the house looked once the decorating was complete. The night she finished the tree, Whitney turned all the lights off, plugged in the tree, and the effect was magical. She and Emma sat on the couch and admired the result.
On Christmas Eve, she and Emma had dinner together, and Emma wore her new red dress. Whitney gave her a pretty gold bracelet, and high-top pink Converse that Emma put on immediately with her velvet dress. Then Whitney tucked her into bed in her pajamas so she could fill the stockings, and pile up the gifts from Santa that she’d been hiding downstairs. Emma had believed in Santa Claus the previous year, and presumably still did. Whitney scurried around the house after taking off her dress and putting on a pink cashmere dressing gown.
She could hardly wait for Emma to open her gifts from Santa in the morning. When everything was set up in the living room, Whitney sat down on the couch and enjoyed the sight of all of it. Emma was already sound asleep, and in a moment of nostalgia, Whitney got up and wound her sister’s favorite music box, and it began playing “Silent Night,” just as Whitney remembered. She sat listening to it with tears in her eyes in the darkened house, and suddenly she heard a scream and a dark flash shot past her, shrieking, and Emma began attacking the Christmas tree, using all her strength to try and knock it down, while shouting “No!” as loud as she could.
Whitney couldn’t understand what was happening. She rushed forward to stop Emma before she knocked over the ten-foot tree and injured herself. The tree was teetering precariously, as Emma screamed and flailed wildly as she hit Whitney, with the music box playing in the background. Emma stood there distraught, dwarfed by the tree with her hands over her ears, as Whitney finally dragged her away, breathless, as she forced her to sit on the couch before she did any more damage. Then Emma rushed to the mantel, grabbed the music box, and threw it to the ground, where it broke in a million pieces at her feet and the familiar Christmas carol finally stopped. It looked like a bomb had hit the room. Some of the gifts were crushed where Emma had trampled them, and the enormous tree stood at an angle in the stand, as Whitney tried to understand what had happened and what had set her off.
“No!” Emma was still shouting again and again, and as she did, Whitney had a sudden realization. Emma had come from upstairs, and she had heard the sound of the music box. She was shaking as she looked at Whitney.
“No song! No song!” she screamed at her as Whitney realized what had happened. Emma’s hearing had returned. She had heard the music box playing “Silent Night,” and it brought back too many memories and too much pain. The cloud had lifted over her hearing. She could hear Whitney now, which was a huge leap forward, the biggest one of all so far.