Prologue
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils
--William Wordsworth
February, 1996
There’s that moment, right when you wake up, when you don’t remember anything.
It even takes a second to recall your own name.
And then, as if caught in a stormy wind, debris comes flying at you. Your entire life and everything you’ve done. It feels so random, the order in which things come flying. The lightest first?
I’m in that moment, sort of. I’m not truly awake yet. I may never wake. I’m in a coma.
I know my name is Analise. I know that Ann’s dead? Yes. I know the accident killed her. I don’t know why she’s dead, but I know that she must be dead. And I think I killed her, but I can’t remember why.
Without Ann, all that’s left is vile and disgusting.
My mind spins like Dorothy’s tornado. Ann is dead! There are ambulance sirens and screams, yet utter silence when Ann leaves my body. She places a kiss on my forehead, as Mother once did, to keep the bad dreams away.
Where did my fantastical plan go wrong? We had a plan—God and me. I’d hide behind Ann for all of eternity. I wouldn’t eat much. I wouldn’t take up too much room. I’d watch from the sidelines. I wouldn’t do anything wrong, really!
And Mother would love Ann. Could love Ann.
Why did I kill her? How can she die?
I must go back and see. It was so perfect—she would take over, and I would cease to exist. My mother would love her. My mother could not love me. The man behind the curtain would make it all work.
Is the man behind the curtain me?
March, 1969
In those first few moments, there is me. I am I—Analise Elaine Katz. I am beautiful and wonderful and pure. Just as I am. As God made me? But, as I lie on my back in my crib beneath my mother’s veil of smoke, I watch her beautiful but shattered reflection in the mirrored mobile dangling above. Ever so slowly, the pieces spin, and spin, and spin some more. She blocks them—the pieces—from my own reflection. So, instead, I am forced to see hers. And I immediately know. I immediately know that I need to take cover, run for my life, get out of Dodge. Dive under my soul.
I know! I will give her someone better.
“I’ll call her Ann,” I tell God. “Maybe she’ll love Ann.”
It could have happened like this. It sort of did.
