Vanishing Acts by Jodi Picoult Page A

Ruthann picks up one of her Barbies. “Don't know if this'll have the same staying power, but I'm trying.” She reaches onto a shelf and pulls down a Kelly doll, Barbie's little sister, which she offers to Sophie. “Bet you'd like this,” she says.
Sophie immediately sits down on the floor and begins to pull off Kelly's elastic clothes. “I have a Kelly at home.”
“Ah. And where's that?”
“Next door,” I interrupt. I am not ready to tell this woman our story yet. I don't know that I'll ever be ready.
Ruthann squats down beside Sophie and pretends to pull out of her ear a long, red shoelace. It reminds me so much of my father, doing his magic tricks at the senior center, that tears line the column of my throat. “Well,” Ruthann says. “Will you look at that.”
At the end of the shoelace is a key. Ruthann cups her hands around Sophie's tiny face. “You come play with my dolls whenever you want, Siwa.” Then she gets to her feet slowly and presses the key into my palm. “Don't lose it,” she warns. I nod. I think of all the ways I might interpret those words. It takes two people to make a lie work: the person who tells it, and the one who believes it. The first lie my father must have told was to me–that my mother had died in a car crash. But why didn't I ask, when I was old enough, to visit her grave?
Why didn't I question the fact that I had no maternal grandparents or uncles or cousins who ever visited? Why didn't I ever look for my mother's jewelry, her old clothes, her high school yearbook?
There were times when Eric was drinking that he'd come home, too careful in his movements to not be intoxicated. But instead of calling him on his bad judgment, I'd pretend everything was fine, just like he was doing. You can invent any fiction and call it a life; I thought that if I did it often enough, I might start to believe it. Sometimes, when you don't ask questions, it's not because you are afraid that someone will lie to your face.
It's because you're afraid they'll tell you the truth.
There are bonuses to this trailer: you can walk the entire length of it, four times, in a single breath. You can stand in the kitchen and see into the bedroom. The kitchen table cleverly converts into an extra bed. To Sophie's delight, the entire interior is painted Pepto-Bismol pink, down to the toilet seat.
There's a phone book.
There are seventy-seven listings for “Matthews” in the Greater Phoenix Region. Thirty-four live in Scottsdale. Just as the operator told me, there's no Elise Matthews, no E. Matthews, nothing that I could trace to my mother. It is entirely possible that she's become a different person, too.
The previous occupant, in a fit of mercy, has left behind an oscillating fan. I set it up in the bedroom, pointing directly at Sophie and Greta, who have curled up on top of the double mattress. Then I step outside and sit on the stoop. It is still blistering hot, although the sun has nearly set. The sky seems wider here, stretched like cellophane, and the stars are starting to come out. I am convinced they are a puzzle. If I stare at them hard enough, they'll move of their own accord; they will link their sharp arms and spell out all the answers.
We say it all the time–how we'd give up anything for someone we love–but I wonder, when push comes to shove, who'd truly step up to the line. Would Eric jump in front of a bullet to save me? Would I do it for Eric? What if it meant I'd die, or be paralyzed forever? What if it meant that I could never go back, that my existence would be divided from that point on into before and after?
The only person I can honestly say I'd save without a second thought is Sophie, simply because in the accounting scheme of my heart, her life means more than mine.
Had my father felt that way, too?
I take out my cell phone and dial Fitz, but his voice mail picks up. I dial Eric, and he answers. “Where are you?” I ask.
“Looking at the most amazing view,” Eric says, as an