Sharp_Objects

caged wildcat as she fired angry questions at me (Why is everything so loud? How can we live in such a tiny place? Isn’t it dangerous outside?) and demanded assurance of my love. She was burning off all that extra energy from not being bedridden several times a month.
    By August she was obsessed with female killers. Lucretia Borgia, Lizzie Borden, a woman in Florida who drowned her three daughters after a nervous breakdown. “I think they’re special,” Amma said defiantly. Trying to find a way to forgive her mother, her child therapist said. Amma saw the woman twice, then literally lay on the floor and screamed when I tried to take her for a third visit. Instead, she worked on her Adora dollhouse most hours of the day. Her way of dealing with the ugly things that happened there, her therapist said when I phoned. Seems like she should smash the thing then, I answered. Amma slapped me in the face when I brought home the wrong color of blue cloth for Adora’s dollhouse bed. She spat on the floor when I refused to pay $60 for a toy sofa made of real walnut. I tried hug therapy, a ridiculous program that instructed I clutch Amma to me and repeat I love you I love you I love you as she tried to wriggle away. Four times she broke free and called me a bitch, slammed her door. Fifth time we both started laughing.

    A lan loosened some cash to enroll Amma at the Bell School—$22,000 a year, not counting books and supplies—just nine blocks away. She made quick friends, a little circle of pretty girls who learned to yearn for all things Missouri. The one I really liked was a girl named Lily Burke. She was as bright as Amma, with a sunnier outlook. She had a spray of freckles, oversized front teeth, and hair the color of chocolate, which Amma pointed out was the exact shade of the rug in my old bedroom. I liked her anyway.
    She became a fixture at the apartment, helping me cook dinner, asking me questions about homework, telling stories about boys. Amma got progressively quieter with each of Lily’s visits. By October, she’d shut her door pointedly when Lily came by.

    O ne night I woke to find Amma standing over my bed.
    “You like Lily better than me,” she whispered. She was feverish, her nightgown clinging to her sweaty body, her teeth chattering. I guided her into the bathroom, sat her down on the toilet, wet a washcloth under the cool, metallic water of the sink, wiped her brow. Then we stared at each other. Slate blue eyes just like Adora’s. Blank. Like a winter pond.
    I poured two aspirin into my palm, put them back in the bottle, poured them back onto my palm. One or two pills. So easy to give. Would I want to give another, and another? Would I like taking care of a sick little girl? A rustle of recognition when she looked up at me, shaky and sick: Mother’s here.
    I gave Amma two aspirin. The smell made my mouth water. I poured the rest down the drain.
    “Now you have to put me in the bathtub and wash me,” she whined.
    I pulled her nightgown over her head. Her nakedness was stunning: sticky little girl’s legs, a jagged round scar on her hip like half a bottle cap, the slightest down in a wilted thatch between her legs. Full, voluptuous breasts. Thirteen.
    She got into the bathtub and pulled her legs to her chin.
    “You need to rub alcohol on me,” she whimpered.
    “No Amma, just relax.”
    Amma’s face turned pink and she began crying.
    “That’s how she does it,” she whispered. The tears turned into sobs, then a mournful howl.
    “We’re not going to do it like she does it anymore,” I said.

    O n October 12, Lily Burke disappeared on her way home from school. Four hours later, her body was found, propped tidily next to a Dumpster three blocks from our apartment. Only six of her teeth had been pulled, the oversized front two and four on the bottom.
    I phoned Wind Gap and waited on hold twelve minutes until police confirmed my mother was in her home.

    I found it first. I let the police discover it, but I found it first. As Amma trailed me like an angry dog, I tore though the apartment, upending seat cushions, rummaging through drawers. What have you done, Amma? By the time I got to her room, she was calm. Smug. I sifted through her panties, dumped out her wish chest, turned over her mattress.
    I went through her desk and uncovered only pencils, stickers, and a cup that stank of bleach.
    I swept out the contents of the dollhouse room by room, smashing my little four-poster bed, Amma’s