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Artie, there. The family had no formal visiting plan. The ceaseless routine of visiting had developed naturally, became a habit around which the rest of their lives centered.
    One day, Jane found herself alone in the hospital room and it seemed to her that Karen was sinking, deeper and deeper into that strange terrible sleep, her body slight and slender under the sheet. Occasionally, she moved, twitched, sudden involuntary movements that, for one split second, brought a flash of hope. Then, nothing, the stillness again.
    The doctor had encouraged the family to talk to Karen but Jane found it hard to do that. Just as she had found it hard to communicate with Karen at home. Although Karen was two years younger, Jane did not feel like her older sister. Karen glided easily through life, popular at school, adjusting quickly to Burnside, the telephone ringing constantly for her only a few days after the family had moved from Monument. Secretly, Jane regarded Karen as a snob, immersed in her social life at school, ignoring her parents as well as Artie and Jane herself, acknowledging Jane’s existence only when she invaded her room to borrow,without asking, her clothes, her cologne, her jewelry. Which provided arguments and accusations.
    “Why does she act like I don’t even exist and then borrows my things?” Jane had asked her mother.
    “Maybe she envies you.”
    “Me? She’s the one with a million friends, has such a flair for style …”
    “Yes, but you have taste, Jane,” her mother said. “Remember, she’s younger, she looks up to you. That’s why she borrows your things.…”
    “Then why doesn’t she just ask me? Instead of going behind my back …”
    “She’s shy …”
    Karen shy?
    “People are not always what they seem to be,” her mother said, using one of those mysterious sayings parents rely on to end conversations at a convenient moment.
    Regarding Karen in the bed, looking vulnerable and, yes, shy and unguarded, Jane said, “I’m sorry,” her voice too loud in the quiet room where the small
beep
of the monitor was the only other sound.
    “If you envied me, maybe I was jealous of you,” Jane admitted, hoping that Karen
could
hear her words. “Please come out of this, Karen, so we can talk about it, do something about it …”
    The echo of her voice died out, along with the odd but somehow comforting words she had spoken to her silent sister.
    While Karen slept in that high hospital bed, the house underwent repairs. A sophisticated alarm system, connected with police headquarters, was installed. New furniture was purchased plus three television sets, a CD set, and two VCRs. Her mother also bought new bedding—sheets and blankets to replace those that had been torn to shredsby the invaders. Her mother, in fact, went on a sad kind of shopping spree, replacing things that she thought the trashers had even
touched.
Particularly clothes. She and Jane went to the Mall and bought tops and skirts—and she brought home new shirts and underwear for Jane’s father. Meanwhile, the repairs were completed in record time as the workmen performed with urgency, working overtime willingly, as if they knew it was important to obliterate all evidence of mischief as soon as possible.
Mischief.
That was the word used by a man named Stoddard, a friend of Jane’s father who was boss of the work crew. He kept muttering the word under his breath as he directed the repairs and performed along with the crew as they scrubbed and painted and replaced.
    Within a week, the house was restored to what passed for normal. Everything bright and new. The old wallpaper had been removed from Jane’s room and she decided to have the walls painted, choosing white instead of her favorite blue. Blue was spoiled for her forever and so, in a way, was pink. She did not replace her posters but allowed the walls to remain uncluttered, untouched, pure. She wasn’t quite sure that
pure
was the right word but it suited the room