looks, it’s a bit disconcerting, to come into a place with a floor plan just like mine next door, and see how someone else uses it.”
“Which is a polite way of saying you couldn’t live like this. I know what you mean about identical layouts, though. A dozen near-identical houses run cheek by jowl up this side of the street, and in every one of them the walk from the bedroom to the toilet is three steps north, seven steps east, two south, drop your drawers. I bet at rush hour, seven in the morning or eleven at night, all sixteen toilets flush simultaneously. We might as well all be rats in a Skinner box. Now, what exactly can I do for you?”
“A couple of things.” She sat herself down on Derek’s old couch, opened up her satchel, and spread several medical books on his coffee table. “These are for you to read,” she said. “I’ve saved you some trouble and marked with Post-It Notes the pages that look promising—there are a bunch of conditions I think might apply to Daphne. They’re all cross-referenced. I hope you can read my handwriting on the notes, sometimes it gets pretty tiny. I’ve been insanely busy with work so I haven’t had time to sit down and go through them properly. You, on the other hand, seem to have all the time in the world, so I’m hoping you’ll have a look at least. Ideally you should read them out loud—I think if Thomas hears them spoken, he’ll be more likely to understand. Thomas, if you hear me, it’s no slight on your intelligence, me saying this to Derek. It’s just there’s a ton of medical terminology, some of which I don’t understand myself.”
“I thought his daughter was getting better,” Derek said.
“She is. She actually got up and walked, which is like a miracle. But I still want to cover every angle. She still hasn’t been properly diagnosed.”
“Speaking of daughters, yours has stopped coming out to the back yard.”
“I know. She’s been shunning you because of how you treated her the other morning, and now she’s giving me the silent treatment too, brooding in her room. Her father told her he’s going to have a new baby. She’s not taking it well.”
“I didn’t know that part. I thought you two are still married, that you’d just recently split up.”
“That’s right.”
“Guy moves fast.”
“Guy moves sloppily, is more like it.”
“And the mom to be? It’s not your former best friend or something sordid like that, is it?”
“Not exactly. A student of his.”
“Does Betsy know her?”
“Why do you care?”
“I don’t know. I do, a little. I like Betsy. I am sorry I growled at her.”
“I think she feels she’s been replaced, and her dad’s going to abandon her. And I’m dealing with deadlines and don’t have time to deal with it. Right now I have to run to a meeting, which if it goes well will give me a chance to catch my breath and pay some attention to her. God knows she needs it.”
Derek nodded, but said nothing in reply.
“It’s nice of you to worry about her,” she added. “Especially since you told me the other day worry is maggot food.”
“I didn’t say I practice what I preach,” he smiled. “I’m a human being. We’re all liars and hypocrites.”
“Not always,” she protested. “Sometimes we’re good. Thank you for asking about her. I’ll tell her you did.”
“Whatever. Is that it?”
“No. There’s something else. Thomas has spoken to me. He spoke to Sylvanne, exactly as I asked him to.” She hesitated, searching for the right tone. “It was very cute. He was amazed you brush your teeth.”
“Jesus Christ. He’s going to have to do better than that.”
“Oh he did, he did. He’s smart enough to figure out tooth brushing isn’t all that rare and exotic in this day and age, so he moved on to something else he saw you do yesterday. You went to visit your mother, because your sister asked you to. She was worried because your mom didn’t recognize her anymore.”
Derek raised an eyebrow.
“Your mom’s only seventy-seven, but she must have some kind of early-onset dementia. Her memory is going. She lives in some kind of home. A big building with lots of floors, lots of elderly folks.”
“Uh huh.”
“And when you got to her room, she was thrilled to see you, and you were quite relieved that she recognized you—and then she called you Thomas.”
Derek’s open face turned thoughtful. “Know what?” he said. “This