for the grub. The other comes back with a “Hell no, you won’t. Last time you ate half my fries. We both go. No one here to worry about anyway except those new ones down the hall. The doc will watch out for them. He’ll call us if they pull anything funny.”
There’s a whisper and a laugh, a private joke shared between two men with nothing better to do than exchange idiocies. A whir of machinery sounds as the metal grate separating their domain from the rest of the entry closes, then heavy footsteps, then nothing. Silence.
Silence, except for the scream inside me.
The doc will watch out for them.
Of course. Freddie needs to see a doctor.
Quietly, I shut the door and head for the small bathroom, where I comb out the rat’s nest on my head, throw on jeans and a blouse, leaving the top buttons of the white cotton shirt undone just enough to look casual without it coming off as an invitation. It’s then I realize I’m making noise—the sounds coming out of me are all the sounds a human can make. Crying. Sobbing. Some animalistic guttural sound that can’t belong to me. Hissing and whistling and wheezing. But no words, only some primitive form of communication, some ancient way of putting thoughts into sounds.
They work, those ancient ways. They calm me.
I scribble a note to Lissa and Ruby Jo, telling them I’ll be back before lunch, and I walk down the hall in the direction Alex went last night.
He’s on his sofa writing when I reach the half-open door. His hand freezes, rich-boy Montblanc fountain pen in midair, and he looks up, throwing me that winning smile he’s always had for me, even when Malcolm is around.
“Can I talk to you?” I say.
“Come on in.”
The apartment is at least double the size of the one I’m sharing with Ruby Jo and Lissa, and there’s not a hint of gray anywhere. These are the quarters for the staff who can come and go freely—the only decorations on Alex’s windows are curtains.
“Anything wrong, Elena?” he says.
Where do I start?
I could tell him I’m in one of almost fifty state institutions, that I have bars on my windows instead of brocade curtains, that I haven’t said more than five words to my daughter since Monday morning, that Malcolm has filed for divorce and Anne wants nothing more to do with me. But I think Alex Cartmill might know most of this already.
“You said you were the doctor here. Just wondering if you could maybe check up on Freddie.” I think back to a distant graduate course on blood pathology and make something up. “She looks like she’s developing sudden bruises, and I’m worried it might be a blood problem.”
Alex puts the Montblanc down and invites me to sit in one of the Eames-like chairs facing him. “Can I get you a drink? I’ve got water, tea, and bourbon. Your pick.”
“Water. Water would be great.” The bourbon sounds better.
He’s in silk slacks and a white cotton shirt, and he moves from the sofa where he was sitting to the kitchenette in that way people do when they’re used to being looked at.
“I know about you and Malcolm. I’m sorry,” he says, pouring two glasses of water. “Lemon? I’ve got lime, too, if you’d prefer that.”
I know things, too. I know that when I look toward the coffee table and read the upside-down letterhead on his clipboard it spells Genics Institute. Underneath, Alexander Cartmill, M.D. “Um, lime. If it’s easy.”
“No problem. I’ll just be a sec.”
“I’m cool.” But I’m not cool at all. Heat rises inside me in heavy waves, the kind of waves that can pull you under, tumble your body like a rag doll, leaving you disoriented and gasping for air before you realize there’s no air to be had. I try to make light conversation—about tennis, of all things—while the rest of me strains to read the document on Alex’s clipboard. There’s time for only a few words before he hands me a glass of ice water, sits down, and oh-so-casually kicks his