I watch her exchange glances with the nurse, who then exchanges glances with Little, who forwards the glance to the doctor. It’s a Mexican standoff. I want to giggle. I don’t. Jane.
“As you know, you were unconscious in a park,” the doctor continues, “and the EMTs couldn’t identify you, so they brought you to Morningside. When you came around, you had a panic attack.”
“A big one,” pipes up the nurse.
The doctor nods. “A big one.” She inspects her clipboard. “And it happened again this morning. I understand you’re a doctor?”
“Not a medical doctor,” I tell her.
“What sort of doctor?”
“A psychologist. I work with children.”
“Do you have—”
“A woman’s been stabbed,” I say, my voice surging. The nurse steps back as though I’ve swung a fist. “Why isn’t anyone doing anything?”
The doctor snaps a glance at Little. “Do you have a history of panic attacks?” she asks me.
And so, with Little attending amiably from his chair and the nurse trembling like a hummingbird, I tell the doctor—tell all of them—about my agoraphobia, my depression, and, yes, my panic disorder; I tell them about my drug regimen, about my ten months indoors, about Dr. Fielding and his aversion therapy. It takes a while, with my voice still swathed in wool; every minute I tip more water down my throat, trickling past my words as they bubble up from within, spill over my lips.
Once I’ve finished, once I’ve sagged back into the pillow, the doctor consults her clipboard for a moment. Nods slowly. “All right,” she says. A brisker nod. “All right.” She looks up. “Let me speak with the detective. Detective, would you—” She gestures toward the door.
Little rises, the chair creaking as he stands. He smiles at me, follows the doctor from the room.
His absence leaves a void. It’s just me and the nurse now. “Have some more water,” she suggests.
They return some minutes later. Or maybe it’s longer than that; there’s no clock in here.
“The detective has offered to escort you back home,” says the doctor. I look at Little; he beams back. “And I’m giving you some Ativan to take later. But we need to make sure that you don’t have an attack before you get there. So the fastest way to do this . . .”
I know the fastest way to do this. And the nurse is already brandishing her needle.
37
“We thought it was a prank,” he explains. “Well, they did. I’m supposed to say we—or I guess we’re supposed to say we—because we are all working together. You know, ‘as a team.’ For the common good. Or something. Words to that effect.” He accelerates. “But I wasn’t there. So I didn’t think it was a prank. I didn’t know about it. If you follow me.”
I don’t.
We’re sliding down the avenue in his unmarked sedan; hazy afternoon sun blinks through the windows like a stone skipping across a pond. My head bumps against the glass, my face twinned beside me, my robe frothy at my neck. Little overflows in his seat, his elbow brushing mine.
I feel decelerated, body and brain.
“Of course, then they saw you all crumpled on the grass. That’s what they said, that’s how they described it. And they saw the door to your house open, and so they thought that’s where the incident occurred, but when they looked inside the place was empty. They had to look inside, you know. Because of what they’d heard on the phone.”
I nod. I can’t remember exactly what I said on that call.
“You got kids?” I nod again. “How many?” I extend a single finger. “Only child, huh? I’ve got four. Well, I’ll have four in January. We’ve got one on order.” He laughs; I don’t. I can barely move my lips. “Forty-four years old and a fourth kid on the way. I guess four is my lucky number.”
One, two, three, four, I think. In and out. Feel the lorazepam flying through your veins, like a flock of birds.
Little taps on the horn and the car in front of us scoots ahead. “Lunch rush,” he says.
I lift my eyes to the window. It’s been nearly ten months since I found myself on the streets, or in a car, or in a car on the streets. Ten months since I’ve seen the city from anywhere besides my house; it feels otherworldly, as though I’m exploring alien terrain, as though I’m coasting through some future civilization. The buildings loom impossibly tall, thrusting like fingers into a rinsed-blue sky above. Signs and shops streak past, blaring color: 99￠ fresh pizza!!!, Starbucks, Whole Foods (when did that set up shop?), an old fire station refitted as a condo building (units from $1.99m). Cool dark alleys; windows blank with sunlight. Sirens keen behind us, and Little shrugs the car to one side as an ambulance pushes past.
We approach an intersection, slow to a stop. I study the traffic light, glowing like an evil eye, and watch the stream of pedestrians flow along the crosswalk: two blue-jeaned mothers pushing strollers, a bent-double old man leaning on a cane, teenagers hunched under hot-pink backpacks, a woman in a turquoise burka. A green balloon, loosed from a pretzel stand, dizzies upward. Sounds invade the car: a giddy shriek, the seafloor rumble of traffic, a bicycle bell trilling. A rage of colors, a riot of sounds. I feel as though I’m in a coral reef.
“Off we go,” murmurs Little, and the car surges forward.
Is this what’s become of me? A woman who gawks like a guppy at an everyday lunch hour? A visitor from another world, awed by the miracle of a new grocery store? Deep within my dry-iced brain, something throbs, something angry and vanquished. A flush sunrises in my cheeks. This is what’s become of me. This is who I am.
If it weren’t for the drugs, I’d scream until the windows shattered.
38
“Now,” says Little, “here’s our turn.”
We ease right onto our street. My street.
My street as I haven’t seen it in almost a year. The coffee shop on the corner: still there, presumably still slinging the same too-bitter brew. The house beside it: fire-red as ever, its flower boxes crowded with chrysanthemums. The antique shop just across: dark and sulky now, a commercial space for rent sign pasted in the storefront. St. Dymphna’s, permanently forlorn.
And as the street opens before us, as we drive west beneath a vault of bare branches, I feel tears brimming in my eyes. My street, four seasons later. Strange, I think.
“What’s strange?” says Little.
I must have thought it out loud.
As the car nears the far end of the road, I catch my breath. There’s our house—my house: the black front door, the numbers 2-1-3 wrought in brass above the knocker; the panes of leaded glass on either side, the twin lanterns next to them with their orange electric light; four stories of windows staring dully straight ahead. The stone is less lustrous than I remember, with waterfalls of stains beneath the windows, like they’re weeping, and on the roof, I see a fragment of the rotted trellis. All the glass could stand to be washed—even from the street I can pick out the grime. “Best-looking house on the block,” Ed used to say, and I used to agree.
We’ve aged, the house and I. We’ve decayed.
We roll past it, past the park.
“It’s there,” I say to Little, wagging a hand toward the backseat. “My house.”
“I’d like to take you to speak to your neighbors with me,” he explains, parking the car at the curb and cutting the engine.
“I can’t.” I shake my head. Doesn’t he get it? “I need to go home.” I fumble with the seat belt, then realize that this isn’t likely to lead anywhere.
Little looks at me. Strokes the steering wheel. “How are we going to do this?” he asks, himself more than me.
I don’t care. I don’t care. I want to go home. You can bring them to my house. Cram them all in. Throw a fucking block party. But take me home now. Please.
He’s still eyeing me, and I realize I’ve spoken to him again. I huddle into myself.