“Suite,” I corrected.
“Yes, it is,” he mumbled, “very sweet.”
“Blimey, you’re an idiot, Doc.”
Dad sank back in his chair, buried his head in his hands. Admittedly, he’d been hanging by a very thin thread, but this seemed to do him in.
Dr. Wilson asked a few more questions and jotted down some notes while I studied his office. Cozy plants. Cozy chairs. A mahogany desk, no doubt the price of an Audi. And behind the good doctor, his Wall of Hubris: I counted seven framed degrees, hung with care and pride and more than a little jackassedness. Oh-ho, you don’t believe I’m important, eh? Well then, how do you explain these?!?!?!
Wilson stopped writing for a second. “Your family has a history of psychosis, I believe?”
Dad nodded. “My sister.”
A few dramatic underlines later, Wilson closed my file and pulled out a new pad of paper. It was smaller and pink. “I’m going to prescribe Aripapilazone,” he said. “Ten milligrams a day—that’s one tablet daily.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mom grab Dad’s leg and squeeze. He shifted, pulled his leg away, said nothing.
“I’m sorry,” said Mom. They were the first words she’d spoken since we’d arrived. “Is that really necessary? Dr. Makundi was of the opinion that medication, in Mim’s case, was premature.”
Wilson took off his glasses, met my father’s eyes briefly, then ripped the prescription from his pad. “I’m afraid Dr. Makundi and I disagree on this matter. It is your choice, of course, but this is my . . . professional recommendation.”
I was the only one who caught this dig at Makundi. Or the only one who cared, anyway. Professional. Insinuating Makundi’s recommendation was less than. As far as I was concerned, Wilson and Dad and their dedication to medication were more absurd than all the stuffed grizzlies in the land.
“We read about a drug that was getting good results,” said Dad, looking at the prescription. “What was it called, Evie? Ability-something . . . ?”
Mom crossed her arms and looked the other way. She had a fire in her eyes I hadn’t seen before.
The doctor nodded. “That’s this. Aripapilazone is commonly known as Abilitol.”
A pall fell over the room. A black shroud of disease and deathbeds and all the worst things from all the worst places. This mutant word, a tragic portmanteau, the unnatural marriage of two roots as different as different could be. And do you, Ability, take Vitriol to be your lawfully wedded suffix? I wanted to scream objections to the unholy matrimony, but nothing came out. My mouth was clammy and dry, full of sand. Dr. Wilson smiled ever on, rambling about the benefits of Abilitol while my father nodded like a toy bobblehead immune to the deepening shadow in the room.
As they spoke, I caught my mother’s eye. I could tell by her face she felt the deepening shadow, too.
Neither of us smiled.
Neither of us spoke.
We felt the shadow together.
5
The Sixth Letter
I WAKE UP to the hum of cross-country travel, the late sun on my face, and Arlene’s heavy head on my shoulder. (If it weren’t for her snoring, I would swear the old gal was either dead or in a coma.) Wiping away the thin string of drool dangling from Arlene’s mouth to my shoulder, I nudge her head in the opposite direction and pull my backpack into my lap.
Prone to unwieldy dreams, I’ve always found naps to be more exhausting than refreshing, and this one was no exception. I dreamed about a science project from fifth grade. We were given a map of the world and told to cut out each continent, then piece them back together as they were millions of years ago when there weren’t seven separate continents, but rather one supercontinent known as Pangaea. In real life, I did just that. But unwieldy dreams care nothing for the wields of life, and instead of cutting out continents in the dream, I decided to cut out the small state of Mississippi. Before I could do so, the page became actual land, and I found myself staring at the entire state from an aerial view: its tall boxlike shape with those sharp angles; the jutting jaw; at the bottom, a small neck running right into the Gulf of Mexico. Suddenly, Mississippi crumbled before my very eyes and sank into the water. No sooner was it gone than a mighty army of mosquitos took its place. Millions and millions of them, buzzing aimlessly, digesting hot blood, suspended in midair over the salty water. For a moment, they stayed in the exact shape as Mississippi, so it looked as if the state was still there—only buzzing, flittering about.
And then the army, as one, turned toward me.
That was when I woke up.