"Doctor would like to speak to you for a minute before you go." With that she pulled her head back into the room, where the girl was still sobbing.
On the other side of the waiting room, the two beer-smelling men burst out laughing again, and Lisey thought: Whatever may be wrong with them, they must not have been responsible for the accident. And indeed, the cops seemed to be concentrating on a white-faced boy of about the same age as the girl with the blood in her hair. Another boy had commandeered the pay phone. He had a badly gashed cheek which Lisey was sure would take stitches. A third waited his turn to make a call. This boy had no visible injuries.
Amanda's palms had been coated with a whitish cream. "He said stitches would only pull out," she told them, almost proudly.
"And I guess bandages won't stay put. I'm supposed to keep this stuff on them - ugh, doesn't it stink? - and soak them three times a day for the next three days. I have one 'scrip for the cream and one for the soak. He said to try and not bend my hands too much. To pick things up between my fingers, like this." She tweezed a prehistoric copy of People between the first two fingers of her right hand, lifted it a little way, then dropped it.
The nurse appeared. "Dr. Munsinger could see you now. One or both." Her tone made it clear there was little time to waste. Lisey was sitting on one side of Amanda, Darla on the other. They looked at each other across her. Amanda didn't notice. She was studying the people on the other side of the room with frank interest.
"You go, Lisey," Darla said. "I'll stay with her."
10
The nurse showed Lisey into EXAMINATION ROOM 2, then went back to the sobbing girl, her lips pressed together so tightly they almost disappeared. Lisey sat in the room's one chair and gazed at the room's one picture: a fluffy cocker spaniel in a field filled with daffodils. After only a few moments (she was sure she would have had to wait longer, had she not been something that needed getting rid of), Dr. Munsinger hurried in. He closed the door on the sound of the teenage girl's noisy sobs and parked one skinny buttock on the examination table.
"I'm Hal Munsinger," he said.
"Lisa Landon." She extended her hand. Dr. Hal Munsinger shook it briefly.
"I'd like to get a lot more information on your sister's situation - for the record, you know - but as I'm sure you see, I'm in a bit of a bind here. I've called for backup, but in the meantime, I'm having one of those nights."
"I appreciate your making any time at all," Lisey said, and what she appreciated even more was the calm voice she heard issuing from her own mouth. It was a voice that said all this is under control. "I'm willing to certify that my sister Amanda isn't a danger to herself, if that's troubling you."
"Well, you know that troubles me a little, yep, a little, but I'm going to take your word for that. And hers. She's not a minor, and in any case this was pretty clearly not a suicide attempt." He had been looking at something on his clipboard.
Now he looked up at Lisey, and his gaze was uncomfortably penetrating. "Was it?"
"No."
"No. On the other hand, it doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to see this isn't the first case of self-mutilation with your sister."
Lisey sighed.
"She told me she's been in therapy, but her therapist left for I daho."
Idaho? Alaska? Mars? Who cares where, the bead-wearing bitch is gone. Out loud she said, "I believe that's true."
"She needs to get back to working on herself, Mrs. Landon, okay? And soon. Self-mutilation isn't suicide any more than anorexia is, but both are suicidal, if you take my meaning." He took a pad from the pocket of his white coat and began to scribble. "I want to recommend a book to you and your sister. It's called Cutting Behavior, by a man named - "
" - Peter Mark Stein," Lisey said.
Dr. Munsinger looked up, surprised.
"My husband found it after Manda's last...after what Mr. Stein calls..."
( her bool her last blood-bool)
Young Dr. Munsinger was looking at her, waiting for her to finish. ( go on then Lisey say it say blood-bool)
She grasped her flying thoughts by main force. "After what Stein would call her last outletting. That's the word he uses, isn't it? Outletting?" Her voice was still calm, but she could feel little nestles of sweat in the hollows of her temples. Because that voice inside her was right. Call it an outletting or a blood-bool, both came to the same. Everything the same.
"I think so," Munsinger said, "but it's been several years since I actually read the book."
"As I say, my husband found it and read it and then got me to read it. I'll dig it out and give it to my sister Darla. And we have another sister in the area. She's in Boston right now, but when she gets back, I'll make sure she reads it, too. And we'll keep an eye on Amanda. She can be difficult, but we love her."
"Okay, good enough." He slid his skinny shank off the examination table. The paper covering crackled. "Landon. Your husband was the writer."
"Yes."
"I'm sorry for your loss."