“Great.” I clasp my hands together in front of me. “Did you sign the required paperwork? I need it for his school.”
She picks out a piece of paper from the stack in front of her and slides it across the desk toward me.
“I’d like to see Aja once a week.”
“For this delusion stuff?” I say. “That’s fine. I’ll figure it out with work.” I pick up my phone and the paper she gave me off the desk and start to stand.
“No,” she says.
I freeze, my body not yet completely unfolded, and look at her. “No? No, what?”
“I don’t want to see him for the delusions—although his acting on them is concerning. And I disagree with his previous counselor’s assessment. I think he may be on the spectrum,” she says. “But right now, what I’d like to see him for is his grief.”
Gravity pulls me back down into the chair and my eyebrows follow suit. “His grief?” I try to recall Aja crying or behaving sadly. I can’t. I don’t even think he cried at the funeral, although my memory of that time is spotty at best, considering I was in the middle of a huge audit, working sixteen-hour days, my best friend had died, and I’d learned I was going to be doubling the number of children I had overnight. “I don’t . . . I’m not sure . . . His parents died more than two years ago. Did he tell you that?”
“No—he didn’t actually say much at all. I read it in his file,” she says. “But I just get this sense from the few things he did say that he’s never grieved them. I don’t think he knows how.”
I take this in. Is there a proper way to grieve? Step-by-step instructions? I thought you just cried a bit and got on with it. My mind flashes to the day I came home from school as a kid and my gerbil, Alvin, was lying in his cage, unmoving. “Chin up,” my mom said. “Life goes on.” I just remember thinking: Not for Alvin.
“Do you talk about his parents?” she asks, breaking my reverie. “Reminisce with him? Tell him stories?”
I mull this over. Surely I do. I think about Dinesh so often. What he would do in my shoes. How he was a far superior dad, husband, everything than I ever was. How he wouldn’t bungle things the way I often do. But do I talk about him? With Aja?
“I’m not sure,” I say.
“Hmm,” she says, but that one short syllable carries a world of judgment.
“What’s that mean?”
“Nothing,” she says. “I’d just like you to try it this week. Tell him something about his father—what was his name?”
“Dinesh,” I say. My voice cracks on the “nesh” and it surprises me. I clear my throat.
“Or his mother.”
“Kate.” Her image flashes before me. The dark, elfish locks framing plump cheeks and a smile too large for her face. I can almost hear her pinging laugh in response to Dinesh’s antics. It sounded like wind chimes on a blustery day. Or maybe that’s just my memory of it.
I swallow.
“Can you do that?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I can do that.” I gather my things and stand up for the final time. “Thank you, Dr. . . .” I look around for a nameplate, having already forgotten her last name.
“Oh, please. It’s Janet.”
ON THE WAY home, Aja is still entrenched in his game. I tap him on the shoulder. “Can you please take those out?”
“Huh?”
“Your earbuds. Take them out,” I say, louder.
He hooks a finger around each wire and tugs.
“We need to talk,” I say.
He stares at the dashboard.
“I’m going back to work tomorrow,” I say. “And you are going back to school.”
Silence.
“But the social worker at the hospital says I can’t leave you alone in the afternoon anymore, so that nice woman that came over on Tuesday, Mrs. Holgerson, will be there when you get off the bus. She’ll stay and pick up the apartment some and make dinner for us. Apparently she’s very good at Swedish food.”
When I realized I needed after-school care for Aja, Connie asked around her office and a paralegal knew of a retired nanny who was looking for something part-time. Glenda Holgerson smelled a little like cooked onions, but she had an impressive résumé and a firm but kind demeanor, and didn’t flinch when I told her about Aja’s recent troubles. I hired her on the spot and added it to the very long list of things I owe my sister for.
“Aja,” I say.
He doesn’t respond, so I keep talking. “Remember those meatballs you had at IKEA? I think she can make those. She mentioned some kind of dessert, too. Fila? Fika? Something like that. Anyway, it’ll be good for us to try some new things.”
Aja mumbles something.
“What?”
“I said, I don’t need a babysitter.”
“I know. She’s not really a babysitter. Just someone who will be there in case you need something.”
“She’s a stranger,” he says. “I don’t like strangers.”
“She’s not really a stranger. I mean, you met her on Tuesday.”
“Why can’t it just be like it was?”
“Because it can’t, OK?” I say, my voice louder than I intend.
At that, Aja picks up the earbuds and replaces them in his ears.
I sigh and flick the turn signal as I drive into the apartment complex parking lot. My phone buzzes in my pocket for the third time since we’ve gotten in the car, and when I park, I pull it out to scroll through the work calls and texts I know I’ve missed.
Five are from my boss, as I suspected.
But the sixth? Oh, the sweet sixth. It’s from Ellie.
fourteen
JUBILEE
SITTING AT THE desk in my study Friday night, I clutch the crumpled piece of paper in my fist and stare at my handwriting. Madison called twice this week to remind me we couldn’t go on our first “adventure” (her word, not mine) until I got an EpiPen. I’m not going to be responsible for your untimely death, she said in what I now recognize as her very Madison H. dramatic fashion.
But that’s not what’s compelling me to contact Dr. Zhang. Not the only thing, anyway.
The rash—the one on my stomach—has crawled up from my belly button and spread like kudzu all over my chest, my shoulders, my back. I’ve tried all the home remedies my mother became expert at to help relieve the itching, to help soothe the angry, scaly patches of red—oatmeal baths, teaspoons of Benadryl, antihistamine creams slathered on as thick as frosting on a cupcake. Nothing is working. And I know only Dr. Zhang can help me.
I punch out the email that I’ve been trying to compose for the better part of the past two days. I have to email her directly because when I called on Friday to make an appointment, the chirpy receptionist informed me that Dr. Zhang has a seven-month waiting list for new patients. I tried to explain I wasn’t exactly a new patient, but she only chuckled: “You last saw her twelve years ago? Uh, you’re a new patient, hon.”
I read back over what I’ve written. It sounds plaintive, oversimplistic, and a little desperate, but I am desperate and it’s the best I can do.
I hit “send.”
And then I wait.
Four minutes later, my email pings.