Frank crumpled the note and threw it in the trashcan beside the bed. Tiana, the black Disney princess, danced across the side of the bin in her glittering green dress, followed by a parade of magical animals.
“There are no adequate words.” Garth Flickinger had followed him upstairs and now stood behind Frank in the doorway to Nana’s room.
“Yeah,” said Frank. “I guess that’s right.”
There was a framed photo of Nana and her parents on the bedside table. Nana was holding up her prize bookmark. The doctor picked up the photo and studied it. “She has your cheekbones, Mr. Geary. Lucky girl.”
Frank didn’t know how to reply to that, so he said nothing.
The doctor, untroubled by the silence, set the photo back down. “Well. Shall we?”
They left Elaine in the bed and for the second time that day Frank took his daughter into his arms and carried her down the stairs. Her chest rose and fell; she was alive in there. But braindead coma patients had heartbeats, too. There was a good chance that their last exchange, the one Frank would take to his own death—whenever that might come—would be from the morning, him barking at her in the driveway. Scaring her.
Melancholy overtook Frank, a ground fog devouring him from the boots upward. He didn’t have any reason to expect that this dope-fiend doc would actually be able to do anything to help.
Flickinger, meanwhile, spread towels across the hardwood floor in the living room and asked Frank to lay Nana down on them.
“Why not the sofa?”
“Because I want the overhead lights on her, Mr. Geary.”
“Oh. Okay.”
Garth Flickinger settled on his knees beside Nana and opened his medical bag. His bloodshot and red-rimmed eyes gave him a vampiric look. His narrow nose and a high, sloping forehead, framed by auburn curls, added an elfin hint of derangement. Nonetheless, and even though Frank knew he was at least somewhat fucked up, his tone was soothing. No wonder he drove a Mercedes.
“So, what do we know?”
“We know she’s asleep,” Frank said, feeling singularly stupid.
“Ah, but there’s so much more to it! What I’ve picked up from the news is basically this: the cocoons are a fibrous material that seems to be composed of snot, spit, earwax, and large amounts of some unknown protein. How is it being manufactured? Where is it coming from? We don’t know, and it would seem to be impossible, given that normal female extrusions are much smaller—two tablespoons of blood in a woman’s normal menstrual period, for example, no more than a cup even in a heavy one. We also know that the sleepers appear to be sustained by the cocoons.”
“And they go nuclear when the cocoons are breached,” Frank said.
“Right.” Garth laid out instruments on the coffee table: scalpel, trimmers, and, from the black case, a small microscope. “Let’s begin by taking your daughter’s pulse, shall we?”
Frank said that was fine.
Flickinger carefully lifted Nana’s encased wrist and held it for thirty seconds. Then he lowered it just as carefully. “Resting heart rate is slightly muffled by the cocooning material, but it’s in the normal range for a healthy girl her age. Now, Mr. Geary—”
“Frank.”
“Fine. What do we not know, Frank?”
The answer was obvious. “Why this is happening.”
“Why.” Flickinger clapped once. “That’s it. Everything in nature has a purpose. What is the purpose of this? What is the cocoon trying to do?” He picked up his trimmers and clicked the blades open and shut. “So let us interrogate.”
2
When she had no one else to talk to, Jeanette sometimes talked to herself—or rather, to an imagined listener who was sympathetic. Dr. Norcross had told her this was perfectly okay. It was articulation. Tonight that listener was Ree, who had to be imagined. Because Officer Lampley had killed her. Soon she might try to find where they’d put her, pay her respects, but right now just sitting in their cell was good enough. Right now it was all she needed.
“I’ll tell you what happened, Ree. Damian hurt his knee playing football, that’s what happened. Just a pickup game with some guys at the park. I wasn’t there. Damian told me no one even touched him—he just pushed off, going to rush the quarterback I guess, heard a pop, fell down in the grass, came up limping. ACL or an MCL, I always forget which, but you know, one of those. The part that cushions between the bones.”
Ree said Uh-huh.
“At that time we were doing okay, except for we didn’t have the health insurance. I had a thirty-hour-a-week job at a daycare center, and Damian had a regular off-the-books thing that paid unbelievable. Like, twenty an hour. Cash! He was working as sort of the sideman for this small-time contractor who did cabinetry for rich people in Charleston, politicians and CEOs and stuff. Big Coal guys. Damian did a lot of lifting and so on. We were doing great, especially for a couple of kids with nothing but high school diplomas. I was proud of myself.”
Ree said You had every right to be.
“We got the apartment and it was good, nice furniture and everything, nicer than anything I had when I was a kid. He bought this motorcycle almost brand new, and we leased a car for me to drive myself and our boy Bobby around in. We drove down to Disney. Did Space Mountain, Haunted Mansion, hugged Goofy, the whole nine yards. I loaned my sister money to see a dermatologist. Gave my mother some money to get her roof fixed. But no health insurance. And Damian’s got this fucked-up knee. Surgery was the best option, but . . . We just should have bit the bullet and done it. Sold the motorcycle, let go of the car, tightened up for a year. That’s what I wanted to do then. I swear. But Damian didn’t want to. Refused. Hard to get around that. It was his knee, so I let it alone. Men, you know. Won’t stop and ask for directions, and won’t go to a doc until they’re just about dying.”
Ree said You got that right, girlfriend.
“?‘Nah,’ he says. ‘I’m going to stick it out.’ And I must admit we did have a party habit. We always partied. Like kids do. Ecstasy. Weed, obviously. Coke if someone had it. Damian had some downers hid away. Started taking them to keep his knee from hurting him too much. Self-medicating, Dr. Norcross calls it. And you know my headaches? My Blue Meanies?”
Ree said I sure do.
“Yeah. So one night I tell Damian my head’s killing me, and he gives me a pill. ‘Try one of these,’ he says. ‘See if it don’t sand the edge off.’ And that’s how I got hooked. Right through the bag. Easy as that. You know?”
Ree said I know.
3
The news became too much for Jared, so he switched to the Public Access channel, where an extremely enthusiastic craftswoman was giving a lesson on beading fringe. It had to be a pre-recording. If it wasn’t, if this was the craftswoman’s actual current mien, he wouldn’t have wanted to meet her on a normal day. “We are going to make something beautiful!” she cried, bouncing on a stool in front of a gray backdrop.