“How did you lose your balance? It’s only the stairs! Did you hit your head?”
Sorrow reached out to grab Verity’s chin, lifted her face to look her in the eye. She didn’t even know what to look for. Verity’s eyes seemed normal. She was avoiding Sorrow’s gaze, but her pupils weren’t pinpoint small or blown wide. A touch on Sorrow’s shoulder—Grandma, leaning down to look too.
Verity pushed Sorrow’s hand away a second time and shifted around so she was sitting on the step. “Stop crowding me. I’m fine.”
“Should I call 911?” Ethan was standing in the kitchen doorway; he already had the phone in hand.
Verity’s gaze snapped up to him. “What are you doing here?”
Ethan blinked, taken aback. “I, uh, came over to—should I?” He was asking Grandma, not Verity.
“You’re not supposed to be here today,” Verity said. She looked away from him quickly, her cheeks burning pink. “We didn’t ask you to come over.”
“But I—”
“Put the phone down.”
“What the fuck,” Sorrow said. “He’s only trying to help. You fell. You could be seriously hurt.”
“I’m not hurt at all. I’m fine,” Verity said. “I’d be a lot more fine if you weren’t all crowding around me like I’m some kind of zoo animal.”
Sorrow gave Ethan an apologetic look. “Just wait outside?”
He nodded and hung up the phone; the screen door clapped as he went out to the porch.
“Do you need a doctor?” Sorrow said. Her voice was shaking; she swallowed, hard, and her throat ached. “Did you hit your head?”
“Nothing happened,” Verity said. She put her hands down to lever herself up, but she changed her mind and sat on the step again. “I just got a little dizzy. I missed the top step.”
“Okay, but, how did—” Sorrow looked up at Grandma, down at Verity again, her mind buzzing with an awful possibility. “When did you last have anything to eat?”
“What? I had dinner with you last night. Don’t be stupid.”
Some part of Sorrow’s mind was mildly shocked at Verity’s words—she had never called Sorrow stupid before, she didn’t say things like that—but she brushed it aside, because Verity was avoiding her eyes, turning her head this way and that to keep from looking at Sorrow and Grandma.
“You barely ate two bites last night.” Sorrow’s voice was so unsteady she nearly choked on the words. “You didn’t have any lunch or breakfast. You were working outside for hours and—did you even have any water? You were out there for hours. Did you eat the day before that?” The question rose to a frightened pitch. She couldn’t remember. She hadn’t been paying attention. How could she not have been paying attention? She looked up at Grandma. “Has she eaten anything? When did she last eat anything?”
Grandma shook her head.
“What the fuck!” Sorrow shouted. “That’s not an answer! How can you not know? It’s been three days? Is that how long? How can—”
“Stop shouting, Sorrow,” Verity snapped. “You’re overreacting.”
“Don’t tell me to stop shouting when you’re not eating! What the fuck are you even—”
Grandma touched Sorrow’s shoulder, and Sorrow closed her mouth with a click. Grandma nudged her aside, and Sorrow stepped back, crossed her arms over her chest, uncrossed them, wrapped them again around her middle.
Grandma eased herself, knees cracking, to squeeze in beside Verity on the stairs. She unclipped her pen from the string around her neck and wrote something in her notebook.
“No,” Verity said. “I don’t think that’s—”
“What?” Sorrow said.
Grandma was still writing.
“Do you need a doctor?” Sorrow asked. “Does she need a doctor?”
Grandma’s hand stilled, and for a moment neither of them moved. There was worry in the lines around Grandma’s eyes, and in the shadows on Verity’s face there was doubt and stubbornness and something almost like shame.
Verity let out a breath. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll call her.”
Grandma nodded shortly. She held out a hand, and Sorrow helped her to her feet. Verity refused the same help, but she kept one hand on the wall as she stood and made her way into the kitchen. Grandma nudged Sorrow’s elbow and pointed to the back door.
“But,” Sorrow began, and Grandma pointed again.
Sorrow let herself be steered outside, across the porch and down the steps, Grandma following right behind her. Ethan hadn’t left; he was waiting on the lawn.
“Is she okay?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Sorrow said. “I don’t think she’s badly hurt. Who is she calling?”
Grandma held out her notebook.
On the first line: You have to call Dr. Parker.
The name was familiar. Verity’s psychiatrist, the woman who had been treating her since her first hospitalization eight years ago. She had come up during their phone conversations over the years.
And on the second: You are scaring your daughter.
A storm of questions crowded into Sorrow’s mind. This was terrain she didn’t know how to navigate. She hadn’t even noticed that Verity wasn’t eating—but that wasn’t entirely true. She had noticed, but she hadn’t known she was supposed to pay attention. Long hours of quiet, days spent in bed, a quiet retreat from the world, these were the things she had been worrying about, the anxious thoughts gnawing at her mind like bugs hollowing out a fallen log, but she hadn’t known to look for this one.
She and Grandma and Ethan stood side by side at the base of the steps, staring toward the house, waiting. They could hear only the murmur of Verity’s voice, see only her silhouette through the screen door. Sorrow rubbed at her arms. The air was damp and misty, teasing her skin with the faintest promise of rain. She hadn’t known. She should have known.
27
DR. PARKER WAS an older woman with buzzed gray hair and horn-rimmed glasses. She wore a brown cardigan, a flowing long skirt, and hiking shoes. She didn’t look like a psychiatrist; she looked like any woman who might be browsing the weekend farmers’ market, arguing over the price of ramps and fiddleheads.
“Sorrow,” she said, and she smiled. “You are Sorrow, aren’t you?”
Sorrow nodded stiffly.
“My name is Miranda Parker. I’m your mother’s doctor.”
“Are you going to—can you check her out? She fell—”
“She told me about that. How are you feeling?” Dr. Parker blinked at Sorrow expectantly.
Sorrow stared right back at her. “I’m not the one who fell down the stairs.” And I have my own therapist, thanks, but she kept that thought to herself.
“You did have a very traumatic experience the other day,” Dr. Parker said. “It’s okay if you’re not fine. Is your grandmother here?” Dr. Parker leaned to look around Sorrow. “Good morning, Miss P.”
Grandma stood in the doorway to the kitchen with her arms crossed. She didn’t even nod a greeting.
“Where is Verity?” Dr. Parker asked.
“Upstairs,” Sorrow said. “She went to get dressed.”