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"I get that," said Joyce "So behindon over there?"

There was a new air of confusion to the general chatter in theon Joyce to notice it before I twisted in irl outside the boundaries of the food court She was too young to be on her own--no ering toward the exit Fro, she’d hurt her foot recently If she’d been older, I would have suspected her of having had a stroke And yet her gaitabout her, possibly because the sight of a little girl towing a fully groo else see this bad ga by the rese down her cheeks Her obvious disirl’s expression into sharper relief "Let’s go back to Daddy, okay? Okay, sweetie? Please?"

The little girl--Helen, her nah I couldn’t have said exactly why--gave no indication that she’d heard a word her ly fast considering that she was barely lifting her right foot off the floor Her irl’s forward asp "There’s another one," she whispered loudly Her hand stabbed pastinto the crowd I turned to look where she was pointing, and saw awith the sairl, his expression was slack, eyes focusing on nothing in this world… and like her, he was heading straight for the exit

"What the hell…?" I stood, taking a step back, so that I was standing next to Joyce She scrath "What’s wrong with theave ious, is it? There’s not so in the air vents?"

"You’re the one orks in a lab," I said, keeping irl "Shouldn’t you knohat causes this sort of sy her, but she was slowing her down, and theto catch up I wanted to see ould happen if they saw each other I wanted to see what they would do

"Helen!" wailed the s were rapidly shortening the distance between theh his balance didn’t see to topple over But he didn’t

And then they were next to each other, and with no irl turned to face theher chin up as she stared into his eyes Their expressions re any emotion as they considered each other The entire one quiet; the only sounds were the h the speakers overhead and the pleas of Helen’s mother

Unsteadily, Helen extended her free hand toward thehis fingers around hers with so much force that it had to hurt her She didn’t react Now hand-in-hand, the pair turned and resu mother in their wake

They had almost reached the doors when the mall EMTs descended, summoned by someone who reacted better in a crisis than the rest of us They had no trouble separating the irl--when they pulled on their joined hands, the pair just let go They had o I think they may have finally threatened to sedate her, because she dropped Helen’s hand and stepped away, pleas fading into sobs

Joyce and I watched as both urneys and wheeled away, vanishing through an EMPLOYEES ONLY door into the back corridors of theover everyone who had witnessed the scene Several people had their phones out and were snapping pictures of the crowd, like the disoriented faces of the witnesses would somehow provide the answers that none of us had on our own

"I think we should go home now," said Joyce, in a very sht"

Joyce switched the radio fro her eyes off the road soto start hyperventilating "Traffic, weather, stupid coainst the wheel "Doesn’t anybody talk about anything important around here?"

"Do we need to pull over so you can calm down?" I asked the question as calainst the dashboard so hard the skin on ers was bleached bloodless white My sto stopping e that it probably wouldn’t i

"No! I’er, sending the radio skipping to the next station