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Reality testing Like everything that’d happened to me this past winter wasn’t real I stared at the patterned carpeting beneathIt was all real All of it But I can’t tell anyone about it You knohat’ll happen to you when I leave this room? If you believe me?”

“No ” Her face looked like she was sucking on an increasingly sour candy “Why don’t you tell me?”

“The Shadoill co I said Maybe even of ed the carpet with my toe

“Edie, how long have you been having these delusions?”

I didn’t answer her

“I know you’re a nurse, and no one wants to put you on meds less than I do, but ether and check in with hiency visit, and then you can go fill your prescription Risperdal does wonders for people ”

“Risperdal?” I startled and looked up I was crazy … but I wasn’t crazy “No ”

“Edie—” Her voice went low I grabbedto hurt yourself, are you?”

“Not if I don’t stay here,” I said as I shut the door behind me

In nursing school I’d done a psych rotation The nurse I was following and I ate Risperdal-endorsed microwave popcorn out of a brand-new plastic bedpan It was incongruous at the ti in even a s out of bedpans like they were bowls for food After that, I’d alwayswhateveraround

I didn’t want to be on the h I knew meds were helpful—vital, in some cases—for depression It was just that … well, ht that it was the stress of working with vampires and werecreatures that did me in, but no,

I drove ho over ht about the fact that I had to work tonight My sto at the sleep clinic was killing my soul

There’re only so hts you can watch someone sleep on a video monitor and stay sane I had two years of intensive-care-level experience, and yet

I’d spent the last sixto thehter pilot to aat a Toys “R” Us

My phone rang I saw the picture of my mom, and picked it up like you’re not supposed to in the car “Hey, Momma—”

“Hey, Edie! Can you come over?”

A lifeti my mother’s child“Um, sure Why?”

She attempted to deflect me “You’re not on the phone in your car, are you?”

“No,” I co?”

“Nothing—I just—” She hesitated Mythem

As I waited her out,it could be The list was shorter than it’d been sixht have panicked and hung up to call the cops, for whatever good they could do

Thank goodness she’d never knohere I’d been working, who I’d been hanging out with, or what I’d been up to

Now the first spot on my reasons-my-mother-could-call-me-in-the-middle-of-the-day list was occupied squarely by my brother Jake had had a brief reprieve fro at the hospital As long as I was eic to keep him immune to heroin’s effects, no matter how much he shot up

He’d been clean up until I’d gotten shunned, when his protection abruptly ended And sure enough, Jake had been hooked again soon after I tried not to think about hi about him only made me sad

I stopped at a red light as the aard lull on the phone continued “I just got some bad news is all,” ht?”

“Of course I aain Whatever it was, it must be bad I prepared utter The ie came too readily to mind, followed by sadness and shameful relief