her pain as she tosses it across the room and tears out her IVs. “I’m the one they
won’t let in.” He still doesn’t make a move to take it from me.
“Listen,” I say, searching for a way to motivate him, “My Mom – she
wanted me to bring this. She said the nurses scare her because they… They do
things to her. Things I can’t say. But they won’t let me visit her anymore. They–”
“They have metal detectors,” he says. “I’ll never get through with a gun.”
“Sure you will. Just–”
“Enough. We’re going home.” The engine starts again and the car jerks
quickly backward. I clasp the door handle as the parking lot lights fade around us
and then reappear in the rear-view mirror. Just like that my plan goes to shit.
“Can’t you just try to–”
“No,” he says. “I don’t know what that gun is for or why you have it, but
you should know that I’m not happy about any of this.”
38
“This is stupid,” I say. “You saw me take the bullets out of the gun, so what’s the
problem?”
“We’ll talk about it at home.” I’d planned to break out of the car once he
went inside the hospital. I’d planned to wait for two minutes and then to open
the door and flee the parking lot under the sound of car alarms so that I would
never have to smell his stinking cigars again. But here I am beside him, the smell
of cigar smoke still wrapping around my body as I try to imagine what on earth
could be awaiting me at ‘home’.
VI. Sally
We pull up outside one of the homes with the big bright windows on the
hillside. Mr. Blink gets out of the car and rounds to my side, where he ushers me
out. Trembling, I unbuckle my seatbelt and step out beside him.
“The gun,” he says. I lean in to the car to remove the gun from my seat.
When I turn around, his hand is outstretched before my face, and I drop the gun
in his palm. “Now, come inside.”
He holds open the front door for me. The hall is narrow and warmly