Chapter 1

Dr. Perry wanted him to touch her face as soon as the door closed. When he hesitated, she said, “Max, please, I want us to trust each other. We can’t do that if you think I’m some disembodied voice. Like Charlie on Charlie’s Angels.”

“What?”

“It’s an old television series. They remade it into a movie too. You never saw it?”

“I didn’t watch a lot of TV.”

“Well, never mind. It’s not important. What’s important is establishing trust. I’m here to help you, Max.”

She put her hands on his shoulders, fingernails digging into the knitting of his sweater. From the smell of her hands, she must have painted the nails this morning. Or she might have gone to a beauty shop; doctors could afford such luxuries.

Dr. Lee had made a point of explaining to Max during one session how much his watch cost. “These are the kind of items people can buy when they put their minds to achieving great things,” Dr. Lee said. Max leaned back in his chair and remained impassive. He didn’t want to listen to another lecture about why he should leave the relative safety of Gull Island Psych for the “real world” as the doctor called everything outside the hospital’s windows.

“I’m not ready for this, Doctor,” he said.

“Nonsense. I’m not asking you to go steady. This is all professional. Now, give me your hand.”

“I don’t—” Before he could finish, one of her hands released his shoulder and took his free hand. When he resisted, she laughed, the sound like a cartoon donkey.

“You’re just like my brothers. They can take apart a carburetor or gut a deer without flinching, but they tense up if a stranger touches them.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be silly. It’s not your fault you were born with a missing chromosome.” When he said nothing, she added, “That was a joke. I’m kidding.”

“Oh.”

“Now come on, let’s get this over with. I’m in no hurry, but I’m sure the state doesn’t want me to bill them for an entire day’s worth of therapy.”

She placed his hand on her left cheek. As he traced the contour of the cheekbone, he noted the way the skin bulged as though she were holding in a breath. He swept his fingers across puffy lips still tacky with make-up. “Did I smear it?”

“Don’t worry about it. Go on.”

He jiggled a loose flap of skin beneath the jawbone before running his fingers up to her temple. The hair there felt stiff; she must have it pulled away from her face. Her eyebrows were plucked and shaped into flattened arches. His thumb brushed against the cool metal of her glasses frames. He skimmed the nearly flat plane of her nose. “My eyes are brown. If that helps you at all.”

“Yes,” he said. Of course brown had dozens of shades, but he imagined them to be a yellowish-brown, like his mother’s. She wasn’t Mom. Mom died. This was a doctor.

“Something wrong?”

“No. I’m trying to be careful.” He wiped his hand along her high forehead, feeling the skin there warm to his touch. “Nervous?”

“A little,” she said. “Have you done this often?”

“Twice.” On his parents as they lay in bed, already cold and unmoving. Dead.

Her hair felt as dry as the grass of McAlbee Point in the summertime. She wore a velvet headband to keep the hair out of her face, the kind he remembered the girls in school wearing. The top of her headband came up to his shoulders. That made her what, five-four? “The box says it’s Saharan Sunrise. Like a strawberry blonde, I guess.”

He followed the doctor’s hair to where the ends turned inward at her shoulders. He smelled a mixture of rose, sandalwood, and something else. Freshly-cut grass? Maybe she had a window open behind her, although he couldn’t feel any air coming in. He let his hand drop. “Is that all? You don’t want to feel my boobs?”

“What?”

“I’m joking.”

“Oh.”

“Well then, let’s get to work. Have a seat, unless you want the janitor to bring up a couch from the basement.”

“A chair is fine.” He tapped one set of chair legs with the tip of his cane and then found the other set. With his free hand he searched for the back of the chair and felt the fan-shaped surface. He lowered himself slowly into the chair, giving himself time to adjust in case he missed, as happened during the first session with Dr. Heathcoate at Washington Juvenile. After sinking into the leather, Max rested his cane between his legs and leaned forward.

He listened to her chair scrape back from the desk and then creak beneath her weight. Given the pudgy cheeks, double chin, and her height, he put her at around two hundred pounds. Give or take five pounds. The other patients at Gull Island Psych had always enjoyed having Max guess their height and weight. He learned to use his cane to tap the contestant’s shoulders and head as if knighting them. Audio clues like heavy breathing or how a chair creaked when they sat down gave him an idea about the person’s weight. Harvey Feldman—in for schizophrenia—would call out like a carnival barker, “Step right up, folks! Meet the amazing Max the Great! You’ll be astounded by Max the Great’s phenomenal psychic prowess!” Sometimes Harvey would go on like that until one of the orderlies took him away to the isolation room. Max never enjoyed the game, but he played along until he could get within an inch and five pounds with one try.

The chair scraped again and then Dr. Perry cleared her throat. “Now I think we can trust each other. We’re not strangers anymore. So I’m going to make a deal with you. I’ll do my damnedest to make sure your transition is successful, but you have to do something for me. Are you listening?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I need you to want this transition to be successful. If you don’t want to reintegrate into society, then it’s never going to happen. All my fancy degrees and psychological know-how are useless if you don’t want to help yourself. So, do you want to be successful?”

“Yes.”

“Then say it.”

“I want to be successful,” he said, but his voice made it sound uncertain, like a question.

“That’s good to hear. That’s the first step.” Papers shuffled on her desk and then she said, “I’ve reviewed the files Dr. Lee sent over. You’ve made a lot of progress in the last two years. It’s remarkable.”

“Thanks.”

“Dr. Lee thinks you’re ready to handle the outside world and so do I. But we’re going to take things slowly. No one expects you to function independently right away. It’s going to take time. That’s why you’ll see me three times a week—Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday—for the first couple months. When you’re feeling more comfortable, then we can reduce the number of sessions.”

“OK.”

“You’ll stay at Midway House for the first three months. Mrs. Garnett will keep track of your progress and let me know about any problems. The three of us will get together at the end of the three months and decide whether you’re ready to live on your own.” A pen scratched on paper and Max wondered what the doctor had written. “It’s not going to be easy. There’s a lot you need to learn to do for yourself. Cooking, cleaning, laundry, but if it makes you feel better, none of my brothers have mastered those skills either.”

She paused, as though waiting for Max to laugh or make a comment, but he didn’t. The one thing he knew about doctors after twenty years was no matter how friendly they acted, they never saw him as anything more than a problem to be fixed. He’d made the mistake of trusting Dr. Heathcoate’s overtures of friendship at Washington Juvenile and regretted it ever since. As jovial as this Dr. Perry seemed, she didn’t care any more about Max than some complete stranger.

She must have tired of waiting for his reaction, because her voice turned colder when she continued. “In addition to playing house and seeing me, you’ll need to find employment.” Something—a folder?—slapped against the desktop. “I think I’ve found a job perfect for you. Dr. Lee says you can play the piano. Is that right?”

“Yes. My dad taught me, but I don’t play much anymore.”

“I’m sure you can pick it up again pretty quickly. Like riding a bike.”

“Maybe.”

“The reason I bring it up is Pastor Robbins over at Holy Redeemer Lutheran needs someone who can play. The last pianist, Mrs. Caulkins, started when people still came to church in horses and buggies. She’s finally retiring, so the pastor needs a replacement. You’d be playing the piano for the regular services and other events. The pay isn’t much, but this is just a starter job. You know, get something on the résumé and a reference for later. Are you interested?”

“I guess.”

She clucked her tongue. “I don’t like the sound of that. Are you interested or not?”

“I’m interested.”

“Good. Tomorrow you can go over to the church and Pastor Robbins will give you the grand tour. You should know that I usually go to the late service on Sundays, so I’ll get to hear for myself how you’re progressing.”

“Oh.”

“Well, I think we’ve got just about everything settled for today. You can even go back to Midway House a little early. Unless you have any questions?”

“No.”

“I know this seems different and a little scary, but give it time. You’ll see there’s nothing to worry about.” The chair creaked again and then she came around the desk. She thrust a card into his fingers. “You call me anytime. If you have a question or just want to talk, or heck, if you want to tell me about the Mariners game, give me a call. I’ve put my office, home, cell, and pager numbers on there in Braille. Basically, if you can’t get a hold of me I must be dead.”

“Thanks, Dr. Perry,” Max said. He slipped the card into his pocket and rose from the chair.

“You can call me Lindsey. I’ll see you on Wednesday. Let me know how things go with Pastor Robbins.”

“I will.” Max closed the door behind him. Then he started down the corridor the way he’d come.

Why couldn’t the doctors see he didn’t want their help? He didn’t want to live in the “real world” with its dangers. He wanted to hide in his cell, the thick walls giving him absolute privacy. Not like the paper-thin walls of Midway House.

His first night there, he’d been sleeping when he found himself in the dream of Sheila, the girl in the room next to his. She suffered from anorexia and had once tried to kill herself. In the dream she went to her closet, but instead of clothes hung a row of flabby stomachs. She took one down and went to the mirror to try it on like a blouse. Max pulled out of her dream before she woke up screaming and then moved his bedding into the opposite corner of the room.

Mrs. Garnett didn’t understand why he’d asked to move the bed and he doubted this Dr. Perry would either if he explained. In twenty years, no one had ever believed him. “It’s a delusion you conceived to transfer the blame for your parents’ death onto yourself,” Dr. Lee had explained once. What had happened to his parents was no delusion; he’d watched them die.

He stopped in the middle of the hallway. A smell like urine mixed with a lemon-scented antiseptic hung in the air, potent enough to give him a headache. He didn’t remember this odor from earlier; he must have taken a wrong turn. He’d counted the number of steps and memorized the turns on his way in, but after the session in Dr. Perry’s office he’d been distracted. At Gull Island Psych he’d never gotten lost; orderlies were always nearby to lend assistance. Now he would have to find someone to ask for help and listen to the stranger’s patronizing tone, making him feel like an invalid.

Then he heard voices begin to shout medical terms he didn’t understand. The shouting headed towards him along with the ominous rumbling of a gurney. The sound of the wheels on the tile floor reminded him of hiding in the pantry, listening to the paramedics take his unconscious parents away, though it was much too late to save them.

He ran his hands along the wall as the voices drew closer until he found a door handle. He fumbled with the knob and then yanked open the door, throwing himself inside to wait for the gurney and medical team to disappear. Before he could turn around to find out where he’d gone, there was a flash of light and then he could see again.