1

“Can take this stuff off?” Gabby asks, looking up into Mom’s sky-blue eyes. “Please?”

Mom shifts on her seat and shakes her head, making her long yellow hair twirl and bounce. “We’re next to the see the doctor,” she says, for probably the tenth time this morning.

Gabby lets out an overloud sigh and slumps back in her chair. Somewhere between last night and this morning, the bandage around her hand turned dark and damp. Now it’s so gray and sopping that she’s afraid to even look at it. Plus, her fingers are really starting to ache under all that wet fabric. “I’ll just take it off for a minute,” she says.

Mom shakes her head again. “No. I told you, he’ll see us soon.”

Gabby groans. Today, soon feels more like never. She flits her goggle-eyed gaze around the room, just to find something worth looking at. Aside from the ugly green chairs and the dumb brown carpet and the weird little lanterns hanging from the ceiling, the doctor’s office is pretty much empty. “He’s probably just eating lunch in there,” she says, pointing with her left hand—her good hand—at a closed door near the end of the hall.

Mom frowns at the door, then glances down at the flowers printed on her skirt. “I doubt it,” she says, smoothing a wrinkle from one of the petals. “He’s more likely reviewing your file.” She forces a smile, her lips pulling a little too thin. Then she musses Gabby’s hair. “Yours is a special case, after all.”

Special. What a lousy word. Nothing about Gabby’s hand feels special. It feels painful, if anything. And weird. And a little bit tingly. “I think something’s wrong with me,” she says, twisting her mouth. She kicks her legs along the edge of the seat, back and forth. The dress she’s in—a starchy, bright yellow thing with miniature trees dotting the hem—bunches up around her knees, and she frowns at how thin her legs look inside all that fabric, like she hasn’t eaten anything in weeks. “And I’m too skinny,” she adds, kicking her legs harder.

Mom inhales slowly, the way she always does whenever she wants a moment to think, as if her thoughts are balloons that need careful inflating. “Nothing is wrong with you,” she finally says. She reaches over and flattens the hem of Gabby’s dress back down, covering up her knees. “And you’re certainly not too skinny, either.” She peers sideways at Gabby as if seeing her for the first time, then spreads her mouth into a big, toothy grin. “You’re just right.”

But of course she’d say that. She has to. It’s like . . . standard Mom-speak, or something. “Oh, sure,” Gabby shoots back, rolling her eyes behind her gray lenses. “I’m just perfect.”

Mom raises a finger, almost threateningly, as if she plans to jab it, sword-like, right through Gabby’s chest. But before she gets the chance, a balding man in a white smock steps into the room and clears his throat. “Gabrielle Lenton?” the man mumbles, dabbing a beige kerchief against his mouth.

Gabby gives Mom a victorious elbow jab to the ribs. “See?” she whispers. “He was eating!”

Mom ignores the comment, wraps her slender fingers around Gabby’s arm, and tugs her to her feet. “Thank you, Doctor,” she says, flashing an apologetic smile. “I know this is short notice and all, but—”

The man stuffs the kerchief into one of his pockets, then waves a hand like he’s swatting away a bug. “No explanation necessary, Miss Lenton,” he says, glancing at Gabby. He smiles in a way that makes his chubby face look even chubbier. Then he bends down, rests his palms on his knees, and speaks slowly and loudly, as if he thinks Gabby is deaf and dumb. “Hello again, Gabrielle,” he calls out. “You’re looking quite lovely today. Do you remember me?”

Gabby scrunches her face. How could she forget their new family doctor? They only have the one. “I do,” she says flatly. Then, because Mom gives her arm a sharp squeeze, she adds, “And . . . thanks. For seeing me.”

The doctor smiles, pats her head, and nods at Mom. “Oh, to be nine years old again, eh?” He says this in a voice that sounds half-joking, half-sad, and Mom gives him one of those pretty smiles she uses whenever she’s at work—her eyes bunched, her teeth bare and gleaming.

Of all Mom’s smiles, this one is her fakest.

“Well, then,” the man says, clearly fooled by the smile, “let’s have a look at that hand, shall we?”

Gabby’s bandaged hand throbs, as if it knows it’s being talked about, and she gulps as Mom nudges her along. They follow the doctor quietly, their shoes scuffing against the mud-colored carpet, Gabby holding her breath all the while. For some reason, it feels like they’re going to a funeral.