Bones squinted at the intensely blue sky through a blur of stars. He felt his face. No blood. But the throbbing in his eye was intense. He put his hand over one eye and blinked, then the other. He’d have a serious shiner, but at lease he wasn’t blind.
He picked his way over a jumble of conduits. The zucchini had grown like crazy in their neglect. Everything else drooped, begging for water. Lard hadn’t been up here either for the same reason. Memories were like vinegar spurting from an open vein.
While searching for the watering can he noticed the folding chairs, purposefully arranged, like someone had planned it. Alice. Her yoga mat was unrolled. Four candles sat on top holding the edges down. She’d even left a book of matches. Ocean View Suites.
Bones felt like he was walking backward and forward at the same time, drowning in an empty space that should have been Alice. He struck a match and lit a candle. Vanilla. Then he sat back on his heels, blinking at the unsteady flicker. He pictured Alice asleep and wondered if a person in a coma had dreams. He hoped she had her ballet slippers with her.
He thought about love and fear and how closely they were related. Love takes your breath away. But the fear of losing someone you love is a barbed arrow that pierces your heart, and it hurts so much it takes your breath away too. Bones had to force himself to breathe. He got up slowly, filled the watering can, and gave everything a good soak.
He used to feel the same way Alice did, like the hospital was a prison controlled by a ruthless warden and his minions. But now, here on the roof, the EDU seemed more real than the outside world. More real than high school and grades and who’s doing what with whom on a Saturday night. More real than all his insecurities and his incurable loneliness.
He had to say it aloud. “You know I’d be with you if I could…”
Talking like that kept him weirdly calm.
He imagined her snarky voice. “Cut it out!”
Bones blew out the candle and, as lame as it seemed, he made a wish. Then he turned the front of his T-shirt into a sack, filled it with ripe vegetables, and aimed his miserable self down the stairs to tell Lard he didn’t mean what he’d said earlier.
The next day Bones leaned over the bathroom sink to examine the damage to his face in the mirror. A condor egg filled the space where his eye should have been. It hurt like hell. Twenty-twenty vision is probably overrated, he thought.
Bones kept insisting he ran into a door. “I swear.”
Dr. Chu didn’t buy it.
Nancy brought him an icepack.
Lard liked everyone thinking he’d done the deed.
Bones stumbled through the rest of the day. Literally. Only having one good eye messed with his equilibrium. He couldn’t seem to make his legs track in a straight line. He’d sideswiped enough walls to make his shoulders ache.
He wandered to the dayroom to see if anything was happening. It was empty but the TV had been left on. One of those prison dramas where bad-asses swore on their grandmother’s grave that they’d never be back once they got out. But after release most of them would return to the same crime-ridden, drug-infested neighborhoods as before—hang out with the same lowlife scum and fall into the same destructive habits. They’d be back in prison within a year.
Bones thought about what he’d learned the last couple of weeks. Sometimes he didn’t think it was much. Other times it felt like volumes. He knew this much: someone who did the same thing, the same way, over and over, and expected a different outcome was kidding himself. It might even be a form of insanity. If a person wanted his life to be different, to be better, then he had to do things differently.
Dr. Chu’s office door was open. “Excuse me,” Bones said.
Dr. Chu glanced up from a mess of papers on his desk. “How’re you doing, Jack?”
“I had a question about the outpatient program.”
“Sure, come on in.”
Bones collapsed into the chair. “Is it okay if I try it while I’m still a patient? Or do I have to wait until I check out?”
Dr. Chu rearranged his smile. “That’s unusual but not a bad idea. As a matter of fact, I just signed off on your bathroom door.”
“Bathroom?” Bones asked.
“It’s okay for you and David to close your door to conduct your personal business in private. It’s not a privilege we extend lightly, believe me, and only after a lengthy discussion with the staff.”
That meant they trusted them not to throw up in the shower or whatever.
“The decision was nearly unanimous,” Dr. Chu said.
“Can we hook up the fan?” Bones asked.
“These bathrooms don’t have fans,” he said. “Hospital policy.”
Dr. Chu, seeming to have exhausted his compassion for the moment, returned to his papers.
The next night after a dinner of unidentifiable meat, half a baked potato with low-fat sour cream, steamed vegetables, and the usual brick-and-mortar roll, Bones followed Dr. Chu and Lard to the elevator to a conference room.
“Nancy will come down after the meeting to take you back,” Dr. Chu said and left.
The door to the conference room was ajar. “Follow me,” Lard said.
Bones took a deep breath. “Where have I heard that before?”