The cab drops Audie outside the Texas Children’s Hospital. Money changes hands and the driver looks at the cash and suggests he deserves a tip. Audie says he should be nicer to his mother and gets a reply that no mother would approve of.
After buying a coffee and a Danish from a place across the road, Audie sits on a concrete post and watches the front entrance of the hospital. Nurses depart in twos and threes, the night shift off to bed. Replacements arrive with wet hair and neatly pressed blue trousers and paisley shirts. Audie licks crumbs from his fingers and spies Bernadette over the lip of his paper cup. Homely and pretty, she’s wearing two badges on her blouse and walks with a slight stoop because she’s taller than she wants to be.
Growing up, Audie didn’t have much in common with his sister, who was twelve years older and seemed like a know-it-all. He remembers Bernadette taking him to school on his first day and putting Band-Aids on his bloody knees and telling him lies to stop him from misbehaving. If he played with his penis it would drop off, she said; and if he sneezed, farted, and blinked at the same time his head would explode.
Keeping his baseball cap pulled low over his eyes, Audie walks into the hospital and follows Bernadette from a distance. She takes a crowded elevator to the ninth floor. Audie keeps his head down and pretends to be reading messages on his phone. When Bernadette disappears into a nursing station Audie waits at the end of the corridor, feeling exposed. Nearby is a door marked STAFF ONLY. He slips inside and finds a changing room. Tucking his cap into his pocket, he takes a doctor’s white coat from a hanger and hangs a stethoscope around his neck, praying that nobody asks him to perform CPR or clear an airway. He takes a clipboard from a hook on a gurney and walks along the corridor as though he knows where he’s going.
Bernadette is making up a bed in an empty room, forcefully tucking in the corners and stretching the sheets as tight as a drum. It’s how their mother taught her to make a bed, and Audie remembers almost needing a crowbar to squeeze between the top and bottom sheets.
“Hi, Sis.”
She straightens and frowns, holding a pillow to her chest. Her face seems to run through the full spectrum of emotions and her head rocks from side to side, denying the evidence of her eyes. She looks frightened of him, or frightened of herself. But something melts inside her and she closes the gap between them, hugging him hard. Audie smells her hair and his whole childhood seems to come flooding back.
She strokes his cheek. “You know it’s against the law to impersonate a doctor.”
“I think that’s the least of my problems.”
She pulls him away from the open door and closes it. Her fingers trace the scars that are visible beneath his short-cropped hair. “Amazing,” she says. “How in God’s name did you survive?”
Audie doesn’t answer.
“The police came to see me,” she says.
“I figured they would.”
“Why, Audie? You had one more day.”
“Best if I don’t tell you my reasons.”
The hum of the air conditioner is the only sound in the room. It moves a strand of hair that has pulled loose from her bun. Audie notices the flecks of gray.
“Letting yourself go?”
“Stopped using the bottle.”
“You’re only, what?”
“Forty-five.”
“That’s not old.”
“Walk in my shoes.”
Audie asks her how she’s doing and she says fine. Neither one of them knows where to begin. Her divorce came through. Her ex-husband had been affectionate and smart and successful and a violent drunk, but mercifully the alcohol affected his aim and Bernadette knew how to handle herself. Her new boyfriend works on the rigs. They’re living together. Kids are out of the question. “Like I said, I’m too old.”
“How’s Ma?”
“Sick. She’s on dialysis.”
“What about a transplant?”
“Doctors don’t think she’d survive one.” She goes back to making the bed, but her eyes suddenly cloud. “Why did you come back here?”
“Unfinished business.”
“I don’t believe you robbed that armored truck.”
He squeezes her hand. “I need your help.”
“Don’t ask for money.”
“What about a vehicle?”
Bernadette crosses her arms, her eyes filled with doubt. “My boyfriend has a car. If that were to go missing, I might not even notice for a week.”
“Where is it?”
“Parked on the street.”
“Keys?”
“Didn’t they teach you anything in prison?”
“I don’t know how to hotwire.”
She jots down her address. “I’ll leave ’em on the wheel.”
Another nurse has come to the door, Bernadette’s supervisor. “Is everything all right?” she asks, addressing Audie, wondering why the door was closed.
“Fine,” he replies.
She nods and waits. Audie holds her gaze until she grows self-conscious and turns away.
“You’ll get me fired,” whispers Bernadette.
“I need one more thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Those files I left for you—did you print them out?”
She nods.
“In a day or two, I’ll call and tell you what to do with them.”
“Am I going to get into trouble?”
“No.”
“Am I going to see you again?”
“I doubt it.”
Bernadette steps away then back again, opening her arms, squeezing Audie so hard he can barely breathe.
“I love you, little brother.”