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I must’ve slept all morning, because the next thing I know, Marie is shaking my shoulder and saying something about lunch. “C’mon,” she says. “The doctor gave you special permission to be in your room unattended today, but now you’ve got to get up. Or else you’re going to miss lunch.”

I don’t understand. Then it comes back to me, dimly at first, that something’s different, although I can’t remember exactly what it might be. I brush my hair out of my eyes and see a flash of white gauze around my wrist. In an instant, everything—my fingers gripping my wrist, Ruby folding her hands over mine, wet tissues heaped in my lap—comes back to me.

“We don’t want you missing your meals,” Marie says. She lowers her voice. “We got enough skinny girls in this place already.”

I sit up and realize I’m hungry, really hungry.

Even the noise and the steamed-vegetable smell of the cafeteria doesn’t spoil my appetite. I pick up a tray and let a cafeteria worker with fogged-up glasses shovel a grilled cheese sandwich onto my plate. I remember Sydney calling them chilled grease sandwiches once and I head out of the food line hoping she’ll be there.

But the dining room is practically empty; the only ones left at our table are Debbie and Becca I grip the edge of my tray and imagine myself walking past my usual seat at the end of the table, sitting down next to Debbie. I’ll give her a practice smile, the way Ruth did, and start talking, like everybody else does. Debbie will say, “That’s great, that’s really great,” the way she does when Becca eats all of her fruit and cottage cheese, and Becca will be impressed, she’ll agree with Debbie that it’s great, and when we go to Group later on, she’ll run ahead and tell everyone the news. But before I even get to the table, they’ve left.

A few minutes later, Tara comes in and sets her tray down at the other end of the table. Her nose is red and her face is blotchy and as soon as she sees me watching her she pulls the brim of her baseball cap down. She picks up a piece of lettuce and wipes the dressing off with her napkin.

Finally I stand and pick up my tray, keeping my sleeve pulled down over my wrist, the hem wrapped around my thumb, and sit down across from her.

“Hi,” she says.

I try to give her a practice smile, but I’m not sure anything happens on my face.

Then we both sit there pretending to eat. I try to remember how people start conversations, but all that comes to mind are phrases from sixth-grade French. “Bonjour, Thérèse. Ça va?” says Guy, a boy wearing a black beret. “Ça va bien, merci. Et tu, Guy?” Thérèse responds.

I decide to take a sip of water and then just say hi. Hi. It’s just two little letters. I ought to be able to get that much out. I reach for my glass. My sleeve creeps up and we both see the white bandage sticking out. The water in my glass jumps as I pull my hand away and tuck it safely in my lap.

“Oh,” is all she says.

I peek out at her from under my bangs.

“You really don’t understand, do you?” Her voice is gentle, the way it was in the bathroom the day she asked if I wanted her to leave me alone.

I shake my head.

“We all do things.”

“Where would you like to start?” you say that afternoon.

I notice that you’re wearing your delicate little fabric shoes again today.

“Callie? Why don’t you tell me about things before you came here?”

“Don’t you—” My voice deserts me. “Don’t you know?”

You tap your pen against something in your lap; I see then that you didn’t throw my file away after all.

“No,” you say. “I don’t. All this tells me is what other people have to say about you.”

I squint at the folder, wondering who these other people are and what they have to say.

You open the folder, then close it. “That you’re fifteen, a runner—”

“Was.”

“Pardon me?”

“I was.” I cough. “A runner.”

You pick up your pen.

“Are you going to write everything down?”

“Not if you don’t want me to.” You hold your pen in midair. “Will it bother you if I take notes?”

I shrug.

“If it bothers you, I won’t.”

For some reason, I think of how Mr. Malcolm, my algebra teacher, used to hand out test paper with lots of blank space and tell us we wouldn’t get credit for right answers unless we showed our work. I imagine you working on me as an algebra problem, reducing me to fractions, crossing out common denominators, until there’s nothing left on the page but a line that says x = whatever it is that is wrong with me. You fix it. I get to go home.

“Would you rather I didn’t take notes?”

“It’s OK.” You bend over your notepad a little; I study the part in your hair, which is perfectly straight and tidy You straighten up. “So, where do you want to start?”

I shrug.

You wait.

“I don’t care,” I say.

You cross your legs, not taking your eyes off me. The minute hand on the clock twitches forward once, then once more.

“My little brother, Sam,” I say finally. “He’s the one who usually gets all the attention from doctors and stuff.”

Instantly, this sounds wrong.

“I don’t mind,” I say. “He’s sick.”

“What’s the matter with Sam?”

“Asthma.”

You don’t say anything.

“Really bad asthma.”

You don’t move.

“He’s in the hospital all the time.”

You still don’t move.

“That’s why he’s so skinny and why we have to keep everything clean. But he’s OK for a brother.” I know I’m supposed to say more, but I’m exhausted, out of words. “That’s all, I guess.”

You fold your hands in your lap. “What’s that like for you?”

“What?”

“Having a brother who needs so much attention.”

“I’m used to it.”

You open your mouth to say something, but I cut you off.

“My mom’s the one who has a hard time.”

“Your mom?”

“She worries a lot.”

“What does she worry about?”

I try to get comfortable on the couch. This is tiring, all this talking.

“Callie,” you say. “What does your mother worry about?”

“Everything.”

You look like you want to ask something else, so I go on.

“She doesn’t drive anymore. She’s terrified of trucks. My dad has to take us everywhere.”

“I see.”

I wonder if you do see, see us sitting in the car, strapped in our seats, the windows rolled up tight, even if it’s a nice day, especially if it’s a nice day, so no pollen or spores or dust mites or pollution or anything can get into our car, our quiet, antiseptic car.

“Can you tell me about that?”

“About what?”

“About the times Sam was in the hospital.”

I blink. Were we talking about the times Sam was in the hospital? Or did you say something and I missed it? I pinch the edge of my bandage, tugging ever so slightly A single, sterile white thread comes unraveled.

“Like what? What do you want me to tell you?”

“Well, what do you do when your parents are with Sam?”

I roll the thin piece of thread into a tiny, tiny ball.

“I don’t know. Clean.”

You don’t say anything. The ball is microscopic now.

“I dust. Wash things. Vacuum. We have to vacuum a lot.”

You still don’t say anything. The ball is so tiny I lose it.

“Clean the lint filters. We have special filters on all the air vents because of Sam. One time I organized all my mom’s coupons. That’s it. Boring stuff.”

There’s a long silence. I feel around for the ball, listen to the hum of the UFO, check the clock.

“Sometimes if they have to stay over, I watch TV.”

“What do you watch?”

“Um. I don’t know. The Food Channel.…Rescue 911.”

“Why do you like those shows?”

“I don’t know.”

The minute hand lurches forward again while you wait for me to come up with a better answer.

“Rescue 911 …” you say. “Is there something in particular you like about that show?”

I shrug. “No.” Then, “Yeah, I guess. I don’t know.”

You raise an eyebrow.

“I guess it’s because … I guess usually when people get saved it’s because some little kid is the one that notices that something’s wrong. Or the dog. Or a neighbor.”

You write something in your notebook.

“There’s always a happy ending; after the person gets rescued, everything turns out OK.”

I listen to the traffic, far away, on the highway and I study a crack in your ceiling. Like the crack in the ceiling of the hospital where Madeline went to have her appendix taken out, this one also has the habit of sometimes looking like a rabbit. I rhyme habit and rabbit in my head over and over until I can’t tell which came first—the habit or the rabbit.

“How long has Sam had asthma?”

Your voice startles me. I’d almost forgotten you were there.

“What?”

“When did Sam develop asthma?”

I jump, the way I always did at a track meet when the ref would cock the starting gun and yell, “On your mark.”

“Callie?”

My thigh muscles are twitching, my feet are sweating. I press my hands to my thigh legs to still them. It’s no good. “A year ago, maybe a little more.” I try to sound casual, bored even.

“A year ago,” you repeat.

I slide forward on the couch, ready to go.

“And while your parents were at the hospital, who took care of you?”

I’m sitting on the edge of the couch now. “I take care of myself.”

You uncross your legs, cap your pen, and say I did good work. I check the clock. Our time was up five minutes ago.

On the way back from your office I pass the dayroom. The TV voice of a talk-show host competes with the tick-tock of a Ping-Pong game. I tuck my head down and slink by. As I pass the door, a tiny white ball skitters out into the hallway and rolls to a stop at my feet.

“Hey, S.T.,” Sydney calls out. “Bring it here, will you?”

I consider the ball at my feet, then Sydney’s flushed, happy face.

“Please?” She smiles a wide smile.

I bend and pick it up. It’s like picking up air, it’s so light. I take baby steps across the hall, then into the day-room, eyeing the ball every second, watching it wobble back and forth in my open palm, waiting for it to fall out of my hand and bounce down the hall, out the front door.

Sydney plucks the ball out of my hand. “Thanks,” she says over her shoulder.

My palm is suddenly empty. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do next.

Sydney notices. “Wanna play?” She holds out her paddle.

I scan the room. Debbie and Becca are sitting on the armchair, Debbie in the chair, Becca perched on the arm. Tiffany’s at the other end of the table, holding a paddle, still wearing her purse. Tara’s standing by the chalkboard, keeping score.

“You can just watch if you want,” says Sydney. She gestures to an empty chair.

“Please,” says Tara

Walking across the room to the empty chair seems like it would take a lot of steps. The door is much closer. I shake my head and turn to go, knowing, even as I walk away, that I was wrong. Getting to the door takes forever.

“Where would you like to start today?” you say.

I consider. “With Sam. Could we talk about Sam some more?”

“Sure.”

But I can’t think of what to say about Sam.

“Did I tell you about his hockey cards?”

You shake your head.

“He has this huge collection of cards. He gets a new pack whenever he gets sick. He loves those cards. He sorts them into piles all the time.”

You don’t say anything.

“According to teams or positions or statistics or whatever.”

You don’t move. I trace a triangle on the couch.

“My mom sits there with him after school. At the breakfast nook. She tats.”

You tilt your head to the side. “Tats?”

I stop tracing. “Tatting. It’s where you make lacy things like doilies and angels and things out of string. She tats and he sorts.”

Telling you about my mom and Sam at home in the breakfast nook feels wrong somehow, private.

“They have to take it easy,” I explain. “They have to rest a lot.”

“What do you do?”

“What do I do?”

“While your mother tats and your brother sorts, what do you do?”

“Oh.” I trace and retrace the triangle, stop, then start again. “Nothing. Watch TV.”

You wait for me to say more.

“I keep it on mute if they’re resting.”

You wrinkle your brow.

“I can read the captions if my mom and Sam are resting.”

“You watch the TV on mute?”

“I’m good at it.”

You shake your head slightly. “I don’t understand, exactly.”

I picture the big soundless TV in our family room, subtitles scrolling by at the foot of the screen. “The words at the bottom, they’re always a few seconds behind what the people on TV are saying. I can usually predict what they’re going to say.”

You seem like you’re going to ask a question.

“It’s kind of like a hobby,” I say.

You write in your notebook. “Do you have any other hobbies?”

“Not really.” I button my sweater. I unbutton it.

“What about running?” you say.

I can see myself running—not my whole self, just my feet beneath me, each one appearing, then disappearing, then reappearing, over and over and over. “What about it?” I say.

“Well, what does it feel like when you run?”

“I don’t know.” I pick at a hangnail. “I don’t feel much.”

You tap your finger to your lip.

“That’s sort of why I like it.”

Your dead-cow chair creaks. You lean forward and open your mouth to speak.

“My mom never liked it,” I say. “She always thought I was going to get hit by a car or something.”

You sit back.

“She said she was always waiting to get a call from the police,” I say. “Whenever I came in from running, she looked sort of mad.”

I picture my mom sitting in the breakfast nook, tatting and frowning, while Sam deals out his hockey cards in neat piles. She doesn’t look up when I come in, she just keeps tatting. Sam shows me his cards, pictures of hockey players smiling, hockey players skating, players with their helmets on, with their helmets off. “Don’t you want to take a shower?” my mom says. “Don’t you have some homework to do?”