Under the Knife(94)

Darcy, on the other hand, had flair. Panache. Some uniqueness. And when, on the morning of her mother’s funeral, she’d told her father what she’d decided on, and why, he’d hugged her and told her that Darcy was perfect.

And what about her middle name? he’d asked.

Middle name?

She’d forgotten about a middle name. His instructions hadn’t been that specific.

Your sister needs a middle name, lovely Rita.

The gears of her mind had spun, and she’d blurted out:

Rose.

Mom’s middle name.

Dad hadn’t said anything but had nodded solemnly, his big eyes (Darcy’s eyes) moist, and had hugged her again, long and hard.

So Darcy Rose Wu it was.

Over the years, as she’d pondered where she’d failed Darcy, Rita sometimes worried that naming her after Mom had been a huge mistake. Had she unintentionally saddled Darcy with a reminder of how her entry into this world had shoved their mother out of it?

“Are you okay, Ree?”

“Yes. I’m fine.” Rita propped herself up on the pillow.

“Bullshit. You’re lying.” Darcy was a much better liar than she.

“Darcy—”

“No, Ree. How can you even say that to me?” Locks of black hair streaked with strands of pink fell into her eyes. She pushed them away. Darcy’s previous hairstyle had been a half-shaven head. Literally: the hair on one side scraped raw down to the follicles, the other side untouched, the two in perfect symmetry. Rita had wondered if she’d used a tape measure, or maybe a protractor, to cut her hair, so perfectly was her scalp divided: bald versus not bald.

That had been over a year ago, when Darcy had dropped out of college and hadn’t cared about hats, or sunscreen; and Rita remembered Darcy’s gleaming half cranium (right? or left? she couldn’t recall)—offset on the opposite side by voluptuous, crow-black hair worn in a tight braid that hung to her shoulder—turning first pink, then red in the California sun. It had looked painful, especially after it had blistered and peeled. But Darcy had never complained. Always stubborn that way.

“God, Ree.” Darcy blinked her big eyes and shook her head. “You really look like shit. Are you sick? Oh, God. Do you have cancer, or something? Oh my God!” She placed her heels on the seat of her chair and hugged her knees. “Do you have a brain tumor? Oh my God. You have a brain tumor.”

“Darcy—”

“You have a brain tumor, don’t you?”

“I don’t—”

“If you have a brain tumor, just tell me now.”

“I don’t have a brain tumor.”

“What happened to you today?”

Where to begin?

“I—”

“If it’s not a brain tumor, what is it? What are they going to do with you now? What’s going to happen to you?” And the unspoken question: What’s going to happen to me?

“I don’t know, Darcy,” Rita said quietly.

Darcy searched Rita’s features, her own screwed up in worry. Rita experienced a rush of affection, mixed with shame over her initial annoyance. Darcy was a good person. She always had been. Rita had refused to call her selfish, even when so many others had, because Darcy was immature and confused. Plenty of confused kids were self-focused.

“God. I need a cigarette.” Darcy winced and tugged at her ear.

Her left ear.

Rita’s stomach did a somersault.

Ask your sister about her head, Dr. Wu.

“How’s your ear?”

“Hurts.” She rubbed it. “But less.” She squirmed and scooted to the edge of the chair. “You’re the doctor. You have any idea what’s going on?”

“No.”

Darcy stared at her hard. “Yeah. Okay.”

“Have you noticed, uh, anything else? Any other … uh, symptoms?”

“No.” Darcy had turned her attention to the window. “Popped a few Tylenol, drank some Gatorade, and by lunchtime felt almost good as new.” A bitter laugh. “Then they called me about you.”

Rita felt herself relax a bit.

Thank God.

She hadn’t heard any voices.

She hadn’t heard his voice.

Had Finney been bluffing? If it was the same kind of implant, if Finney really had put something in Darcy’s head, maybe they’d gotten lucky, and the damn thing wasn’t working.

Even so: Why would Finney have put it in Darcy’s head in the first place? Rita remembered the overwhelming impulse to operate on Mrs. Sanchez. Finney must have brainwashed her, somehow, with the thing in her ear. There was no other reasonable explanation.

What else did he have planned for them?

The thought made her stomach churn.

It was raining outside. Hard. The two sat and listened to it beat against the window.

“Raining still,” Darcy mumbled. “Maybe it’ll help the drought.” She hugged herself and shivered. “Shit. Just one smoke. That’s all I need.”

With her pink-laced hair, designer jeans, a faded white HELLO KITTY T-shirt, high-top Converse sneakers with the laces untied, and several gaudy plastic bracelets on each wrist, she looked like a little kid.

So vulnerable.

But different, Rita sensed, than when she’d last left San Diego.