After Hours (InterMix)(89)

“Not bad at all.”

“I saw you were on special obs. I didn’t know if that meant he’s still on suicide watch or not.”

“Better safe than sorry, after a break like that. But Doc Morris has been seeing him for daily one-on-ones, and they’re making progress. That and some distance from Lonnie, and his paranoia’s been way down.”

“I wouldn’t mind a bit of that myself, some days—a break from Lonnie.”

Kelly smiled as the engine came to life. “He likes you.”

“Oh, great.”

“Not like, he’s hot for you.” Kelly leaned out the window to key us through the gates. “But you got him where Jenny does, worked your feminine wiles and let him feel like he’s impressive.”

I smiled. I’d thought maybe that was the case, but he was a wily one himself. It wasn’t wise to let myself think I had him pegged, when maybe he was just blowing smoke up my ass and biding his time. But if Kelly thought I did . . .

“I like hearing his stories,” I said. “All that stuff he knows about Vietnam and Korea.”

“And I bet he likes feeling like a scholar. No way he enjoys that on the outside.”

“I hope I’m not doing him a disservice, inflating his ego.”

“Treating a man with respect can’t be a bad thing,” Kelly said, turning us onto the back road.

“No, I guess not.”

“Plus his ego’s all that man’s got left to his name. And if believing some pretty young nurse is impressed by his stories keeps him feeling human, I say keep it up. We could all stand to feel more human than we do.”

With a psychic flash, I felt that punch as my eye collided with my side mirror. Yeah, we could all stand to feel well treated.

“Lonnie’s had a hard road. Broken home, lies about his age so he can go off to ’Nam at seventeen, and a few little paranoid whispers turn into full-on screaming demons inside his skull.”

“I know. What a place to come into your illness.” I conjured James Mahoney’s grainy mug shot, and my lips twitched with a dozen un-posable questions about what I’d read.

“He tell you his platoon nicknamed him Loony?”

“No.”

“Don’t ever use that word around him. Not even if you’re just talking about Bugs Bunny. Like a trip wire in his head.”

“That can’t be good, what with all the new residents bitching about being sent off to the loony bin.”

“No, it’s not good at all.”

I sighed. “He’s not ever going to get better, is he?”

Kelly flipped his headlights on as the road snaked into the woods. “Not unless some new drug comes out that clicks for him. His voices are real loud. Way louder than any scrip can keep muffled for more than a couple days, not without turning him into a walking vegetable.”

“That’s so sad.”

“It’s a sad job, sweetheart. I know you and that new guy Lee hit it off, so focus on that. The ones you can get through to. And just remember that sadness is like rain. Keep reminding yourself it’ll pass.”

“Do you feel anything on the ward? Aside from . . . I dunno. Alert?”

“Sure, I guess. I just don’t do anything with the emotions. Like I said, it’s all just weather patterns. Keep yourself separate, like self-control’s your little house, and you can watch them pass through like storms on the other side of the windows.”

My storms didn’t always stay outdoors. Sometimes they stole inside my very body, fisted my car key and dragged it down some *’s shiny red hood. “You make it sound so simple.”

He merged us onto the quiet highway, sun already dipping low. “Maybe my little house is just built sturdier than most.”

Indeed, with thick walls and good locks. But I’d peeked through the curtains, and caught little glimpses of the man who’d raised those walls. There were moments during those two days at Kelly’s place when maybe he’d even cracked the windows, and let a little of what he was feeling blow inside and stir things up.

A thought slipped past my lips, utterly unintended. “Sometimes it’s like there’s a wildfire blazing outside my little house.”

Kelly glanced at me, streetlights wiping across his stern face in orangey strokes. “Outside? Not inside?”

I let myself feel a little flash of my Mom-ness, that boiling anger that jerks like Marco could rouse when I was too worn out to keep my cool. All that hot, red hate seeping into my blood, poisoning my better judgment until my temper found an outlet and bled me clean again. “Sometimes it gets in. Other times I’m quick enough to barricade the door.”