After Hours (InterMix)(99)
Steering the topic off of me, I told him, “It’s perceptive of you to notice my mood. Are you good at that—picking up on how people are feeling?”
He shrugged. “I guess.”
“That takes a lot of empathy.” A quality not in line with Lee’s pre-Larkhaven diagnoses. It boded well for his psychotic episodes being attributable to substance abuse, not his own natural chemistry. I hoped I’d find a chance to share this interaction with Dr. Morris, and ask if he’d noted the same thing. “And a lot of clarity. Have you noticed yourself feeling any different, since Dr. Morris changed your meds?”
He nodded, grudgingly at first, then with some enthusiasm. “I have, yeah. I feel kind of . . . awake, for the first time in a while. A long while. Like when you first open the windows in the spring, and air everything out.” He blushed, like he didn’t know where those words had come from.
“How about your voices?”
“I haven’t heard any in days.”
“That’s great!”
“Tell me about it. Feels like I finally got a volume button.”
“Amazing what the right medication can do, huh?”
“Yeah . . . Just sucks they couldn’t have put me on whatever they did, like fifteen years ago.”
“Well, you’re on a better path now. Focus on that. Everyone wishes they could change something about what’s happened to them, or because of them . . .” With a bolt of awareness, I sensed exactly where Kelly’s body was in the room, in relation to mine. “But it just doesn’t work that way.”
* * *
My mood tripped and tumbled back downhill after lunch, the highlight of my shift being a chance to share my encouraging conversation with Lee during evening hand-off. Dr. Morris was working, and he nodded thoughtfully as I spoke and scribbled a note, which made me feel important and proud. But as I changed out of my scrubs and headed for home, the sadness descended once more.
My phone vibrated when I was halfway across campus. Hope spiked for a breath then died just as quickly. Amber.
“Hi,” I said, no clue what greeting to expect in return.
She sounded bored, a vast improvement over our last conversation. “Hey. I’m just calling to let you know you don’t have to watch Jack on Monday.”
My heart sank. “Oh. Okay.”
Amber sighed, and when she next spoke, her voice was softer. “Not because of what happened.”
“No?”
“Nah. Your boyfriend’s an *, but that’s not your fault, that he did that.”
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
Amber snorted. “Sure.”
I opened my mouth to say that even if he sort of had been, he sure wasn’t now . . . but it hurt too much to think about, let alone explain. “How come you don’t need a sitter?” You didn’t get fired again, did you?
“Jack’s had the flu for a couple days. I don’t want anybody else catching it, and work said it was fine to take the next few shifts off.”
“Oh, that’s too bad. You know I’d risk a bug to hang out with him, right?”
“Course I do, Auntie Er’n. But it’s a nasty one, nothing you want your patients catching—trust me. This one’s too gross. He’s like a snot dispenser.”
“Okay then. Let me know if you need me to grab anything for him.”
“Thanks.”
“Sure . . . Hey, Amber?”
“Yeah?”
“How’s Marco been? Since everything went down. Is he being nice to you?”
“I haven’t seen him in a few days. Before that, he was super-pissed off for a while, then just sort of . . . blah. Maybe he’s got the same flu. Who knows?”
Licking his wounds, more like, if I knew that man at all.
“But he’s been just the same as always, with me and Jack.”
“I was worried maybe . . . you know.”
“I know he can be a hothead—he’s a passionate guy.”
I rolled my eyes, so not finding that synonym in my own mental thesaurus entry for grown-ass spoiled brat.
“But he’s not gonna punish us for what happened with what’s-his-name.”
“He better not.” I thought about telling her not to worry, no chance what’s-his-name would be coming around with me again . . . But it stung too much. Some other time.