A Danger to Herself and Others(35)

So I waited for my parents patiently, confident in the fact that eventually I’d hear the sound of the door opening, smell the scents of the outside world.

Tonight, I’m waiting for Lucy—but can I really call it waiting when there’s a chance she might not return? There should be another word for this sort of waiting that’s both waiting and not waiting, both expecting the door to open and knowing that it might stay closed. It’s the Schr?dinger’s cat of waiting.

We learned about Schr?dinger’s cat in physics class last year. It’s a thought experiment that an Austrian physicist named Erwin Schr?dinger came up with in the 1930s. It basically says that if you lock a cat in a box with a radioactive atom, the cat’s survival depends on whether or not the atom decays and emits radiation. So until you open the box and see the state the cat is in, it’s both alive and dead.

I didn’t entirely understand what the cat had to do with physics beyond the fact that Schr?dinger was a physicist and the experiment involved atomic radiation, but I liked the sound of a thought experiment. So I try to convince myself that I’m currently engaged in a thought experiment: Until Lucy walks in that door, she is both on her way back and never returning.

It’s comforting that I remembered Schr?dinger’s cat at all. My brain can’t be turning to complete mush in here if I still remember a year-old physics lesson.



It’s dark when she gets back, long past lights-out. I’m in bed but I’m not sleeping. I hear the metallic click of the lock coming undone, the creak of the door opening.

Lucy brings the scent of the outdoors with her: fresh air and mud and grass. I let out a breath. The cat’s alive after all.

Light spills in from the hallway before she gently closes the door. She’s wearing the same papery clothes she was wearing when she left, the same slippers. Click. The door locks behind her. The room is dark again except for the sliver of light coming in from beneath the door. Only a little light comes through the window from outside. It must be cloudy tonight.

Maybe it’s raining outside. Not so much that you’d be able to hear it tapping against the roof or window, but enough of a mist that Lucy’s hair would be moist. I sniff, trying to detect whether Lucy smells like rain.

“How did you get back inside?”

Lucy gasps. “You scared me.”

“It’s not like you didn’t know I was here.”

“True. But I thought you were sleeping.”

“What time is it?”

“Dunno. When Joaquin let me out of the car, it was midnight. But it took me a while to get in after that.”

“Like Cinderella,” I say.

Lucy laughs. “Yeah, I feel like a real princess.”

I laugh too, but I’m careful to keep my voice down.

“How did the audition go?”

I can see the whites of Lucy’s teeth when she grins. “Amazing. I was on point. No pun intended. Actually, all puns intended.”

She sounds so happy that I decide not to tell her I got into trouble with Lightfoot this afternoon.

Anyway, I didn’t really get into trouble. I managed to talk my way out of it. So there’s really no reason to tell Lucy.

Instead, I say, “I’m so glad it went so well!”

“I know! I couldn’t believe it. I mean, I thought I would suck after all this time without practice. I thought my body would be like, Are you kidding me? You haven’t warmed up for this. But then the music started and it all just clicked.”

“Muscle memory.”

“I guess.”

“How did you get in?” I ask again.

“Joaquin gave me cash. You’d be surprised what the orderlies will let slide for a hundred bucks. I even got a fresh pair of slippers to replace the ones I lost in the woods.”

I nod, thinking about QB and her contraband phone. She must pay the orderly who charges it for her. I wonder where she gets the money. I wonder how much it costs.

I can make out the silhouette of Lucy running her hands through her hair. “Whoops,” she says with a giggle. “Leftover bobby pin.”

“Huh?” I ask dumbly.

“Joaquin and I had to stop at a pharmacy so I could get ponytail holders and bobby pins to pull my hair back into a bun. I thought I got all of them out on my way back.” She sighs. “I can’t get it out.”

I sit up. “Come here.”

The bed squeaks when Lucy sits on the edge of it. In the darkness, I run my fingers through her hair until I feel the snag. Patiently, careful not to pull her hair, I begin undoing the knot around the bobby pin. Lucy exhales.

“You must be tired,” I say. I feel Lucy nod in agreement. Finally, I free the bobby pin from her tangles. I search for her hand in the darkness and place it in her palm.

“Contraband,” I say, and Lucy giggles. The bed squeaks again as Lucy gets up. She pauses then heads for the window. She places the pin on the narrow windowsill.

I lie back and close my eyes. I hear Lucy get into her bed.

“I have to stay on my best behavior now. So they’ll let me out in time to attend. If I get in.”

I exhale with relief. Part of me had been wondering whether Lucy might try to leave again, now that she knows how to get out. But if she’s determined to stay on her best behavior, that means she’s not going anywhere. At least, not until Lightfoot clears her to leave. And that could still be months from now.