Bernard hesitates before answering in a soft murmur, “My father.”

“What does he need?”

“A liver.”

“How much time does he have left?”

“Not much.”

“That’s a shame.” The sentence comes out mushy. A single, smushed word. Thassashame. “Does your father know what you’re doing?”

Bernard scowls. “Of course not.”

“Why?”

“I’m not answering any more of your questions.”

“I don’t blame you for not wanting to give false hope. Because you might be right here one day. Someone rich and famous and important will need a kidney. Or a liver. Or a heart. And if there’s no one like me around, they’ll take it from you.”

I lift my hand and wave it around, weakly pointing in his general direction. After a second, it plops back onto the bed because I’m too weak to hold it up any longer than that.

Bernard drops the spoon on the tray and pushes it aside. “We’re done here.”

“Don’t be mad,” I say, slurring a bit. “I’m just saying. That deal you made? I don’t think it’s gonna stick.”

Bernard thrusts the tiny paper cup at me, his hands shaking. “Shut up and take your pills.”

I pop them into my mouth.

50

Hours later, I’m roused from my deep slumber by Jeannette, who unlocks the door before carrying in more food and yet more pills.

I look at her, groggy and dazed. “Where did Bernard go?”

“Home.”

“Was it something I said?”

“Yes.” Jeannette slides the tray in front of me. “You talk too much.”

Dinner is the same as lunch. More soup. More creamed spinach. More pudding. The pills have made me surly, uncooperative. Jeannette has a hard time scooping even the slightest bit of soup into my mouth. I outright refuse to open my mouth for the spinach.

It’s the rice pudding my pill-addled body craves. Willingly I open wide when Jeannette dips the spoon into it. But as she’s bringing it toward my mouth, I change my mind. My jaw clamps shut, and I suddenly turn away, pouting.

The spoon hits my cheek, sending pudding splatting onto my neck and shoulder.

“Look at this mess,” Jeannette mutters as she grabs a napkin. “Lord forgive me, but I can’t say I’ll be sad to see you go.”

I lie completely still as she leans over me to mop up the spilled pudding. Sleep is already threatening to overtake me again. I’m almost completely unconscious when Jeannette nudges my shoulder.

“You need to take your pills,” she says.

My mouth falls open, and Jeannette drops the pills into it, one at a time. Then I’m asleep, closed fists at my sides, riding the narcotic fog until my mind is empty and blissful and at peace.

When I hear the door’s lock click into place, I wait. Breathless. Counting the seconds. After a full minute has passed, I stuff my fingers into the far reaches of my mouth and fish out the pills. They emerge softened and slimy with saliva.

I sit up, wincing with pain, and lift my pillow. Beneath the case, in the pillow itself, is the small tear I created yesterday after talking to Nick. I shove the spit-slick pills into it, where they join the others. Eight of them in total. A whole day’s worth of little white pills.

I replace the pillow and lie back down. I then unclench my fist and examine the cigarette lighter I snatched after it fell from Jeannette’s cardigan pocket while she cleaned me.

It’s made of cheap plastic. The kind you can pick up at a gas station for a dollar. Jeannette probably has two more sitting in her purse.

She won’t miss this one.

51

I toss the blanket aside and slide my legs over the side of the bed, even though it hurts to move, hurts to breathe. Three sets of stitches pull at the skin of my abdomen.

Before placing my feet on the floor, I pause.

I’m not sure standing’s a good idea. Even if it is, I’m not sure I can. I am, for lack of a better word, in shambles. My legs tingle from disuse. The back of my hand is bleeding from when I plucked out the IV. Removing the catheter was even worse. Soreness pulses through my core, a counterpoint to the pain roaring along my stomach.

Yet I attempt to stand anyway, sucking in air to steel myself against the pain before pushing off the bed. Then I’m up, somehow standing on these weak, wobbling legs.

I take a step.

Then another.

And another.

Soon I’m staggering across the room, the floor seeming to rock back and forth like a ship’s deck on a stormy sea. I sway with it, lurching from one side to the other, trying to stay upright. When the floor doesn’t stop moving, I grip the wall for support.

But I keep walking, my joints crackling, as if I’m a freshly hatched chick, now shedding eggshell. The sound follows me all the way to the door, where I try the handle and discover it is indeed locked.

So it’s back to the side of the bed, where I grab the photograph of my family. I press it against my chest with one hand while gripping Jeannette’s cigarette lighter in the other.

With a flick of my thumb, there’s a flame, which I touch against the fitted sheet in the center of the bed. It ignites in an instant—a fire-ringed hole that grows exponentially. The flames soon reach the top sheet, and that, too, starts to burn. It’s the same with the mattress. Expanding circles of fire spreading into each other and then outward, all the way to the pillows, which pop into flame.