offered my patients.
I looked from the white bandage on my daughter’s arm to the white first page of the book. For all the pieces of information I had added to my already crowded brain that day, the last two were twisting up like some double helix. Interwoven with my fear of what had happened to Dulcie was my fear for Cleo, and I flashed on the image of the tall man following her down the street.
Dulcie got up and fussed with the CD player, then put on something that she liked and that I could tolerate. She was sensitive that way, and it made me smile. I noticed the bandage again and thought it looked too large on her slim arm.
Suddenly a name popped into my head. Barry Johnson. He had to be the man lying on the bed in the hotel room who had paid Cleo two thousand dollars to tease him to orgasm. It shouldn’t have been that easy for me to figure out who he was, but I had. A media mogul who was in business with his father. In his forties.
“Besides the arm, how else was your day?” It was our routine. To go over the day. Usually we did it at dinner, but I was doing it now. The rule was we had to state one good thing for every bad thing. As many bad things as you wanted. But always a balance.
“Besides the arm…well, we had auditions for
Our Town
.” Her eyes grew wider. She’d been looking forward to these twelve weeks at the American Academy of Dramatic Art’s summer program since she’d been accepted back in February. It didn’t even matter to her that she hadn’t had much of a break between one school ending and the next one starting.
“I love this play, Mom.”
I smiled at her, picked up the manuscript and put the stack of papers in my briefcase.
“It’s a wonderful play, isn’t it. What part are you trying out for?”
“The main character. I didn’t think I should, but Mrs. Harte said she thought I was ready for it.”
I leaned over and kissed her. “I’m proud of you.”
My daughter preened. And then she picked up the thread of the game.
“And you, Dr. Sin? How was your day?”
The divorce papers dissolving your father’s and my marriage came today. You hurt your arm. You called me Dr. Sin, twice. I had to go to the morgue to see one of my ex-patients, a girl not even ten years older than you, laid out and cut open. And I figured out who one of my patients’ clients was and not because Cleo had told me herself, but because her description of him had been too clear
.
But I couldn’t tell Dulcie any of those things. Not just because she was not old enough to hear them, but because I couldn’t think of anything at all that was good to counter them with. And the rules were the rules. You could only tell the bad if you found some good.
Later we took a walk together to the drugstore to get the antibiotic cream. I didn’t fill the prescription for painkillers. My daughter had my high tolerance for pain. And short of being masochistic, I encouraged it. Prescription painkillers were a godsend, but they were also a far more dangerous drug than I wanted to expose her to if I didn’t have to. Some people have a physical propensity for addictions. There was no reason to test my daughter’s ability with a codeine derivative when she wasn’t even in enough pain to take an extrastrength ibuprofen.
Afterward we stopped at her favorite place for dinner—the overpriced food shop and restaurant, E.A.T., at Eighty-first and Madison. She chose the same comfort food that her father would have picked: macaroni and cheese and a Coke.
I had my second salad of the day, hating every piece of verdant green. Dulcie was chattering about the classes she was signed up for at drama school when my cell phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Hi.” It was my now ex-husband. “I just got your message. How is she?”
“Fine.” I looked over at her and mouthed,
It’s your father
, and her face brightened. “It really is just a simple burn. We’re having dinner. She’s talking about drama school, nothing’s
I looked from the white bandage on my daughter’s arm to the white first page of the book. For all the pieces of information I had added to my already crowded brain that day, the last two were twisting up like some double helix. Interwoven with my fear of what had happened to Dulcie was my fear for Cleo, and I flashed on the image of the tall man following her down the street.
Dulcie got up and fussed with the CD player, then put on something that she liked and that I could tolerate. She was sensitive that way, and it made me smile. I noticed the bandage again and thought it looked too large on her slim arm.
Suddenly a name popped into my head. Barry Johnson. He had to be the man lying on the bed in the hotel room who had paid Cleo two thousand dollars to tease him to orgasm. It shouldn’t have been that easy for me to figure out who he was, but I had. A media mogul who was in business with his father. In his forties.
“Besides the arm, how else was your day?” It was our routine. To go over the day. Usually we did it at dinner, but I was doing it now. The rule was we had to state one good thing for every bad thing. As many bad things as you wanted. But always a balance.
“Besides the arm…well, we had auditions for
Our Town
.” Her eyes grew wider. She’d been looking forward to these twelve weeks at the American Academy of Dramatic Art’s summer program since she’d been accepted back in February. It didn’t even matter to her that she hadn’t had much of a break between one school ending and the next one starting.
“I love this play, Mom.”
I smiled at her, picked up the manuscript and put the stack of papers in my briefcase.
“It’s a wonderful play, isn’t it. What part are you trying out for?”
“The main character. I didn’t think I should, but Mrs. Harte said she thought I was ready for it.”
I leaned over and kissed her. “I’m proud of you.”
My daughter preened. And then she picked up the thread of the game.
“And you, Dr. Sin? How was your day?”
The divorce papers dissolving your father’s and my marriage came today. You hurt your arm. You called me Dr. Sin, twice. I had to go to the morgue to see one of my ex-patients, a girl not even ten years older than you, laid out and cut open. And I figured out who one of my patients’ clients was and not because Cleo had told me herself, but because her description of him had been too clear
.
But I couldn’t tell Dulcie any of those things. Not just because she was not old enough to hear them, but because I couldn’t think of anything at all that was good to counter them with. And the rules were the rules. You could only tell the bad if you found some good.
Later we took a walk together to the drugstore to get the antibiotic cream. I didn’t fill the prescription for painkillers. My daughter had my high tolerance for pain. And short of being masochistic, I encouraged it. Prescription painkillers were a godsend, but they were also a far more dangerous drug than I wanted to expose her to if I didn’t have to. Some people have a physical propensity for addictions. There was no reason to test my daughter’s ability with a codeine derivative when she wasn’t even in enough pain to take an extrastrength ibuprofen.
Afterward we stopped at her favorite place for dinner—the overpriced food shop and restaurant, E.A.T., at Eighty-first and Madison. She chose the same comfort food that her father would have picked: macaroni and cheese and a Coke.
I had my second salad of the day, hating every piece of verdant green. Dulcie was chattering about the classes she was signed up for at drama school when my cell phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Hi.” It was my now ex-husband. “I just got your message. How is she?”
“Fine.” I looked over at her and mouthed,
It’s your father
, and her face brightened. “It really is just a simple burn. We’re having dinner. She’s talking about drama school, nothing’s
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