Saving the World by Gary Ponzo Page B

prescription pad for yet another young kid. Something in the back of his mind told him Sullivan was using this to motivate Bryant into action.
    “Listen, Sully,” Bryant said, “this kid needs help, no question. But what she needs more than medication is someone to believe in her. Someone she can trust.”
    “Okay,” Sullivan said. “Who do you have in mind?”
    Bryant looked up. He felt like an animal in the middle of a clearing during hunting season. Before he could say a word, Sullivan was already printing up pages of Margo’s chart with a satisfied look on his face.
    “All right then, Mr. No-meds,” Sullivan said, handing him a manila file folder. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

Chapter 10
    Bryant’s windshield wipers put up a good fight, but the rain was too strong. It spit and splattered at just the right moments, making it hard for him to watch for the entrance to the cemetery. Darkness swelled and the streetlights reflected off the shiny asphalt, adding to the degree of difficulty. Finally, he found the sliver of gravel to his left and swerved into the opening just ahead of the oncoming traffic.
    As his tires crunched down the narrow path, he sensed his car sinking into the softness of the waterlogged trail. He instinctively sped up to displace the weight of the vehicle. Bryant found his usual parking spot at the top of a rise and therefore dryer than anywhere else.
    He got out and headed to the gravesites with a preoccupation he hadn’t encountered on previous trips. He stood over the two graves and stared. The nearby streetlights offered some illumination, but not much. The headstones were legible, mostly because of his familiarity. For some reason his thoughts crept toward Margo Sutter. The girl needed help and maybe Sullivan was right. Maybe Bryant was the best candidate to help her. But psychiatry wasn’t something you dabbled in part-time. He could do more damage by taking her to a certain level of psychoanalysis, then leave before she could manage the disease on her own. Before the accident, Bryant would consume himself with his patients and revel in the ease of his therapeutic choices. Now, he was being drawn into something he’d been trying to divorce for months.
    A thought startled him back to life. He’d forgotten to bring flowers. Staring down at the resting site of his wife and daughter, he reached into his pocket and furiously groped for the one thing he’d always brought with him, but came up empty. A Candy Kiss. He’d always placed a Kiss on Megan’s gravestone. Her favorite. How irresponsible could he possibly be? It was the only real thing he had left to do and he’d forgotten.
    Then something else occurred to him. He wasn’t crying. This realization made his face hot with anger. What was wrong? How was it possible to stand over the graves of his two loves and not cry? When had he become so calloused? Or was he so preoccupied by a patient he barely knew that he didn’t have the capacity to regain his emotional footing? Bryant looked at the dates engraved on Megan’s headstone; the brevity of time usually brought a morose swelling of tears. Beads of water trickled down his face from the rain, but nothing else. He was changing and he didn’t like it one bit. He didn’t deserve to live painlessly.
    There was movement in his periphery and he stiffened as a small frame came out of the darkness. Between a stand of trees, a thin shadow slowly stepped forward. The girl came closer until she was only a few feet away and Bryant could see her ponytail and white skin.
    “Margo?”
    The girl studied the wet ground. “I’m lost,” she said.
    Bryant looked around at their location within the cemetery. The main road was only fifty yards away. “Well, how did you get here?”
    “That’s not what I’m talking about.” Margo looked back over her shoulder. “I was visiting my family and it occurred to me that I don’t belong here.”
    Bryant stood quiet and listened.
    “I