She picked up the second pill, this time managing it better.
A different woman in black pants and a shiny shirt arrived with paperwork. “You guys are good to go,” she said. “Follow up as soon as you can with the neurologist. Someone will call you in a week to make sure you’ve made an appointment.”
I took the sheaf of paper from her and she disappeared, leaving the curtain open.
“I guess we have to go,” I said. “I can take you home. Will you go with me?”
Ava drew her knees up to her chest.
“I can ask for a social worker. We might be able to get more help.”
But something clicked at those words. “Social worker,” she said.
“You want one?”
She shook her head. “I want to go home.”
Thank God. I helped her down from the bed and pulled up my app to call for a ride. But as soon as her feet were on the floor, she walked ahead of me to the curtain. She peered both ways, not sure what to do, but clearly wanting to do it on her own. I hurriedly requested a car for us.
She looked lost. Of course, she would be. I could barely get around in a place like this myself. “There should be an exit sign.”
She spotted it and hurried past other curtained rooms. She stopped abruptly when the doors slid open on their own, then she rushed on through. I jogged to keep up withher as she barreled through the waiting room, then out into the night.
Only when she was assaulted by new sounds and smells with no idea where to go did she turn back to me. “This is terrifying,” she said.
I knew exactly what she meant.
CHAPTER 37
Ava
I got out of a car and walked up to a door I’d been told was mine.
Many more doors lined up in a row, all the same shade of brown. The bricks were brown. The earth was brown.
The man who’d been with me since the hospital unlocked the door and passed me the keys before turning the handle. I examined the trinkets fastened together on the keychain. A blue circle read, “Big Harry’s Diner.”
Then two keys. The man had used one to open the door.
I forgot his name. He told me in the hospital. It started with a T. Tom? Terry?
Tucker. That was it. The name made my stomach settle.
He opened the door. “You can take a look around, or I can show you if you like.”
“I’ll look around.”
The room was large. I could identify most everything in it. Sofa. Table. Television. I spotted a strange black object on the table and picked it up. It had a long protrusion on the end, and many buttons.
“Do you remember how to use it?” Tucker asked.
I set it back down. “I don’t even know what it is.”
He frowned. I’d said the wrong thing. I’d been doing that constantly. He seemed displeased with me.
We entered a kitchen, and I instantly walked to one cabinet and laid my hands on the door.
“That’s where you keep your medicine,” Tucker said. “That’s a good instinct.”
