Silvie has banned all crying, so even though she is asleep Marc leaves the room to do it. He puts both hands flat against the tiled wall of the hospital bathroom and presses hard, harder, down until he is empty.
Marc finds Riley staring out of the window as usual. She is healing slowly. A week ago they moved her to this rehab room on the fourth floor so she could move about some. She doesn’t move, though. All Riley does is stare down at the small patch of grass they call a garden, or out at the parking lot. She hasn’t been in a city for thirty years.
Riley doesn’t seem to hear Marc come into the room.
‘You have a visitor,’ Marc says.
Her head turns as quick as a snake.
‘She wanted to thank you in person.’ Marc is scared now. Maybe this isn’t a good idea.
Silvie pushes past Marc, impatient. ‘Hi.’
‘Hi,’ Riley says, grave. They look at one another.
‘My dad says not to upset you because you’re crazy,’ Silvie says. ‘But you don’t look crazy.’
‘Your dad’s right.’ Riley bares her teeth in a snarl, snorting hard through her nostrils, crossing her eyes. ‘I’m completely crazy.’
Silvie shrieks with laughter.
Riley glances once more at the window.
‘There’s not much green out there,’ Silvie says. ‘It must be hard. You’re used to having grass and animals and stuff.’
‘Where I live,’ Riley says, ‘there are tons of rabbits. Sometimes there are hares. Do you like rabbits?’
‘I loved my rabbit,’ Silvie says. ‘He was called Snow Machine.’
‘Snow Machine is a great name for a rabbit.’ Riley sits down on the bed and pats the chair beside her. Her cheeks have taken on a faint pink.
Silvie sits and casts a baleful glance at Marc. ‘I know.’
‘What kind was he?’
‘He was a lop-eared rabbit,’ Silvie says. ‘They look a little dumb but Snow Machine was not dumb. I even taught him to come to his name …’
Riley nods, eyes wide, listening.
Marc hovers. He wonders, uneasy, how Riley knows how to do this. To talk to children, after all those years alone.
Marc takes Silvie to bed. Then he comes back to Riley’s room. She is alert, waiting.
Riley says, ‘She’s a great kid.’
‘You get out of here in a week,’ Marc says, sharp. ‘What are you going to do? You have to do something.’
Intimacy can cause Marc to be abrupt, make him act out. His new therapist has explained this to him. He doesn’t trust the therapist, but he trusts himself even less.
‘I don’t know,’ Riley says. ‘I thought I would live with you and Silvie.’
‘Of course we could love that. I mean, wewouldlove that.’ He clears his throat. ‘The thing is, I travel most of the year for work. And Silvie is with her mother half the time.’
‘Ok,’ Riley says, watching Marc.
‘Wouldn’t you get lonely?’ He feels her eyes like a weight on him.
‘I’m used to it,’ she says. ‘I’ve been alone for a long time.’
