The Girl Without a Name Read Free Page B

sure was.” He looks back to me. “And it wasn’t easy moving to Buffalo either. I’m a Southern boy like a fish out of water up here, even after three years. My wife is on her last nerve in this place. Or maybe just with me,” he jokes, raising his eyebrows. “Anyway, these things happen, right?”
    “Right.” I’m not sure who is treating whom here, or maybe that’s not the point.
    It does make me wonder, though, how he did end up in Buffalo. When he was hired, the Children’s Hospital press release called him the “wunderkind from the Big Easy.” Not yet forty and he’s got a publication list longer than my arm. Even Jason will admit he’s “wicked-fucking-smart.” So what brought him to the polar vortex then? He clears his throat, and I realize he may be waiting for an answer. But I’m not sure what the question was.
    “So I guess what I’m saying is, we all have our troubles, Zoe.” He leans in toward me. “And it sounds like you’ve had more than your share since you’ve been a resident.”
    I wonder if he’s talking about the patient who stabbed me. I didn’t think he knew about that. But he probably does. Everybody around here does. I forged my way past whispers and stares for months after it happened. But eventually people’s everyday life, real life—messy with its fender benders, cheating spouses, overdue cable bills, all the other quotidian tragedies—intervened, turning even homicidal, psychopathic patients a bit less eventful. Which is to say, everyone eventually forgot about me. Though every once in a while, a hush still falls over the elevator when I step on.
    “You ever of hear Leonard Cohen?” he asks, putting his elbows on his knees.
    “No, I don’t think so.”
    “Let me tell you. He’s one of my favorite songwriters. A poet, really.”
    “Okay?”
    “He has a song where he says: There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in. ” He pauses to let this sink in. “Like no one’s perfect; we all have our demons. But that’s what makes us who we are.” He stares off at the wall, where the sunlight glares on the veneer of light-brown, fake-knotted wooden paneling. He puts his hand on my shoulder and gives it a squeeze. An attagirl kind of squeeze. Like he might give to Mr. Gonzalez, which makes me sad in a way. I really don’t want to be his patient.
    “I’m doing okay, though,” I say. “I just think my meds need some tinkering is all. I’ll be right as rain soon enough.” Right as rain. Something my mom used to say.
    “I’m sure you will be,” he answers, standing up. End of the quick word. As he opens the door, the pressurized silence of the room evaporates, the hospital sounds zooming back in. We walk out, and he glances at his gold watch.
    “I’ve got an appointment in a bit.”
    I stop myself from asking for what.
    “And you’re post-call, so get yourself home already!” He gives me another shoulder squeeze. “And Zoe?”
    “Yes.” I hear my foot tapping against the tile and stop it.
    “Don’t forget.” He puts his hand up to his heart in a fist. “ That’s how the light gets in. ”
    I stand there as he walks away, trying to decide if that was corny or not.

Chapter Three
    O kay, my dopamine needs a serious tune-up here.”
    Sam cradles his chin, naked pink now without his goatee. (He told me last session his wife thought it made him look old.) It does take ten years off him, but he looks incomplete somehow. Like his brown hair and his brown eyes lost a friend. He also looks less Freudian, though maybe that was intentional. “What do you mean?” he asks.
    “I don’t know. My brain is sluggish. Like I’m underwater.”
    He nods. “And why do you think that is?”
    I finger the row of brass buttons on the leather chair. “I don’t know. I assume it’s my ADHD acting up. It just feels like I’m brain-dead.”
    He waits for me to say more. “Can you give me an example?”
    I bend over to the coffee table. Sam always