“Good,” replied Emily, trying to smile, but her eyes would no longer stay open.
She drifted in and out of sleep for what seemed like hours, as her beleaguered foot was X-rayed, injected with a local anesthetic, and operated on, the broken bone—the metatarsal, the doctor told her—snapped and pinned back into place. She was propped on pillows in a high hospital bed, her foot in a plaster cast. A different Filipino nurse fed her pills (“for swelling and pain”), handed her a baggie of the same to take home with her, and ushered Dr. Gitter into the room. Seeing the clear set of his face, remorse immediately washed over her; she’d dragged some nice person into her troubles, exactly the sort of thing she wanted to avoid—exactly the sort of thing that Clara did, that borderlines, she knew, did—and, worse, she’d been a bitch to him, if not in action then in thought. It must, she knew, be almost two in the morning, and here this man—this stranger—was forced into having to take care of her. “I’m sorry,” she said, discovering that her throat ached. Why? Instinctually, she reached a hand up to her neck.
“The anesthetic,” he said. “It can do that. It’s weird.” Emily nodded.
“Dr. Gitter. You don’t have to stay here with me. It’s late.” And yet, as she uttered these words, she realized she was almost desperate for him to stay. What would she do without him? How would she get home? She had no cash on her. (My tips, she thought suddenly. Will Declan hold my tips for me?) She couldn’t walk. Who could she call? Not Beth or Sadie, not at this hour, not anymore; and not Lil, who could barely take care of herself, much less Emily, and whom she hadn’t spoken to in at least a month. There was Dave, she supposed. And Clara. Clara, of course, would come in a second; she was probably still up. But she didn’t want Clara. Which left Tal, who wasn’t even around, as far as she knew. Dave had told her he was in Israel again, despite the dire situation there, not filming but on some sort of retreat. “Maybe kabbalah?” Dave had said, grimacing. But she herself had heard nothing from him since last spring, when he’d given her passes to that show at Circle in the Square—a new play, with Holly Hunter, whom Emily loved, but kind of boring and Gurney-ish. They’d had a drink after, she and Curtis and Tal, making stiff, awkward conversation, Tal gingerly asking about her play (she could see now that he, too, was skeptical of her hopes, but too politic to say anything). Lately, she wondered if he’d pulled away from her because it was all too strange: the contrast between his success and her failure. She still didn’t understand why he’d never offered her any help during all her years of struggle. Could he not have put her in touch with his agent? Could he not have suggested her for roles? Did he think so little of her talents? In college, he’d been her biggest fan. They’d played opposite each other in The Rehearsal, her favorite production from undergrad. “You really can go,” she told the doctor.
But he ignored her. “Cool cast,” he said, smiling. “Can I sign it?”
“I guess.” She laughed, struggling to contain her annoyance that he hadn’t listened to her. The thought of him pitying her or staying out of obligation was too much. “Listen, you really don’t need to stay. I can get home okay myself. I’m completely fine.”
Abruptly, he sat down in the chair beside her bed. “Let’s drop the tough-girl act for a second,” he said. Taken aback, she pushed herself up on her elbows—she’d never thought of herself as anything remotely similar to a “tough girl”—but pain shot through her foot and up her leg, and she lost, for a moment, her ability to breathe. Dr. Gitter slid his arm behind her shoulders and lowered her down against the high bed. “Okay,” he said, puffing out his cheeks and blowing out a stream of air. “Okay, okay. Try to lie still, okay? Try to rest. You really did a number on your foot, okay.” Sitting down in the chair, he inched it closer to her bed. “Now, listen, we need to talk.” She crossed her arms and looked at him. It was two in the morning. She had a broken foot. She did not want to talk. “What are you doing at McKinney’s? I thought you worked at a bank.”
How did he know this? Oh, she realized. Dr. Lang. She smiled. “I do. I just needed a little Christmas money. You know.”
He looked at her strangely. “No, I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?”
“Well, things are kind of tight and the holidays are coming up.” She reached up and touched her hair, which felt wiry and stiff. She must look awful. “So I thought I’d get a, you know, temporary job, just until things even out a bit.” He shook his head sadly, and shame flooded through her, though she wasn’t sure why.
“Emily, I need to explain to you how things look from my perspective. Will you listen to me for a minute?” She nodded, though she really, truly didn’t want to hear what he had to say.
“Okay, I meet a young woman whose sister has a history of serious mental illness, substance abuse, and even occasional violence, not to mention a substantial criminal record—”
“No—”
He held up his hand. “I’ve seen her records, Emily. You signed the releases. Brattleboro, Holly Hill, Chestnut Ridge, Duke. So, I know, okay. I know everything—”
“But—”
“Let me finish. So this young woman’s sister has now come to live with her, basically because their parents have washed their hands of the sister. They’ve been supporting her for years and it’s killing them, which is common, actually. This young woman loves her sister and her parents, and she wants to do right by them. It seems like the sister is in better shape. Even the parents are starting to think she’s okay and cut her a bit of slack. But she still should be under a psychiatrist’s care.” He slowed down on these words, for emphasis. “Her medication definitely needs to be monitored. And so does her lifestyle. She can’t be drinking alcohol or taking any other meds—which she very well might, since she’s done so in the past. And there are little signs—little glimmers of a psychotic break—that this nice young woman has noticed, which is why she came to my colleague for help in the first place. And I meet the sister and I see why this nice young woman is afraid. The sister is out of control. She’s going to crash. There’s no doubt.” He pressed his fingertips together and shook his head.
“I tell the young woman that I could, very possibly, arrange for her sister to come to one of the best clinics in the country for free, but she would need to stay at the hospital, as an inpatient. And this nice young woman says no, no, that her sister is getting better, really, and it would make things worse for her to be put into another hospital, because part of the sister’s problem—which is, by the way, common to borderlines—is that she hates that people think she’s crazy, and she’s just found a group of friends and is settling into some sort of new life—”
“Dr. Gitter,” Emily cut in wearily. “I’m so tired. Do we really need to do this now? Could you maybe just tell me your point?”
“My point?” he asked, shaking his head, as if he couldn’t believe she’d asked such a ludicrous question. “My point is that I told you to rein her in. I told you to keep her on a fixed budget, to mete out her meds, to watch her—”
“I did. I did—”
“Then why, tell me why—the next thing I know, I see the young woman—”