He was gradually growing used to the cast on his arm. There were three things, though, that the cast had made difficult. The first was eating, which was fine as long as he didn’t have to cut meat or open a milk carton. Last night, Miss Tilley—she was the woman who brought him his meals and had brought him the games—had to return with a second milk after he spilled the first one all over the bed. It hadn’t been much fun trying to use the bathroom, either. Mostly it was a matter of working out the logistics, though there had been some trial and error and a little embarrassment as well. And finally, it was like wearing a lifejacket to bed. The cast was always in the way, always taking up space. It was impossible to find a comfortable position.
Gabe hadn’t slept well last night. Not well at all.
Another beep from the game and three new cards were dealt: a five, an ace, and a ten. That left him with three fives, a decent enough hand. He pressed a gray-colored button, cleared the screen, and was about to draw a new hand when a knock came at the door.
He looked up.
The door swung open, and Miss Tilley stepped through, balancing a stainless steel meal tray in one hand. “Lunch time.”
“Already?”
“It’s been four hours since breakfast.”
“What time is it?”
“A little after twelve,” she said. She placed the tray on a bedside table, removed the cover from the plate, and a cloud of steam rose into the air. Lunch today was meat loaf, mashed potatoes, and corn. There was a wheat roll off to one side, and a carton of milk that she immediately opened for him. “Hungry?”
“Not really.”
“Well, you need to keep your strength up, Gabriel.”
“Why?”
Miss Tilley was not Miss Churchill. She was an older woman, heavyset, with bright blue eyes that were always averting his gaze. As uneasy with him, he believed, as he was with her. The truth was… he just didn’t like her very much. She had given no reason to like her. And there was something cold and disturbing about her.
“You sound like you think we’re fattening you up for the kill,” she said.
“Are you?”
“Don’t be silly.”
Gabe stared down at his lunch a moment, and used his fork to toy with the mashed potatoes. “When do I get to go home?”
“Not for awhile I’m afraid.”
“Yeah, but when?”
“It’s not up to me when you go home or when you eat your meals or when anything around here happens. I don’t make the decisions.”
“Yeah, but when do I get to go home,” Gabe whispered under his breath. He tried the meat loaf, which wasn’t as dry as the chicken had been last night. A little ketchup wouldn’t hurt. Neither would some salt.
He took another stab at the mashed potatoes and watched Tilley use her keys to unlock the top drawer of the medical cabinet just left of the door. She brought out a short rubber hose and a syringe, which she placed on a stainless steel tray. She carried the tray and its contents around the foot of the bed.
“What are you doing?”
“I need to take some blood.”
“From me?”
“Yes. From you.” She placed the tray on a bedside table, and went about unlocking a nearby drawer and pulling out some cotton swabs and Band-Aids.
“I’d rather not, thank you.” Gabe could only recall a couple of occasions when someone had drawn blood from him. His earliest memory was of an incident in the third grade, when he had been drinking too much water according to his mother, and she had grown worried about something she called diabetes. His grandmother had apparently had it and his mother thought maybe he did, too. It turned out that he didn’t, which made it hard for him to understand why he’d had to go through all the trouble of having that huge needle stuck in his arm. More recently, Dr. Childs had drawn his blood. Gabe wasn’t going to go through that again. And he especially wasn’t going to go through it for Tilley.
“Don’t be obstinate, Gabriel.”
He pushed his lunch tray aside. “I don’t have diabetes.”
“This isn’t about diabetes.”
“Then what’s it about?”
She picked up the rubber hose, stretched it, and seemed to take delight at the sound of it snapping back to size again. “Give me your arm, Gabriel.”
He shook his head, then pressed his elbow against his side and locked it in place.
“Gabriel!”
“I don’t want to.”
“Listen, young man, I don’t have the patience for this kind of behavior. Do you understand me? If you want to make this difficult, we’ll make it difficult. But either way, we’re going to draw blood and we’re going to do it now.”
He shook his head.
“Give me your arm!” She reached out at him like an old witch reaching out at a child’s youth. Her thin, cold fingers wrapped around the inside of his elbow.
Gabe pulled his arm free and fell back against the bedside table. His lunch tray flipped. Corn niblets scattered across the floor like a thousand frightened insects scurrying for cover. The tray landed with a loud, reverberating clang, and by the time the sound had finally reached its conclusion, the expression on Tilley’s face had transformed into a hideous Halloween mask.
“Why you little monster!”
He hadn’t meant to knock the tray over. It had just happened. If she would just leave him alone…
She started around the foot of the bed, her face flushed with anger, one hand gripping the rubber hose as if she were trying to squeeze the very life out of it.
Gabe backed into the farthest corner. “Stay away!”
“Not until I get some blood out of you, young man.”
A chair was pushed into a nearby opening, effectively cutting off an avenue of escape. A cart was pushed into another opening, narrowing the room half again as much.
He grabbed at a plastic bottle sitting on the counter, caught it, and flung it in her direction. It struck her on the right forearm, bounced off, and fell to the floor with a hollow echoing sound that reminded him of just how lonely and empty this place had become. What he might have done next, he would never know. The only door in or out suddenly burst open and two men, dressed in street clothes, came rushing through, their faces a mix of amusement and threat.
“About time,” Tilley said, visibly relieved.
“He’s only eleven. We thought you could handle him.” The first man through went directly at Gabe. He swept him up around the waist and tossed him over his shoulder as if he were nothing more than a sack of potatoes. “Where do you want him?”
“On the bed.”
They pinned him down to draw the blood, and by the time the job was finished, a black, ugly hatred began to smolder somewhere deep inside him. He watched Tilley gather up her things, her demeanor subdued, her actions officious again. She was back in charge now, her lips pursed in that prissy little manner of someone who knows she’s won.
“Maybe next time you’ll make it easier on yourself,” she said on her way out.
The door closed.
Except for the cartoon on television, the room fell quiet again.
Gabe fell back into his pillow, tears welling in his eyes. She had placed a cotton swab and a Band-Aid over the puncture wound to help stop the bleeding. He stared at it a moment, then tore it off and threw it at the overturned tray on the floor.
Never before in his life had he hated someone so much.
[75]
Now that they were both on the same team, they had to see if they could get on the same schedule. Last night had been a troubled night for Teri. She had slept so much the past couple of days that she found it difficult to close her eyes and return to that state of dreams and drifting. Instead, she had tossed and turned most of the night, and this morning she had been up and about by six.