The Young Adult Shared Apartment Program is part of DMH’s Specialized Rehabilitative Residential Programs, and it is exclusively for clients between the ages of eighteen and rwenty-seven. Residents share an apartment with other roommates, and receive twenty-four-hour counseling and support, including educational and community activities.
Charlie remained in the car. Jess was directed by a very cheerful woman to the third level of rooms, where Dennis Brigham was being introduced to his new surroundings.
The young man was sitting on his bed and a counselor was working with him on tactile impressions, letting him touch and examine the comforter, the pillow, the small study desk that would remain his property through the duration of his stay.
Jess stood in the doorway and studied him. He still had the same red baseball cap yanked down tightly over his head, and his socks were pulled up over his calves. He had been cleanly shaved this morning.
“Hello, Dennis,” she said. “How are you feeling today? I’ve brought you something.”
He cocked his head at her and offered a very wide smile, but she could not tell if he recognized her or not. She kept some respectful distance between them, and held out the fluffy white teddy bear with the red ribbon around its neck. It was the best the Hallmark store had to offer, and though it looked nothing like the one she had given to Sarah, the one Dennis had tried to take from her that day in the playroom, it would have to do.
The counselor, a pleasantly round man in his thirties with glasses and a receding hairline, took the bear from her and put it on the bed. “He’ll need to get used to it,” the man said. “There are a lot of new things in his world these days. We’re working on touch. He’s got a bit of an issue with personal contact.”
“I know,” she said. “I was with him, before. I helped out a little bit at the Wasser’man Facility.”
“Ah, okay. So you do know, then. Would you like a moment with him?”
She nodded. Dennis had picked up the bear and was clutching it to his chest, rocking with it, slowly rocking back and forth.
“Do you love me? Then say it. Saaaayyyy it.”
“I love you, Dennis,” she said. “I’m very sorry about what happened.”
The counselor had been taken by surprise when Dennis picked up the bear so quickly. Clearly there was some connection between the two of them. He watched the worn-looking young woman with concern as tears rolled down her face, made as if to touch her arm, then thought better of it. This one did not look like she liked to be touched either.
He left them alone, closing the door quietly behind him.
A day later, Jess was well enough to be released from the hospital. Otto howled at her when she returned to her apartment, wrapping himself around her legs and purring loudly. Charlie had been good enough to feed him, but he was clearly starving for attention. She gave him enough tight squeezes that he eventually wriggled out of her arms and went stalking off across the floor with his tail held high, as if suddenly offended by such a shameless show of need.
She spent the next two days answering a few more questions from investigators, painting in the eaves by her window, and watching the leaves fall. She was intent upon appearing to the outside world as though she were resuming her routine, and so she went shopping, saw Charlie for lunch, and played at the life of a normal twenty-something in the city.
But inside, she was itching to go.
A week after the fire that destroyed the Wasserman Facility, she made a few calls, notifying the school and landlord of her intentions, then packed Otto into the car and delivered him to Charlie, who accepted the burden without a second thought and gave her the information she needed. Jess saw her chance and took it.
The address she had been given was a single-family home in a residential pocket on the outskirts of Framingham, small but carefully kept on a corner lot. Traffic was light in this neighborhood.
Jess noticed the children’s slide and swing set, partially obscured by the hedge and gate on the side of the house. She rang the bell, and a young woman opened the door. She was pretty and lithe, with hair that tumbled across her shoulders in thick, dark curls. A little boy of about four peeked out from behind her legs. “Welcome,” she said. “Come on in. Jay-jay, go find a toy to play with, please.”
Patrick was waiting for her in the living room. “You’ve met my sister and nephew, then,” he said, when she entered. “Isn’t he a little devil? Kate, we’ll be a few minutes.”
“I’ll take him outside to play,” she said. “Just let me know if you need anything.”
When the woman had left them alone, Patrick crossed the room quickly and drew Jess into his chest without a word. She remained stiff at first, and then felt herself relax and return the embrace. She was surprised to realize that it felt good.
“You’re all right,” he said. It wasn’t a question, but a statement of relief. She nodded anyway. “I wasn’t sure of the details,” he said. “Charlie feeds me pieces of information when she can.”
“Thank you,” Jess whispered.
“For what?”
“For being there. For what you did for her. For both of us.”
Patrick had arrived at the Wasserman Facility before the first rescue vehicle, and quickly surveyed the scene. They had made a fast decision. Sarah needed immediate medical attention, but it could not be through normal channels. They still didn’t know who else was involved, who might want to get their hands on her, and they didn’t know what she might do to a stranger who tried to touch her. Patrick knew a general practitioner who would treat her carefully and with no questions asked. After that, she had to effectively disappear.
He loaded her into his car, while Jess remained behind to look after the other children. It was one of the hardest decisions she ever had to make. She still did not know if she could trust him completely, but his connection to Charlie was very much in his favor.
“Nobody followed you, then?” he asked, releasing her from the embrace. She was caught up in his eyes again, the unsettling nature of them, the duality. He could not hide his true feelings, even if that was what he wanted to do. Like two sides of one personality, laid bare for all to see.
“I asked the cabbie to be careful,” she said. “I watched too. There was no one.”
“Good.” He smiled down at her, touched her cheek. “Thank God you’re okay.” Then he drew away. “You’ll want to see her. She’s this way.”
He led her through a narrow, darkened hallway to the rear bedroom. Sarah lay among the soft sheets, tethered to an IV and a bandage taped to the wound on her head, her eyes closed and little brow slightly furrowed. As Jess entered, she seemed to relax, the tension easing in her face. She opened her eyes.
Jess Chambers felt a prickle in her skin. She looked down; her hands had come up and forward as if by their own accord. She took two steps to the bed, reached out, and touched the girl’s fingertips. An electrical charge jumped between them like static electricity.
She reached up to caress Sarah’s brow. Sarah smiled at her through the bandages and the shadows, and the pain and sadness was gone, her eyes were lighter now, and free.
A week later, the girl was well enough to get out of bed and move around. They waited another three days, and then packed everything up and said good-bye to the little house in the quiet family neighborhood.
The trip to Jacob’s Field took no more than twenty minutes. The Beechcraft was waiting for them near the gate, fueled up and ready to fly. Sarah sat with Patrick in the back, her eyes growing large and round as they taxied and then lifted off into the air, soaring upward through the low layer of clouds that had settled around the airport in the lazy, blue cold of a November day.