'No,' Amanda said loudly, then added: 'Only that I wanted to feel the grass. The slinky grass.'
'Did you get that?' Lisey asked Alberness.
'Something about feeling the grass?'
'Yes, but I'm sure that it was more. She was very insistent.'
'And you just did as she asked?'
'She's my older sister, Hugh—my oldest sister, actually. Also, I have to admit I was too excited at having her back on planet Earth to think very straight.'
'But I—we—really need to see her, and make sure this is an actual recovery.'
'If I bring her back in for examination tomorrow, would that be all right?'
Amanda was shaking her head hard enough to make her hair fly, her eyes big with alarm. Lisey began nodding her own head just as emphatically.
'That will do very well,' Alberness said. Lisey could hear the relief in his voice, real relief that made her feel bad about lying to him. Some things, however, had to be done once you had it strapped on nice and tight. 'I could come in to Greenlawn around two tomorrow afternoon and speak to both of you myself. Would that suit?'
'That would be fine.' Assuming we're still alive tomorrow at two.
'All right, then. Lisey, I wonder if—' Just then, directly above them, a glare-bright bolt of lightning raced beneath the clouds and struck something on the far side of the highway. Lisey heard the crack; she smelled both electricity and burning. She had never been so close to a lightning strike in her whole life. Amanda screamed, the sound almost completely lost in a monstrous roll of follow-thunder.
'What was that?' Alberness shouted. Lisey thought the connection was as good as ever, but the doctor her husband had so assiduously cultivated on Amanda's behalf five years before suddenly seemed very far away and unimportant.
'Thunder and lightning,' she said calmly. 'We're having quite a storm here, Hugh.'
'You'd better pull over to the side of the road.'
'I've already done that, but I want to get off this phone before it gives me a shock, or something. I'll see you tomorrow—'
'The Ackley Wing—'
'Yes. At two. With Amanda. Thanks for—' Lightning flared overhead and she cringed, but this time it was more diffuse, and the thunder which followed, while loud, didn't threaten to burst her eardrums. '—for being so understanding,' she finished, and pushed the END button without saying goodbye. The rain came at once, as if it had been waiting for her to finish her call. It beat the car in a white fury. Never mind the picnic bench; Lisey could no longer see to the end of her car's hood.
Amanda clutched her shoulder, and Lisey thought of another country song, the one opining that if you worked your fingers to the bone, all you got was bony fingers. 'I'm not going back there, Lisey, I'm not!'
'Ow, Manda, that hurts!'
Amanda let go but didn't pull back. Her eyes blazed. 'I'm not going back there.'
'You are. Just long enough to talk to Dr. Alberness.'
'No—'
'Shut up and listen to me.'
Amanda blinked and sat back, recoiling from the fury in Lisey's voice.
'Darla and I had to stick you in there, we had no choice. You were nothing but a breathing lump of meat with drool running out one end and piss running out the other. And my husband, who knew it was going to happen, did not just take care of you in one world but in two. You owe me, big sissa Manda-Bunny. Which is why you're going to help me tonight and yourself tomorrow, and I don't want to hear any more about it except 'Yes, Lisey.' Have you got it?'
'Yes, Lisey,' Amanda muttered. Then, looking down at her cut hands and starting to cry again: 'But what if they make me go back to that room? What if they lock me in and make me take sponge-baths and drink bug- juice?'
'They won't. They can't. Your committal was purely voluntary— Darla and I did the volunteering, since you were hors-debatty.'
Amanda snickered dolefully. 'Scott used to say that. And sometimes, when he thought someone was stuck-up, he'd say they were hors-de-snotty.'
'Yes,' Lisey said, not without a pang. 'I remember. Anyway, you're okay now. That's the point.' She took one of Amanda's hands, reminding herself to be gentle. 'You're going to go in there tomorrow and charm the socks off that doc.'
'I'll try,' Amanda said. 'But not because I owe you.'
'No?'
'Because I love you,' Amanda said with simple dignity. Then, in a very small voice: 'You'll come with, won't you?' 'You bet I will.'
'Maybe…maybe your boyfriend will get us and I won't have to worry about Greenlawn at all.'
'Told you not to call him my boyfriend.'
Amanda smiled wanly. 'I think I can manage to remember that, if you can drop the Manda-Bunny shit.'
Lisey burst out laughing.
'Why don't you get going, Lisey? The rain's letting up. And please turn on the heater. It's getting cold in here.'
Lisey flicked it on, backed the BMW out of its parking space, and turned toward the road. 'We'll go to your house,' she said. 'Dooley's probably not watching it if it's raining as hard there as it has been here—at least I hope not. And even if he is, what's he going to see? We go to your house, then we go to my house. Two middle-aged women. Is he going to worry about two middle-aged women?'
'Unlikely,' Amanda said. 'But I'm glad we sent Canty and Miss Buggy Bumpers off on a long trip, aren't you?'
Lisey was, even though she knew that, like Lucy Ricardo, she was going to have some 'splainin to do down the line. She pulled out onto the highway, which was now deserted. She hoped she wouldn't encounter a tree lying across the road and knew it was very possible that she would. Thunder growled overhead, sounding ill- tempered.
'I can get some clothes that actually fit me,' Amanda was saying. 'Also, I have two pounds of nice ground chuck in my freezer. It'll thaw nicely in the microwave, and I'm very hungry.'
'My microwave,' Lisey said, not taking her eyes off the road. The rain had stopped entirely for the time being, but there were more dark clouds up ahead. Black as a stage villain's hat, Scott would have said, and she was struck by the old sick wanting of him, that empty place that could now never be filled. That needing-place.
'Did you hear me, little Lisey?' Amanda asked, and Lisey realized that her sister had been talking. Saying something about something. Twenty-four hours ago she had been afraid Manda would never speak again, and here she was, already ignoring her. But wasn't that the way the world turned?
'No,' Lisey admitted. 'Guess not. Sorry.'
'That's you, always was. Off in your own…' Amanda's voice trailed away, and she made a business of looking out the window.
'Always off in my own little world?' Lisey asked, smiling.
