to the right . . .
Why was she just squatting there? Hadn’t she noticed the man in the doorway? Didn’t she know—
Then I realized. The flashlight wasn’t in the enclosure at all. It had spun outside the fence, and she couldn’t reach it.
The doctor’s cigarette smoke wound up into the sky. If Josie climbed the chain-link fence, he would hear her. If she left the flashlight where it was, he would see it at any moment and go investigate.
I took a deep breath.
Then I slid my flashlight into my pocket as deep as it would go, ripped off my mask, and hurried toward the doctor.
“Excuse me? Hello?” I shouted, hoping Josie and Vince would take notice. I didn’t dare check if they did.
The doctor was in his early thirties, maybe. Light haired. Pale-eyed. He looked somewhat embarrassed as I approached. “Yes? Do you need something?”
I didn’t have time to come up with a proper story. The ski mask had left my hair wild with static electricity. It clung to my cheeks and forehead. Coupled with the flush I felt rising on my neck, it must have made me look half- feral—some freak girl spit out by the night. I stuttered.
Then the words came, almost unbidden: “I’m trying to see my brother.”
As soon as the words left my tongue, Addie was back.
It only took her a second to take everything in: the doctor’s tired, questioning eyes; the smell of his cigarette; the yellow light of the hospital hallway.
The man said something—something about general visiting hours being over—but I couldn’t concentrate with Addie’s sudden fury next to me.
She went silent, but her anger slashed at me, tattering my thoughts.
“Are you all right?” The doctor lowered his cigarette to his side, frowning. His voice was gentle. “Which ward is your brother in?”
“I—um,” I said.
His concern was melting into confusion, and confusion was a precursor for suspicion. I had to cut him off.
“He’s in PICU,” I said. “He’s only eight.”
PICU. The Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. A collection of letters I’d never wanted to learn.
“Are your parents here?” the doctor asked.
I shook our head. Maybe it was my imagination, but I thought I heard the clinking of a chain-link fence. Josie was climbing. I had to keep talking.
“How old are you?”
Please, please let Josie move quickly. I couldn’t drag this conversation on much longer. He might ask for a name next, or take me to the front desk, and then they’d know I was lying.
“Thirteen,” I murmured. Back home, siblings under fourteen didn’t have visitation rights unless they had a parent with them. Addie and I had been thirteen when Lyle’s kidneys first failed.
“Sorry?” the doctor said.
I swallowed and repeated, louder, “Thirteen.”
Addie and I weren’t particularly tall, but we could hardly be mistaken for thirteen, either. Hopefully, the darkness cloaked my lie.
The doctor didn’t sound suspicious as he said, “I’m afraid they’re probably not going to let you in unless you’ve got your mom or dad with you. I’m sorry about that. Do your parents know you’re here?”
I was already backing away, keeping our body angled so his eyes stayed away from the oxygen tanks. The clinking sounds had stopped.
“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, they do.”
He squinted after me. “Do you live nearby? Are you going to be okay getting home—”
“I’ll be fine,” I said. “I’ll, um, come back tomorrow with my mom.”
I walked all the way across the street, past Josie’s car, and around the side of a building before I dared to look back toward the hospital. The doctor took a drag from his cigarette. Vince’s flashlight was no longer shining.
Had she? I remembered her saying something, but—but she hadn’t said much. Had she held back because she knew I wanted so badly to come?
Had I been too caught up in myself to notice?
Across the street, the doctor dropped his cigarette. It stayed lit, a fallen ember, until his foot ground it dark. He turned and headed back into the building.
A beat of stillness.
Then Josie—or some shadowed figure I guessed to be Josie—crept toward the fence. In a minute, she was back over and heading for the oxygen racks, helping Vince ease the tank all the way free and carry it to the fence. One of them climbed to the top first, then balanced there as the other passed the tank up.
The shadowy figures started toward us across the pavement, keeping to the darker spaces. But soon, they crossed the street. They took off their masks, and the lamplight caught them, illuminated them, made them Vince and Josie again.
They both grinned as they set the oxygen tank down. Before I knew what was happening, Vince picked us up and swung us around. Our stomach lurched. Addie was an impenetrable mess beside me. But Vince laughed. “You really pulled that off, didn’t you?” he said.
I made myself smile. “I guess I did.”
There was one brief, kicking moment of anger from Addie. A flicker of disappointment.
Then she was gone again, as if she couldn’t even stand to be around me any longer.
TWENTY-SIX
Josie and Vince talked excitedly all the way home, but I just sat in the backseat, cradling the oxygen tank, listening to the silence Addie left behind. I’d expected a rush of exhilaration now that the heist was done. But I could think of nothing but Addie. We’d fought all the time before I’d lost the power to move, and after, too. We’d go silent and not speak to each other for hours. We’d slam that wall between us and live huddled in our own minds, trying to keep each other out.
But we’d never left each other. We couldn’t.
No matter how bad the fight, we had to stay together. And sooner or later, one of us would give in. The wall would crumble, and we’d forgive each other.
Now when we fought, we had somewhere to run to. And Addie had run.
