She was seated on the far end of a twin-sized bed in the middle of her drab room. She’d traded in the hospital attire for a pair of loose-fitting jeans and a faded pink sweater. Maybe the clothes were hers, but they fit her poorly. Then again, she had lost a lot of weight. She didn’t bother to look up when I entered the room. She continued with what she was doing, which was coloring in a notebook that looked like a diary of some sort. She moved the green crayon in lazy, slow circles on a page that appeared to be otherwise blank.
I glanced around the tiny room as I approached Ami. A plastic stand was next to the bed, a Styrofoam cup with water in it the only thing on it. Besides the bed and the table, the room was essentially bare. There were two other doors, one skinnier than the other. I guessed one was a closet, and the other, a bathroom. Both were padlocked. Ami probably wasn’t even allowed to go to the bathroom alone. How intrusive. I thought.
One tall window took up much of the far wall. The clear material appeared to be some kind of safety glass, I supposed to prevent breakage. Even so, there was wire mesh and thick bars on the outside. No one was getting out. The spray-painted help me I’d seen on my first visit flitted through my mind, and I turned away quickly.
I walked over and stood next to Ami, and her green crayon stilled. “Hello, Madeleine,” she said without looking up.
“Hi, Ami,” I replied, keeping my voice even.
A brown crayon lay lodged in the fold of a stiff white sheet atop her bed. Ami carefully cradled the green crayon next to it. I glanced down at the notebook (diary?) as Ami began to close it. The picture she’d drawn with the crayons appeared to be a tree, with some kind of a crater in the earth next to it. Maybe the crater was to show a comet had hit there, as it was fairly large in proportion to the tree.
Ami’s creation was a basic picture, something a little kid might draw—a tree and a hole in the ground, nothing special. I briefly wondered if it was the clue for the day, but it appeared not when Ami snapped the notebook shut and shoved it under her pillow.
Her cool blue eyes then met mine. “I knew you’d come today,” she said, and then she lowered her voice and added, “Tick tock, you know.”
I took a step back, and the guard glanced in. “Everything’s fine,” I said, forcing a smile.
Bradley still had his walkie-talkie in hand, but it was down by his side. He seemed to assess that everything was all right and relaxed. He took a step away from the door when the communication device began to squawk once more. He raised it to his ear, and I turned back to Ami.
She was watching the guard closely, too, but then she stood and walked over to the window. “Did you know we’re allowed to smoke in here?”
I shook my head, wondering what she was talking about. “Are you sure about that?” I asked.
“Yes, Maddy, I’m sure,” she said. “But only under supervision, of course.”
Huh? This whole exchange was making no sense. I didn’t recall Ami ever having been a smoker. So why were we even discussing this?
Then, to my complete and utter surprise, Ami fished a cigarette out of the front pocket of her jeans. “An employee has to light it for you,” she said. “So you don’t try to burn yourself…or”—she laughed—“worse.”
Okay, we were veering into crazy territory here. I glanced at the door to see if Bradley was catching any of this. Though he was just outside the doorway, his back was turned to us. I bit my lip, debating whether I should let this play out or get his attention. What was Ami up to?
Ten seconds later I found out…
My gaze returned to Ami, and she struck a match across the back of a cherry-red matchbook. She raised it to the end of her cigarette, lit the cigarette, and then (thankfully) snuffed the match out. “Since when do you smoke?” I asked, perplexed.
Ami inhaled, lowered the cigarette, and blew out a plume of smoke. “Since now,” she said. Ok-a-a-ay.
Three things then happened at once: One, the guard noticed Ami smoking, and two, he barreled into the room just as Ami actually stepped toward him, And finally, three, as she passed me Ami pressed the matchbook into my hand, the sulfur strip on the back still warm. “Shh,” she hushed, holding my startled gaze as the guard snatched the cigarette from her.
Knowing the matchbook was in some way my second clue, I closed my fingers around it. The guard demanded to know how Ami had lit the now snuffed-out cigarette, but she refused to speak. He shot a questioning plea my way, but I just shrugged a shoulder.
In all the confusion, Nurse Allen arrived. She motioned for me to leave. “Out, out,” she yelled. Her tone sounded harsher than usual, so I hastily complied.
When I reached the hallway, I glanced back. The guard was holding a writhing Ami down on the bed, and the nurse was preparing to administer a shot. When the nurse caught me staring, she closed the door in my face.
I turned and headed to the elevators. It was sad that Ami had felt the need to go to such lengths just to hand me a clue. What were they about to shoot her up with? I wondered. Ami
