Page 19

“She’s a junkie,” I said to Messenger, and perhaps my distaste was too obvious for he shot me a cold and disapproving look that I took as a rebuke.

I bristled at that. “It’s what happens to junkies,” I said harshly.

“Yes,” Messenger said.

“People shouldn’t take drugs,” I said, coming off more self-righteous than I intended. “I mean, come on, who doesn’t know that heroin is dangerous?”

“And you want to look no further?” he asked.

“I guess I don’t have a lot of sympathy for people who screw up their lives in some obviously stupid way. There’s people who have terrible things just happen to them. Th

ere are people being shot in the back in a school yard. That boy . . . those girls . . . and now this stupid girl, who nearly killed herself and may do so yet.”

“You spare no pity for the foolish.”

“I do have pity, it’s just . . . I mean, you can’t compare that brave boy standing up to gunmen and this girl here.”

He was silent, but it was a silence that carried the weight of disapproval.

The doctor and the medical students had moved on to another case. Graciella lay alone. All alone. A pretty but ragged girl with tubes in her arms and up her nose, scabs on her inner arms.

“Where are her parents, for God’s sake?” I snapped. “That’s who should be taking care of her.”

I should have known what would happen next—we stood outside a very nice, upscale suburban home in a location I could not guess at. There was a suggestion of impressive, pine-covered hills in the distance, the sky was threatening, and the air was chilly but not cold.

“Her home?”

“It was,” Messenger said. “And it is still, in this time.”

“You mean she’s in there right now?” Did my reluctance show? For I was strangely resistant to seeing her in a time before she became a disease-ridden drug addict. But I couldn’t fail in my duties. Messenger was deliberately waiting, patient as always, and I knew he was testing me.

I took a deep breath and walked straight up the sidewalk and through the front door into a tall entrance hall that revealed twin, curved staircases going up, with a formal dining room to the right and an equally formal living room, both furnished in a heavy, rather old-fashioned way, all dark wood and embroidered upholstery.

I heard laughter and the sound of running feet. A girl, no more than six years old, came running past, giggling, chased by an enthusiastic terrier.

It might be Graciella, I thought, but this child was a universe away from the scabbed junkie who lay in a Nashville hospital.

We walked on, heading back toward the kitchen where a woman with a blond ponytail stood slicing vegetables for a salad. She worked awkwardly due to a cast on her left arm.

“Her mother,” I said, and at that a man entered. He was a strikingly handsome man of perhaps thirty-five but with prematurely silvered hair. He came up quietly behind his wife and made to put his arms around her waist but at his touch she flinched and cried out, “No, please!”

It was more than a startled sound, there was something brittle and high-strung in it, a panicky sound. Something was going on between the two parents. The man’s face darkened in anger.

“I hate it when you do that,” he snapped.

“Do what?” the woman asked, trying to conceal her emotions. “You just startled me is all.”

“I haven’t had a drink in two days and you still treat me like . . . like, I don’t know. Like you hate me touching you.”

She turned and I saw naked fear on her face. It was so surprising that I took a step back.

“John, I didn’t mean . . . I mean, I was just startled.”

“Have I ever laid a hand on you when I was sober?” the man asked, his expression one of hurt and perhaps wounded pride. “I just want to give my beautiful wife a hug.”

“Of course,” she said, but it came out almost as a gasp.

He carefully, gently, raised her injured arm and seemed to be inspecting the cast.