Chapter 12: On Camera

The clinic was a low brick building behind a tire shop, forty minutes from the cabin.

The nurse practitioner was a woman with silver hoop earrings who had known Finnegan since the academy.

She did not ask my name.

She wrote a made-up name on the chart and plugged me into the machine.

For four hours I watched a baseball game on a wall television with the sound off.

When I came out, my head was clear for the first time in a week.

Finnegan drove us back by the lake road with both hands on the wheel.

"You've got your colour back," he said.

"I've got my kidneys back, a little."

"A little is something."

He did not say anything else until we turned in at the cabin.

I sat on the porch steps and watched the water go grey and silver under the evening.

"I'm going on camera," I said.

He stopped with the screen door in his hand.

"No."

"You promised me the truth about the case. Here it is about mine.

"They've told the whole state I'm dangerous.

"By Monday, a judge will have signed a paper with my name on it, and every officer in Ohio will treat me as a danger."

"If you speak, they'll know where you are."

"Not if you hold the phone, and you hold it so it shows a wall."

"Willa. Once it's out, it's out. You can't take it back."

"I know," I said. "For seven years I had no say in what anyone knew about me."

He looked at me for a long time.

Then he let the door close and sat down on the step below mine, so that our shoulders did not quite touch.

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