Chapter 16: Nobody's First Choice

The county hospital pharmacy stayed open all night behind a sliding glass window.

I found her there at one in the morning, in pale scrubs, counting pills into a tray.

She had her back to me and her hair in a knot.

I set the fern on the ledge of the window.

Her hand stopped.

"You took the fern," she said.

"It looked thirsty."

"It's a fern. It's tougher than it looks."

She still had not turned around.

"Hank told you where I'd be."

"Hank told me to stop being an idiot," I said. "Then he told me where."

She finished the row and shut the tray.

When she faced me, she had on her flat work face, the one she used on strangers at the counter.

"You're not due for a refill until the nineteenth."

"I didn't come for pills."

"Then I can't help you."

"Leanne."

"There's a line behind you."

I looked.

The corridor was empty, and so was the waiting room beyond it.

A cleaner's cart squeaked somewhere far off.

She lowered her eyes.

"I read the letters," I said.

Her mouth tightened.

"I wasn't ever going to give you those."

"I know."

"They weren't for you to read. They were for me to feel like I'd tried."

"I read them anyway." I put my hands flat on the ledge. "Tell me why you really left."

"I left because you're well."

"That isn't an answer."

"It's the one you get today," she said. "One honest answer a day. I'm using it."

I let that sit.

She picked at the edge of the counter with her thumbnail.

Then, very low, she said, "You said something to me at your wedding."

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