Pipe Burst Guest novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: The Doctor

The next morning at ten, I walked into the family doctor's clinic with a pharmacy bag in my hand.

I had not come alone.

Nico sat in the waiting room with a magazine he was not reading, his bandaged hand on his knee.

Two men sat across from him in good coats, looking like they wanted to be anywhere else.

One was the oldest captain, seventy-three, with a grandson facing prison.

The other was the nervous one, who had once asked me whether a funeral could be postponed because it might rain.

"Thank you for coming," I said.

"You said it was about the family," the old one said.

"It is."

"Cesare doesn't know we're here."

"He will by lunch," I said. "Come in with me."

The nurse at the desk tried to say something, and the old captain looked at her, and she sat back down.

The doctor was behind his desk with a cup of coffee.

He smiled when I came in, and then his eyes went to the two men behind me, and the smile slid.

"Marisa. I expected you alone."

"I brought witnesses. I thought you'd want some."

"Witnesses to what?"

I put the pharmacy bag on his desk.

I took out the bottle and set the receipt beside it.

"Two years of sleeping pills, filled in my name. I never took one."

"You were prescribed them for your own good."

"By you."

"Of course by me."

"Then show me my chart."

He did not move.

"The chart that says I have delusions," I said. "The one that says I see ghosts."

"Marisa, you attempted your own life."

"I did, and I'm not ashamed of it. I did it because I was told for three years that I was imagining a woman who turned out to be real."

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