Page 102 of A Better World

Pratt gave her a side-eye, which she took to mean,Obviously.

“He won’t press charges if the hospital agrees to put you on leave, which they’ve done,” Pratt said.

“I’m fired? That guy’s a junkie!” she said, louder than she’d intended.

“He’s a diabetic. He was treating himself,” Pratt said.

“You don’t treat blood sugar with nitrous oxide.”

Pratt stood. “I’ve spoken to the higher-ups and this is their decision. Their patience is thin on you and your family. The public drunkenness, the stop sign your daughter broke, sneaking into themental ward… We’d typically push for expulsion today. Right now. But your husband spoke in your favor. He agreed that if you cause any more problems, he’ll commit you to a minimum of three months at our psychiatric facility—the fourth floor.”

Pratt walked out, leaving her there on the comfy couch, where she picked up the letter Russell had e-signed, agreeing to the recommendations of the board, which had convened in the time she’d spent in the waiting room. Then she heard his wheedling voice: “Linnie?”

“I had no choice,” Russell explained on the ride home. “You put me in the worst position, Linda. You promised a low profile and you did the opposite.”

She listened to his logical arguments, heard out his indignant frustration. In the midst of it, she interrupted. “Are you saying that if I fuck up one more time, you’re going to commit me to the PV mental ward? Do I have this right, Russell?”

“Of course not! But I had to promise them something or we’d be out on our asses—no deposit, no car, no nothing. We’d literally be on the street.”

When they got into the house, he seemed to think that she’d follow him to his office, where they’d talk more and in private, figure out how Linda would make her many apologies, keep this shit show going one more day.

He stood in the doorway, waiting.

She saw that grin again, scratched with sand or dirt. Imagined it bleeding through lace in the land of nightmares. “Naw,” she said. Then she was up the stairs, locking the door to her bedroom.

Russell didn’t come to bed that night. Perhaps he used the guest room or the fold-out in his study. Would his back hurt? She hoped so.

Tuesday

The next morning, she didn’t get up to take the kids to school. What the hell did school matter? But at seven fifteen a.m., Josie knocked.

“Come on in,” Linda said.

“Are you okay?” Josie asked.

“I’m still thinking on the things we talked about,” Linda said. “I’m working on them.”

Josie seemed relieved.

“I’ll figure it out,” Linda promised.

Just then, Russell poked his head in. Linda had the feeling he’d been listening. “I’ll take them.”

That afternoon, Linda drove through falling snow to the PV Hospital’s back lot. Foggy laundry steam poured from a vent in the basement.

She tried to palm her way inside the employee entrance, but her access was denied. So she went around front to the emergency room entrance, where she flashed her badge at the dayworker attending at the front desk. “I’m having an ocular migraine—I can’t see the palm access in back, so I thought I’d come through here?” she lied.

He let her through.

She went fast, passing regular staff like Greg Hamstead. If he saw her, he didn’t say anything. She found the stairs. Went to the last place she hadn’t searched: the basement. The door was locked. No access. She tiptoed to the rectangle of glass just above eye height, saw two PV-uniformed cops in their country club green uniforms. Cyrus Galani was one of them.

She retreated, sitting on the stairs as she tried to figure out how to get in. She could lift Chernin’s palm print from his car handle or head back to his house and peel it from his front door. Make a mold and use that to gain entrance. But this seemed complicated, and likely to go wrong, and she had no idea how she’d competently execute any of those things. She could also just wait and see what happened.

After about a half hour, a nurse emerged from the basement elevator. She wheeled a cart with two trays into the guarded room, then came back out empty handed.

Hours passed before anything else happened. No one came down the stairwell. Her worries of getting caught subsided into boredom and, after that, doubt. This endeavor was, incontrovertibly, absurd.

But then, the elevator opened again and there came Dr. Chernin and Pratt, the chief of police. Pratt was holding two teddy bears and a brunette baby doll. Cyrus opened the door for them and suddenly the hall was empty. They were all inside.

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