Page 34 of The Doctor's Truth

I let Kenzi leave with her vending machine loot and her promise that I’ll see her later.

I’ll hold her to it. She’s ignited something in me and, now that she’s back in my life, I have no intention of letting her wiggle out of it again.

I find Donovan in the lab. He’s sitting back in one of the chairs, staring at a wall of MRI scans tacked up side by side.

He doesn’t seem to notice when I walk in. Donovan is picking at his bottom lip, something he does when he’s thinking really hard. I don’t think he has any idea how distracting it is.

“Is that Otto?” I ask, closing the door behind me.

“Mmhm.”

I pull up the chair beside him. I dig the toes of my shoes into the floor and roll the chair back and forth aimlessly as I take a look at the brain scans. Blue-and-black images of a little boy’s brain tacked up to the wall.

“What are we looking at?” I ask.

“Nothing,” Donovan says. There’s frustration in his tone. “His scans are clear.”

“Good news for Otto.”

“Maybe. It still doesn’t explain the seizures.”

I lace my fingers in my lap. “So what’s your diagnosis?”

He lapses into thought for a minute. “He could be faking the seizures.”

I feel my mouth turn downward. “Seriously? That’s a little cynical, even for you.”

Donovan shrugs. “Single mom. Busy mom. Kid wants attention. It’s a great way to get it. He might not even be aware he’s doing it.”

I press my lips together. “I guess.”

“I’m going to run a couple more tests. See if we can induce it with stress.”

“Sure.” I nudge my chair back and forth on the wheels. “I convinced Kenzi and Otto to come to the Christmas ferry ride. You should join us. You can…observe Otto. See how he handles it.”

Donovan glances at me. “I’m not going to babysit Otto so you can fuck.”

My mouth drops open. “That’s not what I said!”

He rolls his eyes.

19

Kenzi

The ferry ride can’t come soon enough.

We leave the medical center with no answers but promises of results to come.

Otto and Pearl and I spend the day together: we shop around some of the open stores on Main Street. So many of these stores haven’t changed—the ice cream shop has the same sign of a narwhal with an ice cream cone for a horn. We pass Hanson’s General Store, where Donovan and I once shoplifted candy from, on a dare, and then both felt so bad about it we left two dollars in the tip jar. We go into a tourist shop with postcards and T-shirts, and beach equipment in the back, and Otto helps me pick out a couple of ornaments for the tree.

I’m trying to be present, but my thoughts keep drifting to last night. It feels like some kind of fever dream. Every now and then, I remember the deliciously full feeling of Jason inside of me or the low rumble of Donovan’s growls, and suddenly I’m squeezing my thighs, trying to ignore the throb.

I also pick up tickets for the Christmas Eve ferry ride.

* * *

December twenty-forth is bitterly cold. It’s going to be freezing on the ferry, so I pull on a dark dress and thick stockings that I roll up my thighs.

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