Exit Light Read online

  “Because I think I can help him.” He looked at Henry, then back to her. “And…well…I don’t have anything better to do.”

  This seemed an answer almost painful in its honesty, and she reacted with a laugh meant to ease the awkwardness. “I’m sure that’s not true.”

  He shook his head. “No, it’s true. I don’t have any family in the area, and I haven’t had time to make any friends to call up for a barbecue or anything. And my apartment…God, my apartment’s so depressing it makes this place seem like an amusement park.”

  “Wow, that’s really bad.” She didn’t mean to laugh again.

  He laughed, too, but shook his head. “I’m serious.”

  “I thought you were going to move?”

  He shrugged. “Haven’t had time to look.”

  “The house next to mine is for sale. I can give you the Realtor’s number, if you want.” The offer slipped out before she could grab it back.

  He smiled. “That would be great. We’d be neighbors.”

  “You might hate the house.” She hated the eager way she sounded.

  “I might l-love it.”

  He stuttered it, and Tovah thought the word love had never sounded so appealing.

  “So…what were you doing to him, exactly?” Tovah looked again at Henry, whose snort-whistling breath hadn’t changed. She leaned to wipe a silver strand of drool. The meds did that.

  “Are you familiar with guided imagery?”

  Tovah shook her head. “Sounds…”

  “Freaky deaky?” He laughed softly. “Sort of. It uses the power of imagination to promote healing, reduce stress. That sort of thing. Studies have proven it works. I thought I’d try it with Henry.”

  “What were you saying to him?”

  “I was describing a path to him,” Dr. Goodfellow said. “If he could find it, I thought maybe I could guide him home.”

  Emotion slammed through her, tears burning. She busied herself with something in her bag to hide the fact his words had struck her so hard. He couldn’t have any idea of what he’d said, or what it meant. “I hope you’re right.”

  He cleared his throat. “He’s lucky to have you for a friend. I think I told you that before.”

  “Luck’s got nothing to do with it. Henry was good to me when I needed someone to be, that’s all.”

  Dr. Goodfellow waited for her to say more. He was good at that. Letting her talk. Listening. She’d discovered that. She liked it.

  “Tovah, would you like to have some lunch with me?”

  The offer surprised but pleased her, and she ducked her head to hide the heat rising in her cheeks. She fussed with Henry’s blankets. “Now?”

  “Sure. Now.”

  She gave Henry’s doctor a sideways look, half expecting to see him grinning. Or maybe staring like she was some sort of freak for not answering right away. She lifted her head at his expression. He looked…blank. Only for a second, so fast she couldn’t be sure she’d seen his eyes go far away and mouth part slightly, like he breathed different air. Only a second, then he passed his fingertips over his forehead and smiled tentatively.

  “If you don’t want to—”

  “No. I’d like to. Sure. Just let me put these things away and we can go.”

  Smiling, she bent to empty her bag of the books and sundries she’d brought to tempt Spider into waking. She put the chocolate bars beneath the clean pajamas where they might not be stolen, and the books on the pile on the nightstand.

  Dr. Goodfellow took her across the street to a small deli she’d often passed but never entered. The menu offered matzah ball soup and noodle kugel, and she ordered both as much for the novelty of finding such fare in a local restaurant than because she was hungry for them.

  “Tell me about yourself,” he said.

  To her surprise, for Tovah wouldn’t have said she could find enough of interest about herself to occupy more than a few minutes of conversation, she spoke for half an hour without a break, longer than it took to eat her soup. It was good soup, too, rich and salty and full of floating bits of carrot. She spooned some, mindful all at once that he hadn’t been saying much.

  “Sorry, I’m sort of monopolizing the conversation.” She cut the second huge matzah ball in half with her spoon then in half again.

  Dr. Goodfellow, chin resting in his hand as he watched her, shook his head. “No. It’s nice to have someone who talks back in coherent sentences. Really.”

  She felt guilty laughing. “I try.”

  He smiled and reached for the small bowl of pickled vegetables on the table. He picked a carrot and bit the end. “Thanks for coming with me. I couldn’t stand another meal in the hospital cafe and Ava always brings in leftovers…they smell so good, but she’s stingy and won’t share.”

  “Hospital food sucks. I think it’s because they want to make sure nobody likes it there so much they want to stay.”

  “That’s a theory.” He wiped his fingers fastidiously on a paper napkin.

  She watched the fussy motion of his hands, then looked at his face. His brows had knit while he studied his fingers, perhaps for any stray gleam of vinegar. In concentration his face looked harder, unlike the open ease or occasional uncertainty he’d shown before. He looked darker. The shift was subtle, almost minute, but she looked automatically at the plastic-covered menu lying next to her, then again to make certain the letters hadn’t scrambled.

  “Do you want something else to eat?”

  He’d caught her checking her reality. Tovah shook her head, wondering what he’d think if she told him the truth of what she’d been doing. “No, just…looking. In case I want to come here again.”

  “Would you like to come here again?”

  He had a way of phrasing things…she couldn’t quite figure it out. It was like he meant to ask one question but another came out, instead. But when he smiled and leaned back against the bench, one long arm stretched out, she had a sudden image of herself nestled in that spot. That perfect spot, where she’d fit just right along his side.

  “Sure.” She looked into his eyes, which were very blue.

  It had been too long since she’d flirted in the waking world. She wasn’t sure she remembered how, or if she’d recognize it if someone did it to her. She wasn’t entirely sure Dr. Goodfellow’s offer had been more than friendly. But for the first time in a long time, Tovah thought she’d be willing to find out.

  “I should get back,” he said, and the moment ended like a door had slammed. He got up and waited while she did, too.

  “Thanks for asking me to lunch.” Tovah’s jeans had ridden up a bit, catching on the edge of her prosthesis, and she tugged the soft denim as she stood. In a way, her motion was as fussy as his had been with the napkin, and she looked to see if he’d been watching her the way she had him.

  He wasn’t. He was looking out, across the parking lot toward the large red stone building that was the Sisters of Mercy Hospital. A van drove by emblazoned with the logo of a local florist. At least, that was what Tovah thought it was, but she blinked, the van slowed to allow a customer from the deli to pass in front of it, and the logo had become an advertisement for a landscaping company.

  Close. But not quite the same. Yet she was certain she’d seen the distinctive caricature of the laughing daisy used by Button and Daisy florists.

  “I’ve got to get back,” he said in a low voice she almost missed, concentrating as she was on the van that had passed by, out of sight. “I’ll see you next Sunday, Tovah. Don’t forget to bring the Realtor’s card.”

  He pushed out of the deli’s front doors without looking back, one large hand cupping itself into half a wave as he went. She watched him, her heart pounding suddenly in her ears and throat. She’d burned her tongue on the soup and only now noticed. Her legs didn’t hold her, and she had to sit.

  She watched Martin Goodfellow cross the parking lot, then the street, his long legs moving without hesitation. She watched until he’d disappeared into the front do