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the desk poked her head through the doorway, seemed to count us, and nodded.
    “Ten-minute checks.” Dora picked at her fingers. “Someone sticks their head in here and stares at me every ten minutes, even at night.” She tugged on the hem of my T-shirt. “What do you think, Lena? Nice place, huh?”
    “Great,” I said. “It’s really elegant.”
    Dora’s expression changed slowly; she almost grinned. “Let me show you around.” She swung her leg over the bed and stood up. “Closet,” she said, pointing with a flourish at the wooden cubbies. “For all those up-to-date hospital fashions. And look in the bathroom: no hooks. And no shower rod. They don’t want you to hang yourself. I can’t even hang up my towel.”
    My father was standing in front of the window, facing out, even though there was nothing but a parking lot to look at.
    “No blinds on the windows,” Dora said, still posing like a game-show hostess. “No shoelaces, no razors, no scissors or pencils. No cell phones. No music.”
    I was waiting for her to say that she didn’t need to be there; I was waiting for my parents to tell her it was time to come home.
    “I know this is hard,” my mother said. “Just do what the doctors and the nurses tell you. We’re supposed to meet with the doctor on Wednesday.”
    “Why aren’t we meeting with the doctor until Wednesday?” my father asked without turning around.
    “Because,” my mother said. Her voice was taut. “That’s when they told us we could get an appointment.”
    Dora sat down on the bed again. She flopped face-first against the sheets and let my mother scratch her back. Dora loved to be scratched. “I wanted more clothes,” she mumbled. “I thought you would bring some.”
    “We’ll bring them next time,” my mother said.
    “And I want my hairbrush.” Dora’s eyes were closed. “And I want underwear and socks and a pile of T-shirts. And some gum and a book. I need something to read.”
    “Your father’s writing this down,” my mother said.
    My father searched for a pen.
    “And bring me a sandwich?” Dora asked. “The food here is terrible.”
    My mother kept scratching, her fingers tracing a circle on Dora’s back. What kind of sandwich and what kind of bread? she wanted to know. Would mayonnaise or mustard taste better with turkey?
    We tried to talk normally for a while. Dora said the kid with the stitches in his head had been hospitalized three times and knew some of the people who went to our high school. The nurses were mean to him, she said. Some were mean to her also. Most of the day, she said, the patients sat around doing nothing; they had nothing to do.
    Another nurse poked her head through the door: “We need to ask you to wrap things up.”
    “I’m like a bug under a freaking microscope in here,” Dora said. She reminded my mother about the sandwich.
    We stood up. My mother hugged Dora; my father kissed her.
    “Little El. What the heck are you doing over there?” Dora asked.
    I walked toward her and she reeled me in and held on to me tightly, her bony arms a collar around my neck. “Do me a favor?” she asked, with her mouth by my ear.
    “Sure,” I said. “Name it.”
    “Save me,” she said.

14

    In the car on the way home, my father talked about how great it had been to see Dora. He said he felt better now, having seen her and having been in her room. He said the nurses seemed attentive. My mother stared out the window. I thought about Dora asking me to save her. She wasn’t serious, I thought. What was I supposed to save her from?
    When we got off the highway my mother turned around in the front seat and said she assumed I understood that Dora’s “situation” was confidential. Obviously, she said, I would have to be very, very discreet. There were very few people at school, for instance, who would need to know.
    “I’m sure Lena understands that,” my father said.
    I did understand. “But you’re talking about an American high