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care what did or did not make sense. She looked uncertain and held the hypo as if she’d never touched one before. But she did as she was told and found a vein.
    I processed the drug, and “they” administered two more shots during the course of the long drive.
     

    *
     
    A private hospital and a private room, all tan and antiseptic smelling, a picture of red poppies on the wall and a narrow window that overlooked the garden where I was allowed to stroll, discretely escorted, in the mornings. I had the TV and whatever books and magazines I asked for, but my door was locked at night.
    Three months.
    Then one evening a key tuned in the lock and an orderly let my dad in.
    “What’s the occasion,” I said, not meaning to sound nasty but sounding that way anyhow.
    He winced and I wished I could take it back. He pulled off his cap and held it in the fingers of both hands, turning it nervously. Being seventeen I couldn’t exactly apologize.
    “Dad, I want to go home.”
    He nodded. “They think you should stay.”
    “I know that, but why? Look at me.” I hopped off the bed, spry as a cat. I flexed my left hand as if squeezing an invisible rubber ball. The fingers were a little jerky and weak, especially the pinky, but they worked better than they had at first and the articulation improved on a daily basis. Plus the pinky is a pretty useless digit to begin with, and this one didn’t even have a right to exist. The pain was over, and I was used to the constant tingling and itching inside my hand and abdomen. It was a very weird sensation, but that was all.
    Dad nodded again in that tired, beaten way that had come over him, and I wanted to scream. When I was a little kid and there were four of us in the family instead of two and he had a good job, my dad had been strong and funny and full of life. But that guy was long gone. Dad was probably about fifty now but acted like the dragging end of seventy.
    “The thing is, Ellis, it’s because you’re doing so good that they want you to stay.”
    “I don’t get it.”
    “The doctors say you aren’t healing right.”
    “But I feel great!”
    “Yeah. But they think you shouldn’t feel so great. Or I mean that your healing is abnormal. I’m not saying it right, you’ll get the full picture from that lady doctor. But they say it’s important, what’s happening to you.”
    I stared at him. “What’s important about it?”
    He started walking around the room. “You know, this place is pretty nice. Not everybody gets treated like this, especially when there’s no insurance. You have to think about that, too.”
    “I just want to get out of here.”
    He nodded again. That nod. Even when he was there he was absent.
    “The thing is,” he said, “I signed papers that say you have to stay for a while.”
    “What? Even if I’m not sick I have to stay? I’m not staying here.”
    “Well  . . . The way the doctor’s put it, it’s best for you to stay a while longer.”
    “That’s bullshit, Dad!”
    He stood with his back to me, staring out the window at the night garden, his head bobbing slightly. Silver hairs curled down the back of his neck; he needed a cut.
    “I guess I could talk to them, but I already signed the papers. I mean it’s a done deal.”
    “I don’t care about any papers.”
    “You’re still a minor, for another six months anyway.”
    “Dad?”
    He turned around. “What’s the big deal?” he said. “You’re out of school, this place isn’t that bad, is it? Can’t you just relax? It’s like a vacation or something. Don’t they treat you good? I know they do.”
    “I’m not staying here six more months!”
    “Nobody said six more months.”
    “ You just did.”
    “I didn’t mean it like you were going to be here that whole time.”
    “What did you mean?”
    He put his cap back on. “I got my shift in the morning.” He worked the grill at an IHOP on Pacific Highway. It was one dead-end job after another since Boeing laid him