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“I’ll go down the hall?” Ian said.
“Perfect!” She flashed an asymmetrical smile that revealed a single dimple.
Once Ian left, closing the door behind him, Alek said, “If you’re worried I’m battered, don’t be. It’s him you should ask.”
The psychiatrist was stony-faced.
“That was a joke. Ask your questions.”
She clicked her pen. “Do you feel safe?”
“Yes.”
“Are you being forced to do anything you don’t want to do?”
Alek discarded the sexual innuendo his brain immediately supplied. “No.”
“One last question. Why do you want him to stay?”
“My reasons are my own. Shall I go get him now?”
Dr. Dhawan would have to do whatever the psychiatry version of buying him a drink first was before he would admit that he needed Ian with him because he was terrified.
What if the fall had knocked loose an unseen insanity that had always been lurking inside him? What if he was really from Indiana or some other such cornfield-laden place? What if he’d imagined his entire life story?
After last night’s revelation that the fox was a hallucination, Alek had snuck into the bathroom and googledAleksandar Velishikov, rushing through the search results. His heart rate hadn’t slowed until he double-checked the photograph that went along with his obituary against the reflection in the mirror and even then, he still wasn’t certain.
Once Ian had returned to his rightful place in bed beside Alek, the psychiatrist said, “Let’s get right into things.” She tucked her hair behind her ears in much the same way one would roll up their sleeves. “I’d like for our work to be a partnership.I promise to always be honest, but I’ll need you to be honest in return. Dr. Modorovic may have consulted me, but what you say will stay with me. The only time I will betray that trust is in the event a serious crime has occurred or I believe you are a threat to yourself or others. Does that make sense?”
Alek nodded.
“I’m told you are a gifted musician?”
Alek blinked. He’d expected prying questions of childhood trauma. Maybe she was trying to lull him into complacency.
“I used to be,” he answered.
“Can you tell me more about that?”
“There’s little to say. I hit my head and lost my music.”
Alek clenched his hand into a fist, but Ian was there already, loosening his fingers and joining them with his own.
“That must have been a huge loss for you.”
Alek shrugged.
“What are you able to do now?”
Alek listed off the beginner skills he’d remastered. Scales and chords. Arpeggios. An entire childhood’s worth of rudimentary nursery rhymes and lullabies. Some very simplified arrangements of Bach and Chopin. The one song out of the hundreds he’d composed.
“So you didn’t lose everything, then?” Her pen moved fast over the yellow notepad he could just make out the top edge of.
“No. You misunderstand. I lost everything when I fell. I had to start over.Thatis what I’ve relearned.”
Her eyes widened. “In six weeks? You learned all of that? With only one hand?”
Alek didn’t answer.
