"How are you feeling on the current dose?"
"Functional."
"Is that the clinical answer or the honest one?"
"Both."
She tips her head. "George told me you've been teaching him the Sicilian Defense."
"George told you wrong. I showed him an opening. He turned it into a frontier dispute."
"A frontier dispute."
"He pushes his pawns to the center of the board, sits behind them, and refuses to advance." I lean back. "It's not a defense. It's stubbornness."
"And yours?"
"Take what you want and keep it."
I watchher hand move across the page, left to right, steady. She holds the pen too tight. Always has. Her index finger goes white at the second knuckle, and I've thought about that finger more than I should—thought about taking her hand and uncurling it, pressing my thumb into the knot until she lets go.
"I need to check your pulse." She reaches across the table and holds out her hand. "Resting baseline for the review."
I extend my arm. Her fingers find the inside of my wrist and press. Two fingertips on the vein. She counts. Her eyes go to the clock above the door and her lips move without sound.
Her skin is warm. Her thumb rests against the edge of my palm. She doesn't seem to notice that she's holding my hand in a room with a camera, a guard and a man who could close his fingers around her wrist and pull her across this table before she drew her next breath.
"Fifty-two," she says. "That's low."
"I've been told."
"Have you always run low?"
"Yes."
Her fingers leave my wrist and I want them back.
"You haven't eaten your lunch again," she says, not looking up.
"The chicken was gray."
"All chicken here is gray. You should eat it anyway." She glances at me over the top of her notebook. "I'm going to put a note in the file that says you're being difficult about food."
"I'm not being difficult."
"You've skipped three meals this week. I check the trays."
"Why?"
"Because it's my job."
"What I eat isn't in your scope."
"A patient who stops eating is."
I hold her gaze. "I haven't stopped eating. I just don't like the chicken. It's nasty."
Her mouth twitches.I can readher handwriting upside down. Patient expresses food preferences. Ongoing.
