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"Can I ask you a question?"
"You just have," he noted dryly.
"So you're taking care of Pickett's affairs while he is gone?"
"That's correct."
"And if Pickett shows up somewhere . . ."
"Then the pleasures and sorrows of his life will belong to him again. Until then, some of them fall to me. May I request that you come to your point?"
"I'm sorta worried about Noah."
"Worried?"
"He just seems really sad, and there's kind of no one there to look after him. I mean, isn't there any other family?"
"None with whom the Picketts have a good relationship. Davis has been declared an emancipated minor by the state and is his brother's legal guardian."
"I don't mean a legal guardian. I mean someone who actually, you know, looks after him. Like, Davis isn't a parent. I mean, they're not just gonna be alone forever, are they? What if their dad is dead or something?"
"Ms. Holmes, legal death is different from biological death. I trust that Russell is both legally and biologically living, but I know he is legally alive because Indiana law considers an individual alive until either biological evidence of their death emerges or seven years pass from the last evidence of life. So, the legal question--"
"I don't mean legally," I said. "I just mean, who's going to take care of him?"
"But I can only answer that question legally. And the legal answer is that I administer the financial affairs, the house manager administers the home affairs, and Davis is the guardian. Your concern is admirable, Ms. Holmes, but I assure you that everything is cared for, legally. Three fifteen tomorrow. Your banker's name is Josephine Jackson. Do you have any other questions of pertinence to your situation?"
"I don't think so."
"Well, you have my number. Be well, Ms. Holmes."
--
I felt fine the next day at school, until Daisy and I were on our way to the bank. I was driving, and Daisy was talking about how her most recent fic had sort of gone viral in the Star Wars fan-fiction world and how she had tons of kudos on it and how she'd had to stay up all night to finish this paper on Th
e Scarlet Letter and how she could maybe finally get some sleep now that she was "retiring" from Chuck E. Cheese's, and I felt fine. I felt like a perfectly normal person, who was not cohabitating with a demon that forced me to think thoughts I hated thinking, and I was just feeling, like, I've been better this week. Maybe the medicine is working, when from nowhere the thought appeared: The medicine has made you complacent, and you forgot to change the Band-Aid this morning.
I was pretty sure I had actually changed the Band-Aid right after waking up, just before I brushed my teeth, but the thought was insistent. I don't think you changed it. I think this is last night's Band-Aid. Well, it's not last night's Band-Aid because I definitely changed it at lunch. Did you, though? I think so. You THINK so? I'm pretty sure. And the wound is open. Which was true. It hadn't yet scabbed over. And you left the same Band-Aid on for--God--probably thirty-seven hours by now, just letting it fester inside that warm, moist old Band-Aid. I glanced down at the Band-Aid. It looked new. You didn't. I think I did. Are you sure? No, but that's actually progress if I'm not checking it every five minutes. Yeah, progress toward an infection. I'll do it at the bank. It's probably already too late. That's ridiculous. Once the infection is in your bloodstream--Stop that makes no sense it's not even red or swollen. You know it doesn't have to be--Please just stop I will change it at the bank--YOU KNOW I'M RIGHT.
"Did I go to the bathroom before lunch?" I asked Daisy quietly.
"Dunno," she said. "Um, you sat down after us, so I guess?"
"But I didn't say anything about it?"
"No, you didn't say, 'Greetings, lunch tablemates. I have just returned from the bathroom.'"
Felt the tension between the urge to pull over and change the Band-Aid and the certainty of Daisy thinking me crazy. Told myself I was fine, this was a malfunction in my brain, that thoughts were just thoughts, but when I glanced at the Band-Aid again I saw the pad was stained. I could see the stain. Blood. Or pus. Something.
I pulled into an optometrist's parking lot, took off the Band-Aid, and looked at the wound. It was red at the edges. The Band-Aid had dried blood on it. Like it hadn't been changed in some time.
"Holmesy, I'm sure you went to the bathroom. You always go to the bathroom."
"Doesn't matter now; it's infected," I said.
"No, it's not."
"You see this red?" I pointed at the inflamed skin on either side of the wound. "That's infection. That's a big problem." I rarely let anyone see my finger without the Band-Aid, but I wanted Daisy to understand. This was not like the other times. This was not irrational worry, because dried blood was unusual, even for when the callus was cracked open. It meant the Band-Aid had been on for way too long. This was not normal. Then again, didn't it always feel different? No, this felt different from the other differents. There was visible evidence of infection.
