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“With a dash of vinegar,” Indy says.
“You could microwave the East River and it would taste better.”
“Not the Hudson, though,” Indy says, picking at a hangnail. “Thatthing rubs up against Jersey for miles. It’s got nasty New Jersey germs.” He shudders dramatically.
Hannah giggles, and Jordan says absolutely nothing about growing up in New Jersey, less than thirty miles from said river. He also says nothing about Sophie. Let them have their banter.
Then Indy looks up at him and says, “Can we help you with something?”
Jordan starts, momentarily taken aback. Then he says, “No, no, I’m just checking in with everyone.”
“You miss us when you’re not here, I know,” Indy says.
Some of you, Jordan thinks.One of you.He pushes back his chair and gets up. “Sure. See you later.”
Hannah finds him after lunch, when he’s coming out of Kevin’s room, having helped him wash off the knives he’d drawn on the door with a Sharpie.
Hannah tugs urgently on his sleeve. “Listen, I have to go back,” she says.
Jordan doesn’t understand. “Back where? To the lounge?”
“To my village,” she says, exasperated.
He clenches his fists, stifling a horrifying urge to take her by the shoulders and shake her. “Why do you need to do that?”You were gone for so long.
“The help I got from the baron wasn’t enough. We need more food. More medicine. The baby died!”
With effort, Jordan unclenches his hands. He says, “Whose baby?”
Hannah looks like she’s about to cry. “Ryia’s. A newborn. She was so perfect, so tiny, with her blue eyes and her red hair ….”
A chill runs north along Jordan’s spine, because he can think of someone else with blue eyes and red hair. Someone else who’s dead. Again he has to resist the urge to grasp Hannah by the shoulders. “What was the baby’s name?” he asks, as gently as he can. Already knowing the answer.
Hannah blinks, and a tear slides down her cheek. “Sophie.”
Frustration and anger well up in him. It’s time to put an end to this goddamn fantasy. “This isn’t about a dead baby from the fourteenth century, Hannah,” he says. “This is about Sophie from the hospital. Sophie Forrester, who was your roommate.”
But it’s like Hannah doesn’t even hear him. Is it that she can’t understand, or that she won’t?
He tells himself that he just has to keep talking. He’s got to make her deal with the present moment. “Sophie killed herself, Hannah. There’s going to be an investigation. Dr. Klein’s gone, and Mitch is, too. The hospital might get sued. And you feel scared and sad. You’re grieving. We all are. But we’re dealing with it, okay? We’re dealing with it here and now.”
But her eyes show zero comprehension. “Sophie caught a fever from her father,” she says. “She died before she even lived.”
So did Sophie Forrester! She was sixteen!
“I’m not saying that your other life isn’t real, but you’re acting like this oneisn’t, when itis,” Jordan practically shouts. “Ilive in it, okay? I’m telling you, it’s real! And someone you cared abouthere, in this world, felt so hopeless that being dead seemed better to her than living! Can you imagine that pain?”
Hannah sets her jaw in a stubborn line. She turns away, so he’s looking at her in profile. Her high forehead. Her tiny ears, pierced in half a dozen places but without any earrings.
“I don’t want to,” she says. “I won’t.”
He waits a few beats. Then something occurs to him. He says, “Have you ever known someone who killed themselves?”
His voice is much quieter now, but Hannah’s eyes go wide, as if he’s just screamed at her, and her body gives a lurching shudder.
He reaches out to touch her shoulder, gentle now, then stops himself. “Hannah?” he says.
She doesn’t answer him. She seems to collapse into herself, almost like she’s expecting a blow. “Stop,” she whispers.“Stop.”
