Black Box Read Online Free PDF Page B

self-esteem?
    • Do you think about suicide or death several times a week?
    • Have you lost interest in your usual activities?
    • Do you feel restless or anxious?
    Six months earlier, I wouldn’t have answered yes to any of those questions, if I’d been talking about Dora. Sometimes she was sad and sometimes she was restless; sometimes she slept for eleven hours. But Dora was quick. Dora was funny. Dora could play “Hot Cross Buns” on the piano with her feet.
    “I never realized she was feeling that bad.” Dora’s friend Lila came up behind me so both of us were standing in front of the poster. “I can hardly believe it.” Lila’s hair was a black silk curtain.
    “She’ll be all right pretty soon,” I said.
    Lila waved to someone at the end of the hall. “Do you get to talk to her very much?”
    “Not really,” I said. “We’re only allowed to visit twice a week. Thursday and Sunday. And it’s family only.”
    “I know. I tried to call the hospital and talk to her yesterday but they wouldn’t let me. I even said I was a doctor.”
    “You said you were a doctor?” I stared at Lila. She was vice president of the honor society.
    “I’d do anything for Dora,” Lila said. “Wouldn’t you?”

19

    That week at school, between classes, I did my best to avoid other people. I did homework at lunch. On the bus, I sat by the window and watched the strip malls give way to neighborhoods and vice versa. No one asked me about Dora. No one except Jimmy, who leaned toward me in Mr. Clearwater’s class and tapped me on the shoulder. “Hey,” he said. “So how’s she doing? Is she doing okay?”
    I nodded.
    In case I had accidentally thrown the first one out, Jimmy gave me a second business card. “Call me whenever,” he said. “I’m usually not doing very much.”
    “Mr. Zenk: please stop bothering that female student,” Mr. Clearwater said.
    “Yeah, okay. Her name is Elena,” Jimmy said.
    “I’m aware of her name; just leave her alone,” Mr. Clearwater sighed.
    A few minutes later Jimmy tapped me on the shoulder again and said that if I needed to find him, he’d be at the back of the bus on the way home from school.

20

    Dora and I used to make fun of the way families on TV sitcoms were always sitting down for a heart-to-heart talk.
Son, your mother and I need to speak with you about something important,
one of the parents would say, and Dora would shriek and throw back her head and try to smother me with a pillow.
    I used to be glad that our family didn’t engage in these heart-to-hearts, that we didn’t sit down to have Important Conversations.
    But now I got the feeling that my parents were talking to each other without me, that Important Conversations were occurring when I wasn’t around.
    That Thursday night at six-thirty, I got my jacket out of the closet. Visiting hours at Lorning started at seven. “Ready?” I yelled.
    My father was standing right behind me. “Ow.” He covered his ears.
    “Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t see you.”
    “Apparently not.” He cleared his throat. “Elena.”
    “What?” The way he pronounced my name, enunciating all three of its syllables, made me understand that something had been decided.
    “Your mother and I are going by ourselves tonight.” My father looked at me for a minute, then squatted down to tie his shoes. On top of his head, right in the middle of his hair, he had a bald spot the size of a quarter. Once, when he was taking a nap, Dora had put a sticker there that said, IT’S MY BIRTHDAY !, and he’d worn it for hours without finding out. “We talked with some of the staff yesterday, and they think it makes better sense for us to visit privately for now.”
    “What do you mean, ‘privately’?” I asked.
    “You have homework to do anyway,” my mother said, coming down the stairs. “You won’t be doing Dora any good if you aren’t keeping up in all your classes.”
    I felt uneasy, as if someone had run the tip of a