Splintered Read Online Free PDF Page B

tomorrow?” he asks.
I stand there like a brainless mannequin. “Um . . . Jen and I are
on the noon shift.”
“Okay. Get a ride with her. I’ll come by then to look at Gizmo’s
engine.”
My heart sinks. So much for hanging out like old times. Looks
like he’s going to avoid me now. “Right. Sure.” I bite back my disappointment and turn to hobble with Dad up the path.
He catches my eye. “Everything all right between you two? I
can’t remember a time you didn’t tinker in the garage together.” I shrug as he opens the glass door. “Maybe we’re growing apart.”
It hurts to say it, more than I’ll ever admit out loud.
“He’s always been a good friend,” Dad says. “You should work it
out.”
“A friend doesn’t try to run your life. That’s what dads are
for.” Raising my eyebrows to make my point, I limp into the airconditioned building. He steps in behind me, silent.
I shiver. The hallways here unsettle me with their long, empty
stretches and yellow blinking lights. White tiles magnify the sounds,
and nurses in peppermint-striped scrubs blur in my peripheral
vision. The uniforms make them look more like candy stripers than
certified health-care professionals.
Counting the barbs painted on my T-shirt, I wait for Dad to talk
to the nurse behind the main desk. A fly lands on my arm and I swat
at it. It swoops around my head with a loud buzz that almost sounds
like “ He’s here, ” before darting down the corridor.
Dad pauses beside me as I stare after the fly. “You sure you’re all
right?”
I nod, shaking off the delusion. “Just don’t know what to expect
today.” It’s only a half lie. Alison gets too distracted around plants
and insects to go outside very often, but she’s been begging for fresh
air, and Dad talked her doctor into trying. Who knows what might
come of it?
“Yeah. I’m hoping this doesn’t unbalance her too much . . .” His
voice trails off, and his shoulders slouch, as if all the sadness of the
last eleven years weighs on them. “I wish you could remember her
the way she was before.” He places a hand on my nape as we head
toward the courtyard. “She was so levelheaded. So together. So much
like you .” He whispers that last part, maybe in hopes I won’t hear. But I do, and the barbed wire tightens once more, until my heart
is strangled and broken.

3
. . . . . . .

THE SPIDER & THE FLY
    Other than Alison, her nurse, and a couple of groundskeepers, the courtyard is deserted. Alison sits at one of the black cast-iron bistro tables on a cement patio that’s been stamped to look like cobblestone. Even the decor has to be chosen carefully in a place like this. There’s no glass anywhere, only a reflective silver gazing globe secured tightly to its pedestal base.
    Since some patients are known to pick up chairs or tables and throw them, the legs of the furniture are drilled into the cement. A black and red polka-dotted parasol sprouts up from the center of the table like a giant mushroom and shades half of Alison’s face. Silver teacups and saucers glisten in the sunlight. Three settings: one for me, one for Dad, and one for her.
    We brought the tea service from home years ago when she first checked in. It’s an indulgence the asylum caters to in order to keep her alive. Alison won’t eat anything—be it Salisbury steak or fruit cobbler—unless it’s in a teacup.
    Our pint of chocolate-cheesecake ice cream waits on a place mat, ready to be scooped out. Condensation rolls down the cardboard packaging.
    Alison’s platinum braid swings over her chair’s back, almost touching the ground. She has her bangs tucked beneath a black headband. Wearing a blue gown with a long bib apron to keep her clothes clean, she looks more like Alice at the Mad Hatter’s tea party than most of the illustrations I’ve seen.
    It’s enough to make me physically sick.
At first I think she’s talking to the nurse until the woman stands to greet us, smoothing out her peppermint