Marrow

“Margo,” she says gently, once I am seated. “Why doesn’t Judah come here to visit you?”

He has … or no, he hasn’t. Why did I suddenly think he had? I’ve been here for how long? I’ve written him letters—five or six—after the returned e-mail-but I hadn’t heard back from him. He is in Los Angles with his girlfriend, Eryn … or is it Erin?

“I … I … He’s…”

I grasp my head, press my fingertips against my temples. I suddenly feel swarmy. Is that a word? But it’s what I feel. Swarmy. Everything melding and melting together. Emotions and thoughts kicking up like a windstorm.

“Look at me,” she says. “Tell me about the first time you saw him.”

“We were children,” I say. “We grew up a few houses away. He just went to a different school.”

“No,” she says. “The first time you spoke with him. Tell me about that day.”

“I was going to get cigarettes from the store. For my mother. I saw him outside of his house so I went to speak to him.”

“And that was the first time that you spoke to Judah since you were children?”

“Yes.”

“What was different about that day? What made you want to speak to him?”

I close my eyes. I can still feel the rusted gate beneath my fingertips, the moan as I pushed it open and walked down the path to where he was smoking his joint. The sickening sweet smell of pot.

“He looked so confident. He didn’t care that he was in a wheelchair. I felt like I needed to know how to do that. Be that.”

Dr. Elgin closes her eyes. It looks like she’s fallen asleep, except her eyes are roving back and forth behind her lids in a rapid eye awakeness.

“What happened the day before?” she says.

“The day before I spoke to Judah?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know. It was a long time ago.”

“You do know. Think.”

“I don’t. It was a long time ago,” I repeat. It’s the first time since our therapy sessions started that I would rather not be in the room with her. I feel as if she’s creeping in on me. She’s finished playing nice guy. A heat creeps around the back of my neck like an invisible hand. Even my eyelids feel hot. I pull at the scrubs, which are sticking to my skin.

“Judah has not contacted you since you have been here.”

“That’s not true,” I rush. But, even as I say it, I know it is. “We had a falling out. Before I was admitted to the hospital. We haven’t spoken in quite some time.” I sound like a formal, well-spoken liar.

“And what was your falling out about?” she asks, her pen poised above her yellow notepad.

I think. It’s so hard to remember shit in here, all the drugs pressing against your brain. “His girlfriend,” I lie. “There was an argument. She was rude to me.”

“How did the argument end?”

“He didn’t want anything to do with me. He … he said he didn’t even know who I was anymore.”

“But you write to him, yes?”

“Yes,” I say, remembering the judicious way I tried to explain myself in them. Please forgive me. I don’t know why I did it. She was hurting Mo. She killed her little girl. I won’t do it again. Please speak to me.

All met with silence. I hunker down in my seat, staring at the floor. I’d write him another letter—five. I’d do whatever it takes. I’d make him realize how sorry I am.

“But he came to the hospital,” I say. “Before they brought me here. He was in my room. The two people who transferred me here saw him. You can ask them…”

Dr. Elgin shakes her head. “There weren’t any visitors at the hospital, Margo.”

“How do you know?”

“You were on suicide watch and in critical condition. The hospital wouldn’t have let anyone in there beside family.”

“Call his mother,” I say. “Go on…”

“I have, Margo,” she says. “I went to see her.”

My tongue feels sluggish. I can’t make it form the words I need to say.

“Do you remember her asking you to buy her shirts, from your job … where was it…?”

“The Rag O Rama,” I answer. “And yes, I do.”

“You brought her men’s shirts.”

“That’s what she asked for. Shirts for Judah.”

Dr. Elgin reaches into a drawer in her desk and pulls out a stack of white envelopes. I watch as she lays them out—one by one in front of me. A fan of pure white accusation. And then I start to moan.

“No,” I say. “No, no, no, no, no.”

Scrawled on each of the envelopes, in what looks like red crayon, is Judah’s name. Judah on each envelope in a child’s handwriting: the jagged J, the crooked h. Judah, who I love. Judah, who loves me. Judah, who I wrote those letters for. I pick one up, pull out the lined paper inside. There is nothing written on the page.

“Margo,” Dr. Elgin says. “There is no Judah. He does not exist.” Her accent is thick and syrupy.

“You’re crazy,” I say. “I’ve known him my whole life. Where are my letters? The ones I wrote? Why didn’t the hospital mail them?”

“These are the letters you gave to the nurse,” she says. “There was never an address, and the papers are always blank.”

“No,” I say. “I wrote to him. I remember. He lives in California. He is going to move back to the Bone. Be a teacher.”

“There was a boy,” she purrs. “Who lived in the house on Wessex Street. I called his mother, Delaney Grant. She said you used to come by a lot … after he died.”

I can’t breathe. “What do you mean? What are you saying?”

“Tell me,” she says. “About the day before you became friends with Judah.”

I have to bend over, put my head between my knees. I feel her presence. She’s an absolute, and her absoluteness permeates the air I’m breathing.

“I’m not crazy.” I sob these words. They hurt so bad, like someone telling you you have cancer when you’ve been healthy your whole life.

“Crazy is a simpleton word. You are not crazy,” she says. “It’s much more complex than that.”