To Light and Guard

by TheFandomLesbian

Lana has emerged from hell with scars upon her body and her mind alike. Mary Eunice survived the exorcism, but the aftermath might tear her apart. They are Briarcliff's exiled, the world's outcasts. Can they heal together? Or will gravity crush the both of them? Bananun, M for mature content and strong language.

26. Chapter 26

The doctor's office hummed around Lana where she sat on the edge of a plastic chair. To her right, a little boy coughed and sneezed, big red flush marks over his cheeks as his mother wiped away his snot and cradled him through his pained tears. The stench of illness rose off of him, and Lana resisted the urge to cover her nose and mouth. I do not want to have the flu for Thanksgiving. Mary Eunice would lose her mind. To her left, a geriatric couple had come in together, the man cradling his chest and occasionally grunting. "Harold," his wife said, "Are you sure you don't want to go to the emergency room? Dr. Dillon is just going to tell you that chest pains are bad and send you there!"

"Let me handle this, Irene!" She fell silent, rolling her eyes at his antics before she covered her face with her hand, pinching her nose and shaking her head. Orange and brown decorative leaves dangled from the walls, and crudely colored turkeys scattered over the children's table in the corner. Lana kept scanning the room behind her sunglasses and her bonnet, both pressed around her face to hide her identity. The man at her side groaned again, leaning his head back. "God, that feels bad." He belched. Lana glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, studying his pallid skin tone, the sweat rolling down his temples. He needs some help. She swept the waiting room again, seeking some nurse or receptionist, someone whose attention she could catch to aid the man. But as his wife began to worry over him, he growled, "I said leave it alone," in a dark, threatening voice. I'm not getting in the middle of that. Sucking on her lower lip, she woefully maintained her silence.

A nurse emerged from the back hallway. "Winters, Lana?" she called in a none-too-soft voice. Shit. All of the heads lifted from where they'd stared at the ground. I'm like a damned circus animal. The eyes peered up at her as she stood. The mother of the little boy uttered a tiny gasp of fear and hugged him closer. Lana resisted the urge to glower at her as she passed by; instead, she clutched her purse with a white-knuckled hand and prayed no one had seen her car, lest they decide to vandalize her property given the opportunity. In spite of the glares spitting at her back, the nurse maintained a professional smile which reached her eyes. She held not a shred of enmity against Lana. "It's good to see you again, Miss Winters."

"Thanks," Lana said. Not really. "There's a man over there with chest pains—he looks like he's having a heart attack." She nodded in the general direction of the elderly couple, the man still clutching his chest and massaging his left arm and shoulder intermittently.

The nurse's eyebrows quirked in concern. "I see," she said. "Second room on the right, if you will, Miss Winters. Dr. Dillon will see you in a few minutes." Lana followed the instructions, her car keys jangling in the pockets of her skirt. The nurse made a beeline in the opposite direction. Lana entered the examination room and closed the door behind her before she could hear the ensuing drama.

The paper on the rubber bed crinkled as Lana clambered up onto it. Her feet barely touched the stool below it. She grimaced, wringing her hands in front of her. Nervousness quelled in the pit of her belly. I need to fidget with something. I need to write. Opening the buckle of her purse with a snap, Lana dug around inside of it before she located her pen. She tucked it behind her ear and sought her notepad. Her sweaty palms and the slight jitter of her fingers made it hard for her to hold the pen steady. The notepad had fallen all the way to the bottom of her purse. She sorted out her wallet, backup makeup, fingernail clippers, brush, hair bands, and other junk to reach the small notepad. She flipped it open.

Loopy cursive script marred the page. That isn't mine. She squinted at the ink, and after a brief struggle, she donned her reading glasses, bringing the handwriting into full focus. "Lana," the handwriting read, "I hope everything goes well today. You have all of my prayers." The corners of Lana's lips curled up at the edges. She had noticed Mary Eunice praying even more than usual lately. "No matter what happens, I love and support you. Also, we're out of eggs, butter, milk—" Flour had been crossed out, and in parentheses, the text read, "I found more flour in the cabinet," before continuing, "marshmallows, brussel sprouts, cream of mushroom soup, and elbow macaroni if you want mac 'n cheese. Anything else you think someone might want to eat, get the stuff and I'll cook it."

Lana shook her head at Mary Eunice's antics leaking into the note. She almost regretted her decision to invite Barb, Lois, and Earl over for Thanksgiving; Mary Eunice intended to cook until the house fell down. She's so sweet. Her heart warmed at the note, all of Mary Eunice's harried tendencies leaking into it. She wanted to make Thanksgiving perfect. Has she ever had a real Thanksgiving dinner before? she wondered. Lana knew she wouldn't have had anything of the sort in Briarcliff, but before Briarcliff? The Celest Lana had met wouldn't have had any plans of creating a Thanksgiving dinner, but Mary Eunice said she hadn't always been like that. Had the poverty kept them from putting together a holiday? If this is her first, then she deserves for it to be special. "Also, for dessert I'm making pumpkin pie, but if you'd like a cake, too, I'll bake it. I know you like cake." Lana chuckled at that sentence. "All my love forever, your sunshine."

Heart light like she'd received a love note, Lana lifted the notepad to her face, cherishing it, inhaling the scent of ink and paper; if she held it close enough, Mary Eunice's safe essence would wreath around her and protect her from whatever laid in her path. She called herself sunshine. My sunshine. Lana swallowed hard. Her mouth wasn't so dry anymore; the sweat on her hands had dried. The glorified grocery list had soothed her very soul. Was this what Mary Eunice had intended? She didn't know. A sharp rap of knuckles on the closed door prevented her from considering the notion.

The thick wooden door cracked open before Dr. Dillon entered, thick salt-and-pepper hair slick back flat to his head, clipboard under his arm. Lana's heart skipped a beat as he closed the door behind him. His shoes squeaked on the hardwood floor. The overhead light flashed on his horn-rimmed glasses. Lana averted her gaze, instead staring at the sheet of paper on the plastic bed, toying with it with her index fingers. "Good morning, doctor," she greeted in a muted voice. He hummed in response to her. His pen raked across the clipboard, etching something into the paper. Her eyes darted to his brown shoes. That doesn't sound promising.

"Miss Winters," he said in a mild voice, "it's good to see you again. Though it has been arguably far too long." She grimaced. Must we talk about that? "I need to check your incision. It should've been done weeks ago." That is not what I'm here for. Lana's hands tightened on the sides of the bed, fingernails digging into the plastic. "Lie back, please."

Her heart floundered in her throat as she obeyed his demand. At the touch of the cool bed, her sweat leaked through her shirt, pressing it against her skin. She gulped a dry lump in her throat. He plucked up the hem of her sweater. The bright overhead light burned her eyes, sucked her elsewhere like a vacuum, and she screwed up her face against it. Don't do this. You know where you are. Mary Eunice isn't here to hold your hand and baby you through it. She inhaled through her nose and puffed it between her tightly clamped lips. Gloved hands probed around the sensitive scar across her lower abdomen. Think of Mary Eunice. She fought for the image in her mind, the azure eyes, the white skin with its smattering of pale freckles, the thick locks of golden hair, the comforting low notes of her voice, the neat script on the paper signed, "Your sunshine." How those arms felt when they cinched around her body—how the scent of heavy rain always clung to her hair and her skin. Fuck, I'm head over heels. Lana curled her toes in her flats, frustrated at the revelation. She couldn't escape it. She would hate me if she knew.

Dr. Dillon rolled her sweater back down, and she sprang back upward, hands clinging to one another in her lap. The sweat on her palms slickened the space between her fingers, but she resisted the urge to wipe them off. "You're healing well. You're lucky you didn't get an infection." He cleared his throat and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. "Miss Winters," he said, voice stern but soft. She narrowed her eyes and set her jaw. I'm about to get scolded. Her lip curled at the thought. "I'm not a fool. You are not the first of my patients to sneak around seeking illicit methods of terminating a pregnancy. Nor are you the first to sustain an injury which could have killed you in the process."

She chewed the inside of her cheek. I'm not a child, she wanted to say. You don't have to slap my wrist and tell me I did bad. "Are you going to tell the police?"

"Don't be silly." He rolled away on his stool to fidget with some things on the counter. "If I called the police on every woman who did what you did, or worse, I'd be out of business." Her shoulders sank with relief at the revelation. "But I wish you had come to me. There are loopholes through the laws. You could have legally received a therapeutic abortion from the hospital with no skin off of anyone's back."

"I'd rather not be the next Sherri Finkbine. We can't all fly to Sweden."

Dr. Dillon arched an eyebrow. "Finkbine got herself into trouble by opening her mouth. You're very good at keeping secrets." What the hell is that supposed to mean? Lana met his eyes, but he shook his head, clearing his throat. "But it's all done now. Now, I must advise you—you won't want to hear it, but as your doctor it's my responsibility—if you decide to have children, vaginal birth won't be safe."

"I really don't think that's going to be a problem for me." This is not why I came here.

"Be that as it may, you always have time to change your mind—"

"I'm a little old to start having kids, aren't I?" Lana fought to keep the scowl off of her face and out of her voice. "I'm not exactly nineteen anymore." Does he really think a magical dick is going to come into my life now? Bile rose in the back of Lana's throat. She could've vomited. I'd rather die.

Dr. Dillon held up a hand, palm open. "Your life choices have no bearing on me, Miss Winters. As your physician, I'm telling you to schedule a cesarean if you decide to have children. If not, then it doesn't affect you." He lit up the otoscope and peeked into both of her ears, into her eyes, into her mouth. Then he measured her pulse. With a frown, he wrote everything down. "Your pulse is a little high, but I would suppose that's normal, given why you're here." He glanced up at her and pressed a smile upon his lips. He leaned too close. She tilted her back to try and get the scent of his cologne out of her nose. "Otherwise, you're a pillar of health." He patted her knee. She flinched. Don't touch me, she wanted to request, but she bit down on the tip of her tongue. "Alright, Miss Winters. Tell me why you're here, if you will. I understand you're having problems with anxiety?"

You could say that. Lana gulped. Her tongue eased across her lips. It was so much easier with Mary Eunice, so much easier to talk about her problems, to discuss what she saw in her head. "I—yes. I…" She wrung her hands in her lap, staring into her purse. I shouldn't have come. This is embarrassing. "I was always sort of—sort of nervous, I guess." Dr. Dillon bobbed his head in agreement. He looked understanding, welcoming, but she couldn't fix too long on his glasses without his face melting into another, much less friendly expression. "But a few weeks ago, I started having these, uh, these—attacks. I can't stand up, I can't breathe, my heart goes out of control, I start sweating." She paused to swallow again. Flushes of shame rushed to her cheeks, and she fidgeted, hating herself for all of her weakness put on display in front of the man. "I called after Halloween, when a group of—I guess they were teenagers, I didn't really look at them—they ambushed me and my friend, on the porch, and I…"

She sank backward into the memory, the rubber of those masks becoming real, the tunnel vision shrinking so she only saw the teeth, Wendy's teeth, glued into them; she felt the hands on her body, heard a comforting voice, but she couldn't ground herself in reality. Even the friendliest touch became a harsh, bruising punch, a slap from the man who had robbed her of everything—of her life, her lover, her sanity. "I became almost catatonic. I couldn't shake it off, none of my friends could get me out of it. When I came to, I…um, I had—" God, this fucking sucks. Why did I let Mary Eunice talk me into this? Logically, she knew she had come here because she needed it. But losing her pride stung all of her innards. I don't want to be this way. I'm not crazy. I shouldn't need any help. "I'd urinated all over myself," she whispered, eyes downcast.

Dr. Dillon didn't interrupt her. He wrote down a few observations, but nothing more. "Have you experienced anything like that since then? Another panic attack?"

"Yes, um—not to that degree, but… Since then, I had another, about ten days ago. I woke up from a dream, screaming, and—even though I was awake, the dream wasn't over. It was like it followed me." She bit her lower lip. She had never seen Mary Eunice move so fast than when the first shriek pulled her from her own dreams, how she flicked on the lights and tugged Lana's hair back from her sweat-slicked face and held her, held her so tight she nearly couldn't breathe, until the world stopped spinning and the blankets became friends rather than enemies once again. "It took me awhile to shake it off."

"So this is becoming a regular thing—regular enough to bother you, that is." Lana nodded in agreement. Dr. Dillon quirked his eyebrows and leaned forward on his rolling stool, removing his glasses. "Miss Winters, I think, from the symptoms you're describing—it's my professional opinion that you have what we call post-traumatic stress disorder."

Lana's eyes widened with alarm from the long string of unfamiliar words. "No offense, doctor, but what in the hell does that mean?"

He laughed it off, swatting at invisible dust on his pants and shaking his head. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to alarm you," he said. He fidgeted with his glasses in his hand, wiping them off on the hem of his coat. "It's not frightening, I promise. It's just a new term for a very old phenomenon. We first took note of it following the first war. Back then, we called it something else—you might be more familiar with the term shellshock."

Yeah. Lana remained skeptical; her journalist's ear doubted everything like Descartes. She dug her thumbnail into the strap of her purse to ground herself in the moment, to keep from getting lost inside her own brain. "Isn't that something for soldiers who experience combat?" She kept her dubious eyes fixed on him, half-expecting him to burst out with laughter and fan her off as crazy, to sweep her under the rug and send her on her way without another consideration.

"Just because you belong to no military does not mean you've never fought a war, Miss Winters." Dr. Dillon met her eyes. "If you're willing to try it, there is a new medication we're prescribing for patients struggling with anxiety. It's safe and effective. I haven't had anyone complain about the side effects yet—it seems to help a lot of the people who take it, really." He gave an encouraging smile. "If you'll consider—"

"I'll do it." Lana didn't waste time in allowing herself to consider the ramifications of her words. She had come here for help. Mary Eunice trusted her to do this, to accept the help Dr. Dillon offered, whatever it was. "I'll take it."

He brightened. The crinkles around his eyes lifted, and he didn't look so old anymore. Her agreement brought back his youth. "If you have any problems, call. We're here to help." She nodded, biting down on the tip of her tongue. Her fisted hands punched the detrimental thoughts from her mind. She had to batter them away. I am not weak. I need help, but I am not weak. "I also made your appointment today for a reason, Miss Winters." She straightened her back at the address. "The counseling center across the street is having its last intake clinic of the year today. It's advantageous to have them so close. I think it would be good for you to see someone for your ailments. I realize this is difficult for you, and therapy doesn't have immediate results, but it can aid in day-to-day life. A therapist will help you work through the things you can't tell anyone else. It's—It's sort of like confession, for us secular folks, except your therapist won't tell you everything you do is a mortal sin."

Inclining her eyebrows, Lana considered. She knew how miserable Mary Eunice looked after confession, or after a session with Father Joseph, with her eyes always red-rimmed and nose stuffy, but Mary Eunice also insisted it helped, no matter how long she prayed for forgiveness following those encounters. Mary Eunice wants it for me. "I suppose." Her fingernail pierced the strap of her purse, and the rubbery covering dug up under it into the sensitive skin underneath. "It's worth trying." Will I be able to convince myself to open up to a total stranger? Lana's only experience with anyone trying to help her mental state had ended in chains with a frozen corpse in a dark, secluded basement; she had learned quite enough of those matters already. She had no reason to trust anyone in the field of psychology. I'm afraid. She nibbled on the inside of her lower lip, fearing what she had just agreed to.

"Great!" Dr. Dillon grinned, and he scribbled down a few more illegible notes onto her medical record. "I'll call in a prescription for you, and you'll be able to pick it up on your way out of the counseling center—given you have the time right now." She nodded again. Numbness spread through her lower stomach and chest. Talking to someone? Someone who wasn't Mary Eunice? I wish I could have Mary Eunice with me. It was silly, she knew; she felt like a little girl clinging to her mother's leg for support, unable to stand without a crutch. "Excellent. I'll write a recommendation for you to see a therapist over there. Is everything clear?"

"Crystal." Clear as a stormcloud. She bit the tip of her tongue to keep from mumbling the words aloud to him. In silence, she watched as he finished scratching out another set of words on the clipboard.

"I want to see you again in eight weeks to check on you again, alright?" Lana began to bob her head again, but the door of the examination room ripped open, both of them startling; Lana clutched her purse to her chest in reflex.

The harried, wide-eyed nurse fluttered her hands. "Doctor, there's an emergency—we need help!" Dr. Dillon rose from the stool and scurried after her, abandoning the clipboard on the counter. Lana tiptoed after them.

She followed the sounds of moans and groans sounding from the waiting room. The elderly man had collapsed in the middle of the floor, clutching his chest and rolling left and right, his wife kneeling at his side. "Harold!" she sobbed. To Lana's left, a nurse rattled off the address and directions to the operator, pleading for an ambulance to come to the doctor's office immediately. Coughs rattled out of his chest. He spat up blood. Dr. Dillon knelt beside him with a quirk of fear between his eyebrows; the words he delivered were inaudible, but he kept his tone low and soothing as the fearful woman clutched at her husband's limp hand. "He's not breathing!" she shrieked.

A grimace spreading across her face, Lana retreated back, farther away from the scene. On the balls of her feet, she returned to the examination room and took the signed recommendation form from the clipboard without any consideration. No one saw her as she strode past, out the front door. Distantly, sirens blared. Her steps became a skip across the street to the counseling center, building gray and looming. Her stomach wriggled, cold and alive, with all of the emotions she could scarcely consider, let alone identify. That poor man. She swallowed hard. Off to the right of the building, she spied a telephone box. Her shoes clicked on the pavement as she skipped to it, flashing a glance over her shoulder at the ambulance barreling down the street before she closed herself into the box, muffling the sound. She replaced her sunglasses and dropped a dime into the slot. Then she spun the dial to call her own house. "C'mon, sunshine," she urged under her breath. "Pick up."

"Hullo?" slurred a drunken male voice.

Lana bit back a sigh. Of course, the time she had to pay to make a call, the neighbor answered the phone. "I'm sorry, Mr. Swanson, I'm calling for one of the neighbors." The line died, and she cursed the world and everyone in it as she fumbled into her purse for another dime. "How much money will I spend trying to get her to answer the damn phone?"

It rang twice, thrice, began the fourth ring before the rings ended. "Um—Eastside 7-7387?" answered Mary Eunice in her timid, alto voice, a slight croak punctuating her words. "This is Sister Mary Eunice."

"Well, hello, Sister Mary Eunice," Lana greeted, a smirk spreading across her lips. She's so cute. She drummed her shoes on the floor of the telephone booth. The sound of the other's breath to her ear eased the fear in her own heart. What couldn't she face if she knew Mary Eunice waited at home for her, with loving arms? Is this how she feels about God? Does God make her this strong? Lana would probably never understand Mary Eunice's faith entirely, but the more she considered it, the more it made sense.

"Lana?" Mary Eunice's breathless, chilling voice gave light to her name. She felt newly christened each time Mary Eunice said it. "Are those sirens? Is everything okay? Are you alright?"

She put a hand against the glass of the telephone booth, glancing over her shoulder at the fiasco occurring in the doctor's office just behind her. "I'm fine," she reassured. "There's something going on across the street. Someone's hurt. It's not me—don't worry." Mary Eunice gulped audibly over the line, breath slightly heavier than before. "I just wanted to let you know Dr. Dillon sent me to the counseling center. I'm going to be home later than I planned." I just wanted to hear your voice. You make me feel safer. I needed a little extra strength to make it all the way there.

"You're going?"

Lana released a breathy laugh at the doubt in Mary Eunice's voice. "Yes, I'm going. I promised you I would try, remember?"

"Yes, I—" Mary Eunice hesitated, and Lana waited patiently for her to finish the sentence, but she redirected the subject after a moment's pause. What were you going to say? Tell me what you're thinking. A somewhat shaky laugh uttered from the other end of the line. "I'm glad. I was worried." She sighed, a rattle of breath crackling over the line on the phone. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine," Lana repeated. "I found your grocery list. Do you have anything else you want me to grab while I'm out here?"

"It's not a grocery list," Mary Eunice objected. Lana chuckled at her insistence. "It's not! It's a love note, with a compilation of things we might need for Thanksgiving dinner attached." Lana fought to muffle her laugh with the palm of her hand, but she couldn't restrain it, shaking her head. "What's so funny?"

You are. You're cute. "You can call it a grocery list. It won't hurt my feelings."

"It is not—"

"Okay, okay, it's not a grocery list." Lana hummed with satisfaction as she leaned against the side of the telephone booth. In her mind's eye, she saw Mary Eunice, her glistening golden hair, her beautiful azure eyes, the slight crookedness to her eyeteeth, the quirk of her pink lips. "You don't need my permission to ask me for things, you know. Groceries, or anything else. You can give me a grocery list. I'll buy it, no questions asked."

"Oh, Lana, I couldn't do that—it's not my place."

I want it to be your place. Lana swallowed those words. The church had, so far, supported their promise to compensate Lana monthly for Mary Eunice's stay, but each check she received stung; every time she opened another envelope, it reminded her Mary Eunice wasn't hers. It reminded her Mary Eunice would one day leave, called away to her true position once again. And I'm too old to become a nun. She shoved away all of those negative thoughts before she could linger on them. She did not want to risk any troubles on her mind when she met her new therapist. So, in a light-hearted voice, she teased, "I suppose it would be a bad time to ask you what you want for Christmas, then?" She had already asked the question more than once, each time deflected with the same answer.

The smile reflected in Mary Eunice's voice. "I already told you, I want peace on earth. I ask for it every year."

Of course. Lana inclined an eyebrow. "What do you want for Christmas that I have a reasonable chance of getting for you?"

"Lana, please—I don't want anything. Being with you is enough." Lana rolled her eyes, but to her surprise, Mary Eunice continued, "Last Christmas, Sister Jude got me out of bed at three in the morning to help wrestle Spivey into solitary since all of the guards were home for the holiday, and then when Pepper plugged in the Christmas tree, it caught on fire, and we all had to eat in our chambers for the mess in the dayroom, and Sister Jude spent the next three months complaining about the ants." Lana considered. She could picture everything Mary Eunice described in pristine detail—following orders of wrangling a disorderly patient into solitary, eliminating a fire, eating in solitude with the frigid air whistling in through the cracked window Mary Eunice had described in her chambers. "Believe me, if I make it through the day without someone puking on me, it'll be the best Christmas I've ever had. I don't need anything from you. I just want to go to mass and pray in peace."

A smile softened across Lana's face at the simple request. "Of course." How could she press Mary Eunice for anything more? I'll get her something anyway. What would she want? I'll get her a new Bible, and a rosary or two—maybe three. She could never have enough rosaries. A little book of prayers, a new prayer journal, she'll like all that. "A day of peaceful prayer it shall be, then." What else? She considered the habit hanging in the closet, the one with Jude's name etched on the tag in the back with no explanation. Fabric. I'll get her some fabric to sew herself a new habit, all for herself. "You never did answer my question about the groceries. Do you need anything else?"

"Um—not for dinner, no, but Gus is short on dog food, and we're out of bologna… And did you say Earl likes sweet tea?"

Lana scrambled to write down dog food and bologna. "Yes, he does, but you don't have to brew any, really—you're working hard enough—"

"No, it's already in the pot, but I couldn't find a recipe in the cookbook. Do you know how much sugar I should put in it?"

"Two cups."

"Two cups?" Mary Eunice echoed, incredulous. "That's—That's one part sugar to four parts water—"

Lana chuckled. "Congratulations, you can do basic math. Earl's from Alabama and I'm from Georgia. It'd be cheaper if you just poured sugar in hot water and left out the tea bags. Or it'd make no difference to us, anyhow."

"Goodness, Lana, you're going to get diabetes. I'm surprised you still have any teeth."

A happy sigh fluttered from Lana's tongue. All of the tension from the doctor's office had left her. She felt rejuvenated, fresh again, and she wished she could carry Mary Eunice's sweet voice into the counseling center with her. She drew strength from it. "I need to go. I don't want them to close on me. I'll get your groceries, okay?"

"Right. I love you."

"I love you, too." Lana listened to her breathe for a moment more before the line died, and she replaced the phone on the hook. She didn't steal another glance over her shoulder to look at the fiasco outside the doctor's office; she needed no more strength to straighten her back and dig her wallet out of her purse, seeking her insurance card. Her shoes clicked on the pavement as she headed down the sidewalk to the front door of the counseling center. She tugged on the handle and strode into the long lobby, which reeked of cigarette smoke. It stretched long ahead of her, the front desk seemingly a dot in the distance. Fate's tempting me to turn back. Lana lifted her head. She had made a promise to Mary Eunice, and she intended to make well on it.

The thin carpet muffled the sound of her footfalls, heels making only a dull, faint click underfoot with every step. Two harried secretaries slaved over the front desk, one of them speaking to a fat man with disheveled hair and stained sweatpants, whose body odor fanned toward Lana as she approached. She slowed when he glanced at her, but a friendly smile softened his haggard expression. "Hullo, miss," he said, waving one open-palmed hand. One of the secretaries lifted her head from her paperwork to meet Lana's gaze, and much like the man, she flashed an all too bright smile, white teeth bared like a growling dog. "Miss Johnson, looks like you got another patient."

"Why, yes, it does, Jeremy." The pretty young woman had ringlets of red hair tied back from her face in a neat set of braids. "How can I help you today, miss?"

Lana unfolded the paper she had taken from Dr. Dillon's examination room. "I have a referral from Dr. Dillon." The secretary's soft green eyes held hers, and she adjusted her cute gold-rimmed glasses to take Lana's referral from her. For a long moment, their gazes didn't sever in spite of the paper clutched tight in the other woman's hand. She had a faint dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose. The name tag clipped to her blouse dubbed her Maria Johnson.

"Did you just come from there, Miss… Winters? Dr. Dillon's office, I mean." Soft green eyes scanned the referral, finding her name on the sheet of paper. As Lana nodded, Maria signed the paperwork with a flourish. Her loopy penmanship hung off of the page, artistic but legible. "Did you happen to see what's going on, then? No legal trouble, I hope?"

"No." Lana massaged the back of her left hand to soothe herself. "An old man was having a heart attack. They had just called an ambulance for him as I was leaving." They're not calling me out. They're not treating me differently. Lana's lips curled up at the corners. She appreciated this quite a bit, the anonymity tied to this place. The reek of tobacco was no deterrent from the friendly atmosphere of the crumbling building.

The secretaries both wiped their brows with relief. The man rocked onto his heels; he wrung his hands. "Well, that's good." He spoke with more volume than necessary, and he kept his eyes pinned up to the ceiling, focusing on the ceiling fan where it whirled around and around and around. "Sometimes we get real crazy folks in here, y'know, miss." His head followed the circular motions of his eyes. It dizzied Lana, watching him with his loosely flapping, wringing hands. "But you're not one of them, are you, miss? I don't think so. I can tell. I can usually tell the crazies from the not-crazies."

Lana sought Maria's gaze; the redhead nodded in affirmation to her. She cleared her throat. "No, I—I'm not crazy. Or, at least, I don't think so." As the secretary passed the things back to her, she opened her purse and folded them back into it. "Which way is the waiting room?"

"Jeremy can show you, miss. You know the way, don't you, Jeremy?" asked Maria brightly; she spoke in a soft, condescending tone, like she addressed a child instead of an adult man. "Why don't you take Miss Winters to the waiting room with you? She's going to see Shawna Davis. You'll point out the right person to her, won't you?" He flapped his hands and head into a jerky nod, hard enough Lana feared he would give himself a concussion. He's an odd one, alright. Discomfort wriggled inside Lana's stomach, apprehension, but the man—Jeremy, the secretaries had called him—kept a healthy amount of distance between their two bodies in the open space. So, with the muffled click of her heels, she followed him down the long hall.

"You work for the Boston Globe, don't you, Miss Winters?" A slight stammer punctuated his voice, drawling out certain syllables and leaving others behind in a lisp. She nodded; her air vanished deep in her chest, anticipating another confrontation. But Jeremy paid no heed to her. "I remember you—your name. I used to cook, you know, what you said to cook, in your—in your column." His right hand continued to flap low at the air. He had neat, trimmed fingernails. "You really know your way around the kitchen, don'tcha?"

What? Lana's eyebrows quirked in the middle of her face. "Actually," she said with a quiet hum, trusting him enough to avert her eyes from his constant flurry of movement, "everyone told me it was tasteless." Wendy had to get high before she ate anything I made. Lana didn't mention this facet of her life to him; his recognizing her for the cooking column was noteworthy, but it didn't give him a free pass. "I can't enter the kitchen without setting something on fire. My roommate banished me after I nearly burned the house down trying to fry chicken."

He laughed, too loud, too vociferous for her tastes, with an almost forced texture to it. "You're funny." He twisted out his right foot with every other step. "I liked it. My mama says I don't eat enough of her cooking. But I could always eat your recipes. They weren't too spicy." They entered the silent waiting room, but his loud voice didn't die down. The other patrons lifted their heads to ogle, but he didn't notice or pay them any heed. "Miss, do you want to play Legos with me?"

She followed his gaze to a table in the back corner of the room set up with little plastic bricks scattered about. What the hell is this? "Sure." Perhaps the company would keep the shadows of her mind at bay; Jeremy was quirky, but he was friendly, and he seemed innocuous enough. You've proven yourself a great judge of character, Lana, she cautioned herself, the internal voice sarcastic and snide. But before she had entered Briarcliff, she would have avoided anyone like Jeremy and instead confronted the sanity portrayed in the expression of Dr. Thredson, just as she had learned to dodge Pepper in the day room and hide behind one of the nuns or occupy herself in the kitchen, afraid of the perceived crazy people. True madness disguised itself beyond any comprehension. She trusted Jeremy, at least enough to sit on the floor beside him at the bench of little plastic bricks. "What is this?"

"Legos," he said again, eyes slanted away from hers; he occupied himself with stacking the bricks at the speed of light, one hand after the other, laying a foundation for something he saw in his mind's eye but Lana couldn't comprehend. "I—I like to build things." His lips pursed in concentration. The jerking of his hands steadied the more he built. "I want to be an engineer," he said, chewing the inside of his cheek, "but nobody needs engineers these days." He slid each brick around the other, making the sharp edges of a house, complete with windows. "Want me to show you how to build the roof?"

"Yes." Jeremy built two sheets of bricks and layered them and slanted them upward toward one another, meeting in the middle. "What's—What's the gap for?" she asked, pointing at a gap in the roof he'd created. It occurred to her that he'd asked her play with him, and she had yet to touch a single brick. I can't interrupt this. Somehow, she guessed he didn't want his space invaded right now.

He brightened. "Oh, that—that's for the chimney—I can change it if you don't like it—" He went to remove the roof from where he had snapped it into place.

Lana batted his hands away. "No, no—it's fine!"

Their fingers brushed in the air between them. He recoiled. His shoulders tensed and drew up under his ears, arms folded across his chest. Lana scrambled backward; her initial, irrational fear said Jeremy intended to strike her and refused to allow her any freedom. "I—I—" His stammer became more punctuated. "I don't like to be touched." He framed each word with an exaggerated movement of his mouth.

Loosening her reflexive, tight grip on her purse, Lana leaned forward again, releasing a pent up breath from her parted lips. "Me neither." She fiddled with the strap of her purse. Not by men, anyway, and especially not by strangers. But the sensation of Mary Eunice's arms around her waist would never fail to warm and ease her heart. The mere thought softened all of her internal workings, so she managed to smile at Jeremy again, if pressed with the expression. "You're right. It needs a chimney. Santa has to get in somehow."

Jeremy's face remained unchanged as he stacked a tube of plastic bricks to build what she assumed would become the chimney. "So you still believe in Santa, then?" he asked, dubiousness in his tone but not upon his face. Uh… Lana shrugged, uncertain how to respond; she bit her lower lip in regret of bringing up the childish fantasy. "My mama told me the truth a few years ago. It was because her doctor told her she couldn't eat sugar anymore, so she couldn't eat the cookies I baked. I still bake the cookies. Now I just eat them all." Lana snorted on a chuckle. Jeremy paused in his construction of the chimney. "What's funny?" He didn't make direct eye contact with her; his face remained blank. "Was it something I said?"

"You're very honest," Lana explained. But I can't read you. She knew how to interpret body language from other people, the slightest crinkles at the eyes or the lips enough to clue her in, especially on the expressive people she knew. Like Mary Eunice. Jeremy was different. He wasn't crazy—at least, not the sort of crazy she might have expected to find here. But he wasn't normal, either.

He didn't answer. After he finished the house, he pulled away, leaving it standing for others to admire. "Miss Johnson said you were going to see Miss Davis. Miss Davis is a therapist here." He drummed his thighs, and he lowered his voice, though the whisper still projected farther than someone else would've appreciated. "I don't like her very much." His gaze flitted to Lana's, but it flicked away before she could so much as see the color of his irises. "My psychiatrist, Dr. Smith, she says Miss Davis worries too much about fixing instead of coping." Oh, that's comforting. Lana's smile froze on her face, cool apprehension lingering there between her teeth. She had far too many problems for anyone to try to fix. Her belly flipped at the prospect. Maybe I shouldn't be here. She fiddled with the strap of her purse. "Why are you here?"

The question caught her off-guard, and she lifted her gaze from where it had fallen on the flat, dirty carpet. "I, er, I…" She choked on her words. Her toes curled up in her shoes in discomfort. "My friends said I should, and my doctor wrote me a referral, so…" She shrugged, uncertain how to end the hedged sentence with any ease.

Picking at the peeling paint on the edge of the table, Jeremy asked, "Is it because you killed that crazy guy?" in a monotone.

"Er—I guess you could say so." It's because I killed the crazy guy, and every moment preceding. A dry lump budded in Lana's throat, and she loathed it. She needed control, now, before she met her therapist; she didn't want to walk in looking like a basket case. Sweat slickened both of her palms. She tried to ease the sweat by wiping her hands off on her skirt. The conversation was about to become uncomfortable; the stress collected in her shoulders with such thickness, she could've sliced it like cheese.

"Is that why you stopped writing the cooking column?"

The question blindsided Lana. She sputtered for a moment; she had prepared answers for half a dozen different questions, answers about Wendy, answers about Briarcliff, answers about Sister Mary Eunice, answers which would dodge the topic and preserve whatever remained of her pride and privacy. Her breath lost itself somewhere between her mouth and her lungs and swelled there in her throat. He said he liked the cooking column. "My—My editor never asked me to pick up the cooking column again. He felt societal commentary was more profitable for the Globe." Jeremy's eyebrows knitted together. Did I use too big of words? No, don't be silly. He's not stupid. A quiet, nervous chuckle floated from Lana's nose, and she inclined her own brows in turn. "He thinks with his wallet, and I'm not in a position to argue. But, to be perfectly honest, the cooking column wasn't really my thing."

"My mother said you did the cooking column because you were the only woman on the Globe's team for advanced journalism." From his back pocket, Jeremy pulled a small notepad with crumpled pages. "Do you have a pen?" Lana tossed him a pen from her purse. "Thanks." He drew a straight line down the page of his notebook, crossing the lines for writing with small geometrical shapes. "Why don't you like cooking?"

"I don't know. I never got very good at it. I was always too impatient."

"Did your girlfriend cook for you?" He asked it in the most nonchalant way anyone had ever asked about Wendy. "Before she died, I mean." His tone had neither lamentation nor accusation.

"Sometimes." She followed the tip of his pen on the paper with her eyes, dots giving way to boxes and shapes. Once he had filled the page, he paused, and then he set up the first line connecting two dots. "Are you playing dots and boxes?" Alone? With the same color of ink? Lana and Wendy had passed hours of class time playing dots and boxes in high school, but they had always shared the activity, one of them using ink and the other using lead, so they could count who made the most boxes in all. She couldn't imagine having any fun playing it alone, nor could she fathom keeping track of who had built which boxes without the different colors.

Jeremy nodded, grunting a hum of agreement. "Helps me pass the time." The door at the opposite end of the waiting room, and a portly, aging woman emerged; she stood shorter than Lana but twice as wide. "That's Miss Davis," Jeremy provided, and he handed the pen back to her. "Thanks for playing with me. Good luck."

The woman held a clipboard. "Lana?" she called into the empty waiting room. "Lana Winters?" Her full name drew the attention of the other patrons in the waiting room, some of them lifting their heads from their magazines or bibles to watch her cross the room, which she did with her head drawn up and back straight, gaze unwavering from the woman who had called her. A proffered hand greeted her, which she accepted and shook, hoping the firmness of her grip countered the gratuitous sweat coating her palms and fingers. "I'm Shawna Davis." Sharp perfume clung to her clothing, but tobacco reeked on her breath. "I see you've already become acquainted with our dear Jeremy. Poor boy is slower than a freight train leaving the station. He's one of our hopeless cases." Hopeless? Disdain pooled in Lana's belly, which tried to push away in favor of studying her new therapist. "Very well. Follow me."

The next narrow corridor closed in around Lana. She kept one hand clasped tight around the strap of her purse. Shawna pushed open a heavy, creaky door to give way to a small office marked by a weathered desk and a few chairs settled across from it. The light from the tiny window filtered yellow through the smoke. Lana balanced on the edge of one hard, wooden chair. As soon as she sat, Shawna lit a cigarette and brought it to her lips, pen between her fingers and gaze slanted downward at the clipboard she'd placed on her desk. "Would you like a cigarette, Lana?" The gray smoke floated from between her lips as she spoke.

The acrid flavor of smoke on her tongue curled inside of her, and Lana shook her head, a negation. "I don't smoke anymore." The ashtray beside her chair brimmed over with butts and ashes. That needed emptying a week ago. Shawna cleared her throat, and Lana lifted her head from her appraisal of her surroundings. "No, thank you," she said, a little louder. Is she hard of hearing?

"No, Lana, I heard you." Shawna flicked the end of her cigarette into the ashtray. She says my name a lot. It was odd, unsettling for Lana. Her hands folded into her lap. "Why don't you smoke? I use the Benson & Hedges long ones. Really, they're quite good for you, now that the government is filtering them. They're a good coping mechanism. You should consider starting again, if you once enjoyed it."

"I don't like the taste anymore." Shawna arched an eyebrow. She is your therapist, Lana reminded herself in a soft, cajoling voice, similar to Mary Eunice's. Shawna couldn't benefit her if she didn't disclose anything about herself. She had come here to talk about her problems and heal, not to clam up and pretend to be okay. Clearing her throat, she added, in a quieter voice, "It reminds me of Briarcliff."

Another ring of smoke emerged from the other woman's lips. "Is that so?" Lana nodded. "Well, we'll see what we can do about that. We'll handle all of your ailments in good time." She flicked more butts from her cigarette as she scribbled down a few things on the piece of paper. "Not to sound arrogant, Lana, but Dr. Dillon recommended you to me, specifically, for a reason." What? Lana hadn't examined the referral closely, but she hadn't noticed any particular name on the paper. She narrowed her eyes but remained silent to hear what Shawna had to say. "You aren't the first woman with this particular problem I've seen." With… anxiety? I'd think it's not so uncommon. "Truth be told, I'm reformed myself. I struggled in college, but once I established a career for myself, I was able to settle down. With me, you'll have a husband and a baby in two, maybe three years."

Lana choked. She squeezed the wooden arms of the chair with one hand, covering her mouth with the other. "No—No, I'm, uh." She shook her head, trying to calm all of her racing thoughts; her mind had become a creek, the sandy bottom stirred by a foot plunging into its depths and muddying the clear waters. "This is a misunderstanding; I'm not seeking a husband, or any therapeutic advice on how to woo men." I'd actually rather die. She forced her hand to loosen its tight grip. "Dr. Dillon said himself it's none of his business. I need help with my anxiety, and coping mechanisms for—for the flashbacks, and nightmares. That's all."

"Lana, you must understand, these surface level problems only culminate as a result of something deeply, internally wrong with the self, which we must seek to repair. Surely you're aware of this."

Heart pounding, Lana held Shawna's gaze; she wouldn't give in. She couldn't, not here, not now. I already endured conversion therapy once. "With all due respect, I am satisfied with who I am. No attempts at correction have worked in the past, and I see no justifiable reason to try and repair something which isn't broken."

"What attempts at correction were tried?" Lana buffered at the blunt question. Shawna arched an eyebrow at her in challenge. "Lana, please, try to focus. We won't get anywhere if we don't start on your foundation. You'll find you gain control of your anxiety when you gain control of yourself as a person, instead of traveling on any whim you like. Now, please, I can only aid you if you're honest with me. What types of conversion therapy have you attempted in the past?"

"This isn't what I'm here to talk about." Shawna's harsh gaze didn't waver from her. Lana judged the distance between herself and the door. I've got to give her a chance. Isn't this chance enough? No, no, let her finish. See where she's going with this. "The head nun of Briarcliff practiced electroshock therapy. When that didn't work, Dr. Thredson stepped in with his repulsion therapy with ipecac administered intravenously." A bitter flavor of bile rose in the back of her throat. She fought to swallow it. The mention of the repulsion therapy flashed images in front of her eyes: a frostbitten body with blue lips; the dark blood settling all over chilled limbs with mottled patterns like bruises; the view of bloodless, flapping gums beneath the open mouth; the unyielding chill of kissing a corpse under the instruction of a madman. The taste of decay would never fully leave the underside of her tongue. "Sister Jude didn't approve of his methods. I've no doubt, if he hadn't taken me, I would've been lobotomized."

Shawna hummed in agreement. Her pen made sweeping curves across the page, taking notes on every word Lana spoke. Why are you writing it down? Lana bit the tip of her tongue, afraid to voice the question in the tense air. "Those were the only methods, then?" Lana froze at her prying question, uncertain how to answer. "Lana, you understand you don't have to answer any of my questions if you don't wish to. Perhaps it will impede your progress for now, but I have every faith you will eventually come around." Shawna inclined her head. "I'm sorry for all the trauma you have endured. But surely you must realize this accumulation of problems never would have occurred if you had not been a practicing homosexual."

A cold stone settled in the pit of Lana's stomach. "What do you mean by that?" Her voice had shrunk, become thin and pathetic; she had last heard herself use the tone months ago under the sharp gaze of a man who had bound her to the bed. Her eyes sheened with tears. She fought not to shed them, not to show the weakness threatening to spill from her. "I was happy before everything happened. I know I can't have that again, but I just want to feel normal—my normal, not yours. I'm here so I might wake up one day without screaming, not so I can wake up one day beside a man." She shuddered at the prospect. I never want to wake up beside anyone but Mary Eunice. "If you can't help me, or won't, I'll find someone else."

The lighter flicked. A tall flame illuminated the room, lit another cigarette, and then died, casting them in the shadows of its brightness once again. "Lana." Shawna's voice was stern and firm, like she addressed a naughty child. "You may think you were happy, but if you were, you never would've wound up in the asylum in the first place. A healthy brain doesn't seek out a place like that, even under the guise of research. It's very simple, really, you must understand that. You are sick, very sick, with an illness we are still working on learning to correct, and your brain cried out for help even when you didn't—"

"I am not sick." Lana's lip curled downward, and she leaned forward in her chair, prepared to leap at the door and flee but still frightened of Shawna's retribution. "I was captured and held against my will!"

"You were legally confined on the word of the woman who claimed to love you. The foundation for such a relationship is rotten at its very core."

"Don't talk about Wendy like that!" Lana realized too late she had shrieked the words like an eagle; her hand jerked and spilled the overflowing ashtray into her lap and all over the floor. She stood and stomped for the ashes to fall off of her clothing. "We're done here." She crossed her arms across her chest and tugged them tight, purse cinched close to her body like a girth strap around a horse. "And if you really—really had a struggle in college, or any other time for that matter—" Her lip curled in disgust. "I feel sorry for you, that you wound up thinking marrying a man to satisfy everyone but yourself is the answer. I'm going to be who I am, regardless of what anyone else has to say for it. I owe Wendy that much." Wendy wouldn't want me to do this. Wendy wouldn't want me to storm out. She did anyway, slamming her door of the office in her wake. Her footfalls pinched the thin carpet and elicited a much louder click than before as she followed the narrow corridor back to the waiting room. Wendy would want me to try and get better and stomach whatever bullshit I had to hear in order to do it. Wendy had always been far more tolerant than Lana could ever dream.

Heads jerked up as her careless long strides carried her through the waiting room, across it, to the hallway through which she had entered. Her breath hitched in her throat and caught in her chest, syncopating the rhythm of her heart, which erupted into an erratic thrashing. Sweat beaded on her brow and in the palms of her hands. Tunnel vision blackened everything in front of her, save for the portal at its distant end, the doors across the room. Not here. Not like this. She swallowed a dry lump in her throat. What had she done the last time? She'd panicked—like usual. What did Mary Eunice do? Mary Eunice wrapped her up so tight, she could hear nothing save for the heartbeat to her ear, throbbing with a pace to match her own, and the prayers whispered just above her head; she could feel nothing but the rosary clutched between the two of them and the grace showering over her, and she wondered for a brief, confused moment if the grace belonged to God or Mary Eunice herself. Lana's arms cinched around her middle, trying to replicate the sensation of a hug, fighting to recall the exact tone of Mary Eunice's voice.

"Miss Winters?" She flinched in her flight, just in the doorframe of the waiting room, and whirled around to face Jeremy. He stared at her shoes, but his mouth trembled in a concerned line. "Are you—Are you alright?"

No. I'm not alright, and no one is willing to help me get better. Lana nodded in a single jerk of her head; she shifted not to face him, crossed arms easing. A shudder passed down her shoulders. She licked her lips. "Yeah, I—I'm okay." What would Mary Eunice say right now? Lana couldn't remember any of her favorite Bible verses. But in her head, Mary Eunice began to chant her rosary, soft but clear. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen. The distant croak, the rattling of rosary beads, Lana pictured Mary Eunice knelt in prayer at the side of the bed, everything around her in a silent peace. "Your doctor was right," Lana managed to say, and her voice held steady. "She wanted to fix me. The parts that aren't broken."

His gaze softened. "I'm sorry."

"It's alright. I didn't expect anything more." Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. "I… I think I'm going to start writing the cooking column again." Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. "If there's an audience, my editor will like it." Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen. "And it'll give me something to do." Jeremy's eyes lit up, but in Lana's mind, Mary Eunice paced around the kitchen, smattered in flour from head to toe, laughing as she shook salt or poured sugar or sliced carrots. She had a source of recipes now. Walt would be ecstatic.

"Thank you, Miss Winters." A woman emerged from the back corridor, and called out Jeremy's name with a clipboard in her hand. "That's me. I have to go." Jeremy lifted a hand and waved, and Lana bid him a quiet farewell. As his shape retreated toward the nurse, Lana retreated from the waiting room, from the hallway, from the building. Somewhere in her wake, one of the secretaries—probably the pretty one—called for her to make another appointment, but she waved her off and kept her beeline toward the sidewalk.

The pharmacy granted her the prescription Dr. Dillon had called in, and then she spent a few minutes picking up the things Mary Eunice needed from the supermarket. Todd was there, and Lana went through a different, longer line to avoid making eye contact with him. She didn't know what he knew, but she didn't want to tempt him. With her bags, she loaded her car and drove back home.

As she unlocked the front door and cracked it open, a sweet voice sang, "The hills are alive with the sound of music, with songs they have sung for a thousand years…" An amalgamation of spices assaulted Lana's palate. Goodness, it smells like Thursday already. Gus jumped from in front of the television and ran to greet her; Lana paused to scratch him behind the ears before she locked the door behind her and followed the lyrics into the kitchen. The notes rested far out of Mary Eunice's alto vocal range, but it didn't keep her from launching into the song with reckless abandon. "The hills fill my heart with the sound of music. My heart wants to sing every song it hears."

"I never should've let Lois take us to see that movie." Lana placed the bags on the floor; the counters overflowed already with food.

Mary Eunice whirled around, eyes bright. "Lana!" A broad grin broke across her face, and she opened her arms, only hesitating to ask, "Can I?" Lana filled the empty space between their bodies. The world shivered as Lana met the embrace, each of them locking their arms behind the other's back. The rainy scent, the perfume unique to Mary Eunice, wafted across Lana's face. Oh, god, I love you so much. Her eyes stung with tears, and she pinched them closed tight to keep from shedding them. She buried her face in the crook of the soft, white neck. "Are you okay?" Mary Eunice probed. The brightness to her tone disappeared, replaced by concern; as much as Lana lauded her own ability to read people, Mary Eunice analyzed her like the pages of her Bible and found the source of all her trouble. One arm disconnected from their fast hold on one another, which Lana almost protested before the hand landed in her hair and began to stroke in long, petting motions. Lana bobbed her head and gulped back her tears. She wouldn't cry, not now. "Do you want to tell me?"

Maybe, eventually. Lana's voice had evacuated the scene. A warm kiss planted on her forehead eased the quivering ball of nerves in her stomach, and she lifted her face with puckered lips to receive a second, indulgent kiss; Mary Eunice granted it without a moment of guessing, mouth to mouth, giving breath and life to one another once again. I shouldn't. But I love her. Lana still clung to her around the middle. As Mary Eunice broke the gentle kiss, Lana exhaled, and all of her troubles rolled from her mouth in that single breath. "I was right," she said. The disappointment ached somewhere in her neck. "She… wasn't concerned with anything important."

Mary Eunice tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "I'm sorry." Her big blue eyes, each deep as its own ocean, softened. "I shouldn't have asked you to go."

"No, you—you were right. I needed to find out." Lana released Mary Eunice at long last, feeling she could stand on her own once more. "I got the prescription, and hopefully that will help keep me from—from breaking down again, or will help me control it." She picked up the first of her bags and began to unload it into the cabinets and refrigerator. "Is some of this for us to eat tonight, or is it all for Thanksgiving?"

"Oh, um—it's samples." Lana arched an eyebrow at her. "I wanted you to try some of the stuff I wasn't sure about, so I know if I should make more or not—some of it is, uh, not my idea of tasty—I tried the tea with two cups of sugar, my stomach's been hurting ever since, and I think I'm going to take the sin of sugar consumption to confession for good measure." Lana chuckled at her antics, her eyes averted, but she couldn't escape Mary Eunice's watchful blue eyes, devotion held there deep as the ocean itself. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine," Lana reassured her. The aching inside of her chest and stomach filled her, but she didn't want to talk about it. Mary Eunice worked all day on this food. The scrumptious scents awakened all of her cravings and appetites. "If the tea makes you nauseous, that means you did it right." Mary Eunice's face tinted a pale shade of green as Lana got a glass and poured it to the brim, filled with the brown liquid. "You really don't have to make all of this food, you know. There's only going to be five of us—and that's if Earl comes. It's not like him to participate in Thanksgiving."

"Why not?"

Lana shrugged. "He believes it advocates for the genocide of the Native American people through supporting the European invasion of the continent." Mary Eunice's eyes fluttered wide with alarm. "I know. Barbaric, right?" Lana took the plates out of the top cabinet and passed one to Mary Eunice. "He's probably right. But I want to eat turkey, so I don't care. My life got turned into a political crusade. I deserve holidays." Mary Eunice accepted the plate, still scouring Lana's figure with her eyes. The gaze didn't make her feel scrutinized, though; the pit of her stomach swelled with something warm and pleasant pooling there, almost—but not quite—enough for her to forget the troubles of the day. "So it'll probably just be the four of us. And Barb and Lois will bring something, too. Barb likes to make beef stew."

Mary Eunice waited for Lana to fill her plate; she took much smaller portions than usual, and she brought a glass of water with her to the kitchen table. "Aunt Celest always said that at least three more people than RSVP'd would show up."

Sitting across from her, Lana waited in silence for Mary Eunice to bow her head in prayer, not touching her fork until she recognized the Sign of the Cross. Once Mary Eunice met Lana's eyes again, she inclined her eyebrows, offering a slight chuckle. "Celest didn't strike me as the type to host parties."

"Oh, no. She was usually the one who showed up without the RSVP." This chuckle, Lana couldn't muffle; she snorted so loud, her noodles fell off of her fork and landed in the middle of her plate again. "Or without an invitation at all."

They passed their dinner with mild exchanges, Mary Eunice passing Gus chunks of meat under the table and Lana pretending not to notice. Once they had cleared their plates, Mary Eunice took all of the dirty dishes to the sink. Lana gave everything a vote of approval, particularly the tea, as she helped herself to another glass and sipped at when she took Gus outside. Fat flakes of snow drifted from the darkening gray sky. He didn't linger on the dead, brown lawn. Once he had relieved himself, he charged back into the house, tail tucked between his legs and shivering from head to toe. He scrambled onto the couch and burrowed into the blanket. Lana sat beside him and flicked on the television in search of something to watch.

The sink faucet died in the kitchen. "Sister?" Lana called. "Is Bonanza okay to watch tonight?" She didn't know why she asked; Mary Eunice would never contradict her. "The news is on, too," she offered as some secondary option.

"Whatever you want to watch." The answer came as no surprise to Lana. She flicked the channel to the black and white horses galloping across the screen, the faces of Lorne Greene, Michael Landon, and Dan Blocker appearing in order. Mary Eunice returned with her knitting needles and yarn, and she nudged Gus to bump him over. He scooted over, leaving room for her sink onto the couch beside Lana, and then he placed his head in her lap. "Poor, cold baby." She stroked the top of his head, rubbing the warmth back into his floppy ears. A long whine drew from his chest, and he rolled over, exposing his soft underside to receive more scratches. When she ignored him, he pawed at her forearm. "Not right now."

Lana glanced at the large open bit of yarn Mary Eunice had knitted. "What are you working on now?" It was almost as long as the throw blanket on the couch.

Blue eyes darted up to her from the project. A shadow passed over her expression, something almost secretive to the crinkles around her mouth. What? Lana wondered. Did I say something wrong? "It's a sweater—the body, actually." She crafted stitch after stitch with the utmost precision, fingers working with more methodicism than a pianist's on the keys. She stitches faster than I type.

"I like that color." Lana resisted the urge to caress the soft ball of azure yarn, lest she interrupt Mary Eunice's pattern and mess up the rhythm. She had learned over the years of watching Wendy knit better than to interfere with the project; one misstep could send a whole project spiraling out of control and make it scrap. Mary Eunice hummed a vague agreement, a small smile on her lips. Lana dared to press a bit further. "It's like your eyes."

The compliment worked; Mary Eunice's cheeks tinted a light, tickled pink, grin spreading enough for her to cover her mouth with her hand. "Thank you." She glanced up to Lana, a certain nervousness as she leaned closer. Lana placed an arm around her shoulders. The rhythm of her hands worked through her whole body, shoulders and neck twitching in the most subtle ways. A purse of concentration appeared on her lips. A wrinkle knotted between her eyebrows. "I love you, Lana," she said, voice quiet as her silently fluttering fingers caressing one another, spinning the needles and yarn in an organized flurry.

With a sigh, tension eased from Lana's shoulders. She leaned over and pressed a gentle kiss to Mary Eunice's cheek. "I love you, too, sunshine." More than I ought to. More than you know. The guilt bloomed inside her chest every time she whispered those words, knowing she meant them in ways Mary Eunice never would. Lana took a piece of Mary Eunice's hair and tucked it behind her ear. "Sister Sunshine." The twisting hands stilled. All of the muscles under Lana's embracing arm drew up taut. Her face froze, angled downward, staring at the product in her lap, lips parted in a blank ogle. "Sister?" Lana prompted, quieter, concern darkening her voice. She's remembering something. "Sister? Hey—what's wrong?"

"Say that again." Nothing about her eased; her low voice formed a desperate croak.

I'm not sure I want to. Lana licked her lips. "Sister Sunshine?" she repeated.

Mary Eunice flinched. Her brain gathered up its guns and fired a twenty-one gun salute, each flare of bullets startling new memories from her mind. "Little Sister! My ray of sunshine!" Light glinted on Dr. Arden's glasses, but he flickered away into a new reflection, glowering at a statue of the Virgin Mary and cursing, "You great slut!" The picture dissipated into pixels and assembled in his office once again, opening a box of glimmering ruby earrings—the earrings the Monsignor had brought Mary Eunice when he brought the box of her things, the earrings she had feared touching and left hidden under the bed until she discovered their origin, for she knew she hadn't owned them before her possession. She dangled the glamorous gems out in the firelight so they reflected their brightest color. "They belonged to a Jewess in the camp," Dr. Arden said. "She was always reminding people that she was a woman of considerable means, and that her husband was an influential and wealthy doctor in Berlin." He didn't make eye contact with her as he stood and paced the office floor. "She was constantly complaining to me about her stomach problems, and as a doctor, I thought I ought to do something about it. So I followed her, one day, to the latrine, thinking I might diagnose her condition if I had a stool sample."

He paused, turning to appraise her while she appraised herself in the handheld mirror, the heavy earrings dangling from her earlobes—lobes which had never been pierced, which the demon had plunged the points of the earrings into without a second thought, prompting droplets of blood to trickle down behind each ear. "She was in there, on her hands and knees, picking through her own feces to retrieve those earrings. She confessed to me that she swallowed them, every day, day after day, carrying them around inside of her, as if someday she might return to her former grandeur. Oh, ridiculous woman." He paused, a hand to his temple. "She died from internal bleeding. The earrings were very hard on her intestines. Obviously, I retrieved them. I knew someday I'd meet someone who was worthy of their exceptional beauty."

She grinned at him, full and flush and ignored the screaming little girl inside of her. "You were very clever to retrieve them, Arthur!" She called him his name, the one he'd given himself to hide from the American government and take shelter from his war crimes. Rising from the desk, she ran to him, long tights under her habit not inhibiting her step; cast in the firelight, she knew the flames made her radiant in front of him, and his every thought rose to meet her ears, mingling arousal and affection with disappointment and horror. "Look how beautiful they are on me." He gazed back at her, long, bearing no smile on his grisled cheeks. "They bring out the rose in my cheeks," she said, trying to prompt him, wanting to win his affections back; somehow, the transition from innocent nun to empowered fiend had lost her the deepest of Dr. Arden's loyalty, and the demon needed him to accomplish every goal. He turned away from her. "Oh, you're such a sap." She swatted him on the arm, playful and grinning, but nothing she did engaged him. Laughing, she strode away, taking the mirror again to look at herself, expecting him to follow.

He did not. "Not exactly for the reason you may think." His voice had grown in volume, a punctuated lilt of disgust to his words. "But a sap, nonetheless." He turned his back to her, covering his face with his hands, tall shoulders shrinking in the shadows. "I so dearly hoped you'd throw them back in my face, that you couldn't bring yourself to touch those shit-stained earrings. I was hoping there'd be a glimmer of horror, a glimmer of that precious girl who was too afraid even to take a bite of my candy apple…" A wry, melancholy chuckle tagged the end of his voice; tears gleamed in his pale eyes, and he cast his sight away from her, away from her rebuke, which arrived all too soon.

Again, they dissolved, and they reappeared in the snow-covered landscape of the forest where Dr. Arden stored the raspers. "Wouldn't it be fun if we gave her a transorbital lobotomy? Crack that thick skull open like a walnut?"

"No."

She paused, frowning; the demon could not comprehend how he had changed so much from the first encounter, when he craved Mary Eunice, to now, when he loathed her, when only the affection for the weeping girl inside of this shell kept him from placing a bullet between his own two eyes. "Why not?"

"Because you wish it." He glowered back at her. As the raspers crawled out of the cold landscape, he shot them; at the first discharge of the gun, the girl flinched in surprise and cried out. He arched an eyebrow at her, and the demon took control again. "The experiment is over." Some took bullets between the eyes, some to the chest, each one collapsing before it reached the meat she'd prepared for them so arduously in the kitchen.

The demon snickered; it saw no need to remark on the brief hiccup of power exchange. "My, my. Quite a tantrum, Arthur."

He lifted the pistol to his face. "It's a farce," he said, tears budding at the corners of his eyes. "Finite la comedia." As the barrel of the gun wedged under the brow of his left eye, he released a broken sob, finger propped up on the trigger but unable to pull it. He collapsed before her, landing on his knees and weeping without rhyme or reason. "You have no idea what it means to have lost you," he whimpered in a voice much smaller than one befitting a man of his stature.

She squatted before him, holding eye contact, their faces inches apart, close enough for their lips to touch. "Jesus Christ." She shook her head. "You're being pitiful, Arthur."

She stood, but he wrapped his arms around her thighs, pulling her closer. "Then have pity on me," he plead, pushing the cold weight of the gun into her hand. But the demon still had work for him; the demon still had a role for him to play. And it saw no reason to give him the easy, painless way out of this world. Like any other occupant, he had to suffer. She shoved him. He rolled away, grunting and groaning, and she stormed back up the path toward the asylum.

"Sister. Sister." Lana shook her from her reverie, both hands on her shoulders, tugging her out of the dreams and the memories and the horrifying remnant sensations which she could not lose. "Look at me. What's happened? What's wrong?" Thumbs caught the tears rolling down her cheeks, tears she hadn't noticed until now which continued to slide unbidden from her eyes. "Tell me what you remember."

Lana knew, and somehow that made it both better and worse; Mary Eunice abandoned her knitting and bowed her head to curl up into Lana's arms, and the television flicked back to its black screen, all of their focus on one another. Mary Eunice didn't know where to begin. "Dr. Arden is a Nazi," she whispered. A hand combed through her hair, brushing it back out of her eyes. "His real name is Hans Grüper—he was at Auschwitz—"

"He told you?"

She shook her head, gulping hard. The inside of her mouth tasted hot and insatiable, thick as syrup. She wanted water. "I don't know—I'm not sure—I think Sister Jude found out, but I—I found the historian before she did—I don't remember!" She hiccuped. One of her hands clawed at her thigh, but Lana caught it in hers. "He gave me these earrings, from the camp, from a—a Jewish woman who kept eating them to try to protect them until she bled to death!"

Lana's lip curled in disgust. Mary Eunice's stomach flipped; she feared she would vomit on the spot, and she covered her mouth with her hands, muffling her whimpers as Lana tugged her ever nearer, near enough that she could hear the too-fast thumping of the other's heart to her ear. A tender kiss, cool to the touch, planted on her brow. Mary Eunice heaved uneven breaths until she trusted herself to speak without losing what remained of her sanity. "He used to call me—he used to call me his little ray of sunshine—" Her heart flipped once more. It was so different when Lana said it. Lana meant it out of love, out of the friendship they shared and their joined hands and hearts, out of mutual affection which she knew she offered with too much strength. Dr. Arden had known nothing for her but lust and the vicarious living through an innocence he had never known.

One of Lana's soft hands caressed her cheek. "Do you want me to stop calling you that?"

"No—it's different, with you, it's not the same thing, I just—" The ball of nerves tumbled inside the pit of her stomach. I don't know how to explain it. Guilt and grief all mingled into one, and she wrung her hands, unable to recall more, though she knew more laid in her head, resting in dormancy, waiting to ambush her and chase her into meekness once again. Her lips and tongue trembled in synchronization, unable to form words beyond the quiet buffering which tripped her vocal cords. "I don't think I'll ever feel forgiven. I don't think I'll ever stop apologizing for—for everything, for all the people I hurt, and all the wrong I did…" She leaned into Lana's palm on her cheek. "I'm indulgent, Lana. You're too good to me."

"No, I'm not." Lana kissed her forehead again; Mary Eunice did not complain the repetition, adoring the comfort each touch brought her. "The world taught you you deserve less, but it isn't true. You deserve everything I'm able to give you." She smoothed a hand up and down Mary Eunice's back. "I can't stop you from feeling guilty, and I know that's something you've got to handle for yourself, but I'm never going to let you believe you're worthless. I love you, alright? Just the way you are."

"I know." Mary Eunice lifted her tear-sheened eyes to Lana's, flicking them down to her lips, and Lana rewarded her by planting a gentle kiss to her lips. It isn't wrong. We're just friends. We'll never be anything more. The Bible never says friends can't kiss. "I love you." She toyed with the fingers all wrapped up in hers, pad of her thumb tracing their mountains and valleys. "Thank you."

Lana tucked another lock of her hair behind her ear. A softness rested in her deep brown eyes, darker than coffee, and Mary Eunice held her gaze while she focused on quelling the last of her nerves flopping around in her stomach, soothing the last remnants of her memories; they never lingered too long when Lana held her. "Can I ask you something?" Mary Eunice nodded in earnest, eyes fluttering wide. I'll help any way I can. "Do you think…" Lana sucked her lower lip. Mary Eunice tried not to notice too much how it vanished into her mouth, how it glistened with saliva when it emerged. "Do you think I'm sick?"

"What?" Mary Eunice echoed, stunned with the immediacy of the question. Lana had never sought her validation before; she had never intentionally revealed such vulnerability. "No—No, of course not! Why would you ask that? I could never think that about you, or about anyone, not anymore." She took Lana's hand and brought it to her lips, kissing the back of her knuckles, and Lana lifted those beautiful brown eyes up from her lap, shining with something deep and crystalline and loving. As she caressed the soft palm of Lana's hand, lowering it from her mouth, she said, "I love you. The way you are." You've made me realize the way I am, and I don't know if I'm grateful for that or not. Her tongue darted across her lips, curling her toes into the shag carpet. I wish I could tell you. I wish I could tell you even a small piece of what I feel for you right now. "Is this all about what the therapist said?"

Lana shrugged. "I guess." She averted her eyes, and withdrawing her hand, she left Mary Eunice grappling at the empty air; in spite of the arm around her shoulders, she longed for the way their fingers together. "Yeah, it—it is. I know it's stupid to let someone like that get in my head, but it's hard not to, and she—she just seemed so sure, and—" She raised her eyebrows, shaking her head, as if still caught in the disbelief. "In some backward way, it almost made sense." It couldn't have made that much sense. You're perfect. No one could find too much wrong with you; even a particularly scrutinous person would struggle. "She was the first person—the first one I've talked to, anyway. I'm sure there are more—but she was the first one who ever told me, outright, that it was Wendy's fault, and I…" Lana's voice dropped to a melancholy whisper. "I don't even know what to say to defend her."

Oh, Lana. Mary Eunice's heart wrenched, reflecting the anguish on Lana's twisted face, mouth drawn downward, tears on the surface of her eyes; they stung Mary Eunice's in turn, where she had just managed to stifle them. "It's no one else's business. Your job is to take care of yourself. You don't owe anyone an explanation."

"I owe it to Wendy!" At the snap of Lana's voice, Mary Eunice flinched, and she whispered an apology and brushed her hair behind her ears, cold hand to her own cheek. "Wendy deserves better than their slander. She died in the—the most horrible way, because of me, and the least I can do is try to save her reputation."

"It's not your fault," Mary Eunice murmured. I wish I knew how to fix all of this. I would do it in a heartbeat. "I think Wendy would understand. You can't keep your own name from appearing in the papers. You're doing the best you can." Lana leaned over, resting her head on Mary Eunice's shoulder so the sweet scent of her hair floated up around Mary Eunice, wreathing her in safety. She pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

A soft sob made Lana's shoulders quake. Neither of us are whole. We're both so broken. Mary Eunice wrapped her arms around Lana's body. "I miss her so much," Lana whimpered, wiping away her own tears with her fists. It stabbed Mary Eunice in the gut. "I love her, and I just can't stop—I feel so guilty, I know it's wrong, but I do. I just imagine her watching me all the time, and frowning on all of my choices, on how I spend my time."

"Wendy wouldn't frown on you, ever." Mary Eunice didn't know how she spoke with such conviction; she had never met Wendy, had had no interaction with her beyond the prayers she sent every day for Wendy's soul to cross into heaven and find peace and look after Lana from above. But she knew Wendy must have loved Lana as much as she did, if not more. She found it hard to fathom anyone spending time with Lana without loving her. "She wouldn't blame you, either. She wouldn't want you to be torturing yourself."

"I know," Lana whispered. She offered her hand again, and Mary Eunice took it. "How do you know so well? How do you understand?"

Because I love you the same way she did. "Intuition," Mary Eunice answered in a hum, a small smile spreading across her face.

They lingered in the silence for a moment, each of them with a throbbing head and stinging eyes from all of the tears they had shed, each wiping her dripping nose and sniffling away the snot. "You make it better," Lana said. "Being here. I can't imagine where I'd be without you. Holding you, and—and the kissing, it all helps. I just, I want you to know that."

"It helps me, too." I never feel safer than when your lips are on mine, and I confess it to my priest and pray my recompense, but I can never imagine ceasing. My world will never be the same again. Lana pressed a cool, flush kiss to Mary Eunice's lips, easing her knotted stomach into a flurry of butterflies. Her eyes fell closed, and she leaned into the warm caress of their mouths; a secret craving deep inside of her wanted more, wanted to give Lana the permission to do anything and everything she wanted.

But Lana severed, and they gazed at one another in the emptiness. Mary Eunice planted another peck on her lips. Lana chuckled. "I forgot to mention something." What? Lana read the question on her face. "I need you to teach me how to cook. I'm going to be doing the cooking column again, and I'll need help to make it something other than fire-starting recipes."

An easy laugh floated from Mary Eunice's chest. The pain was still there, the memories under the surface, but she had Lana, too. Lana made everything else seem dull and insignificant. "Alright," she agreed. "Anything you say."