We walk down the hall of the hospital after therapy, Robert’s arm wrapped through mine. The hall that we walk through is one of the dirtiest and darkest and has always terrified Robert. He clings tightly to my bicep and his shakes reverberate through me. “Robert, it’s okay. We’re almost there.”
“I-I’m sorry Rose. It’s j-just… I can s-see him.”
“I won’t let him hurt you Rob. You’re safe with me.” I hear faint footsteps far off in the distance.
“He s-says that you d-don’t scare him!” he cries, pressing his cheek into my shoulder so hard that I’m sure it must hurt him.
“Listen Robert. We’re almost there and once we are, there is no way that man can touch you. In fact, there’s no way he can touch you now.” I chew the inside of my cheek though, nervous. No matter how hard I try, sometimes Robert’s fears pass to me, making me almost as terrified as him.
Finally, we reach the room we are headed for. I try the handle but it’s locked. I swallow hard. Robert whimpers at my side. I rattle the handle hard, willing it to turn, to move, to let us into the safety of the room within. The footsteps I heard earlier are close now.
They’re right behind us.
Neither Robert or I turn but we can both feel the presence behind us. My fingers fumble with the knocker and I bang it, hard. Robert pants at my side, his breathing labored and uneven. “I hear him,” he says.
“Do you guys need help?”
Robert and I both scream, short and loudly. We whirl around.
My tense shoulders droop. “Jesus, Thatcher. Are you trying to give us a heart attack?” Thatcher leans against the wall on the other side of the hall, arms crossed over his chest. Robert shakes like a leaf beside me. I pat the hand that rests on my inner arm, trying to calm him. His palms are slick with sweat.
“Sorry. I was trying to get here too, so I followed you guys. Hope I didn’t scare you too much.” His eyes are gentle and just the least bit mocking. The door behind Robert and I opens and I hear a woman’s voice say, “Oh hello you three! I’m sorry, we had music playing. Come on in.”
Robert bustles in but I stay, not dropping eye contact with Thatcher. His mouth curves up into a smile and he offers me his elbow. I raise my eyebrows and say, “I can walk in on my own.”
We walk in together and Thatcher says “So why does Robert getting to walk arm-in-arm with you, but I can’t?”
“Because I’ve known Robert since he was born.” I sit in an open chair in the room. The chairs are arranged in a circle, as they always are, but this room is much brighter than most of the rooms in the Home. Paintings children have done plaster the walls as well as pictures of the kids. What I guess a teacher’s desk would look like sits in the corner, a mess of paper covering the top.
The room is fairly full; at least fifteen kids are already seated.
Thatcher takes the seat beside me.
“Well, that doesn’t seem fair. You’ve known me for two days, isn’t that kind of the same? I mean, we already know a lot about each other.” The doctor lady is talking and I try to focus on what she says, but Thatcher’s low voice distracts me.
“No it’s not. Are you crazy?” Dumb question, of course he’s crazy. He wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t crazy.
“Crazy about you.” My hands, which are clasped in my lap, tighten reflexively. My nails dig into my skin, leaving small indentations. Thatcher rests his arm on the back of my chair. I can still hear the woman’s voice but it sounds far off, like the buzzing of a fly. I dare to look up at Thatcher.
He winks slyly at me. The woman stops talking and my gaze travels to her. She’s set us off to paint, draw, and doodle. I push my chair back towards the wall, forcing Thatcher to drop his arm from the back of it. Then, I scoot to a desk and pick up a pencil, staring intently down at my paper.
A pair of knees bump my own underneath the table. I look up through my eyelashes to see Thatcher sitting across from me. He picks up his own pencil and places it upon the paper, beginning to draw.
Dropping my eyes back to the paper, I let my pencil wander. It curves and squiggles into the letters “RUN.” I crumple it up and toss it under my chair. I end up trying to cover the entirety of the pages is a single, curved line. I’m nearly done when I hear Thatcher clear his throat. A page slides across the table.
I try so hard not to look, but my temptation wins over my determination. It’s a drawing of me, in profile. The entire drawing is black and white, except a slight pink creeping up my cheeks. My gaze travels upwards to him.
He sits back in his chair, posture casual and easy, flipping a pencil in between his fingers.
I tip my head to the side and say, “That’s really good.”
“Thanks,” he replies, biting his lip.
I need to change the subject. Now. “Why is your name Thatcher?” I ask.
“Why does it matter? It’s just a name.”
“I’m just curious why you’re parents named you that.” I continue my doodle, trying to appear just as casual as he is. My line draws nearer and nearer to the end of the page, filling up the page.
“My parents were obsessed with the movie ‘A Knight’s Tale’,” he says simply.
“Is that based off a Chaucer?” I ask, having never actually seen a movie before. But, I’ve read enough to get the gist of them. I think the basic idea is that people take a book and take the plotline and turn it into a visual thing where they act it out. Or something.
“No,” Thatcher says. “It’s not based off a book. But the guy in the movie’s name is William Thatcher. And so my parents named me Thatcher.”
“Cool,” I breathe, sitting up, having finished my doodle. I slide Thatcher’s drawing into my lap when he glances away. I begin to speak again, but the woman bounces over to us.
“Well hello you two! How are you doing? Oh, that is magnificent, darling,” she says to me, snatching the paper from the desk in front of me. “I’ll give this to Linda, is that okay? Okay sweetie.” She talks so fast that I can’t keep up.
She turns to Thatcher. “And how about you, honey?”
“I haven’t thought of anything to do yet,” Thatcher says, his voice condescending. She just bobs away, looking as happy as ever. I play with the corner of the paper in my lap.
“Where’d you get your name, Rosa?”
I let out a slow, low breath. “It’s not something I really dig talking about,” I reply.
Thatcher tilts his head to the side, raising his eyes from his graphite stained fingertips. “Why not?” he asks.
I’m honestly still amazed that we haven’t really talked at all about the Home. We haven’t confessed what’s wrong with us, nor how either of us got here. Usually, that’s the first thing discussed with the new kids. I figure telling him a little bit about my history. What’s there to lose? “I don’t know who my parents are. They dropped me off here when I was a baby. Uh…” I pause, blinking a couple times and smiling at him. “Sorry. I haven’t talked about this in a long time.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” Thatcher says, reaching his hand across the table, probably to rest it on my arm but I pull away. I’m not big on physical contact. Robert and Josh are the two people who don’t perturb me when they touch me.
“No, it’s fine. They left me wrapped up in this really horrible rose blanket and that’s what the doctors called me while they thought of a new one. But Rose just kind of stuck. So.” I finish my story and tighten my fists in my lap. Thatcher’s look on his face makes me wonder if that story is even interesting in the slightest.
We sit in silence for a moment or two and we both start speaking at the same time.
“I—”
“You don’t have to say anything, Thatcher. I don’t need to be comforted. Honestly, I think it’s better they abandoned me early. That way, I don’t miss them. Plenty of the kids here go straight jacket crazy waiting for their parents to come back. I think it’s comforting. Easier.” Thatcher’s eyes are slightly wide, like I surprised him. “What?” I ask.
His lovely mouth curves into an idiotic grin. “It just always surprises me.”
“What does?”
“How sane you are.”
I’m lying in my bed after dinner, arms crossed behind my head, moonlight trickling through my window. Thatcher had not been at dinner. The curiosity and worry thrumming through my mind is distracting, but it takes my mind off of my pounding headache.
I hear the click of the automatic locks of all the doors. They progress down the hall, one after another, as fast as a racing heartbeat. They electronic, set to lock at a certain time. I’m not sure when, though I’ve never had much interest in time. Every day and night feels the same here. Time is meaningless in the Home.
Much later, when the moon had revealed its fullness to the dark sky, dancing amongst the stars, I hear a tapping on my door. My heart nearly jumps from my chest. I’m terrified that it will be Mary again, bloody and ghostly.
I try to ignore it, slamming my eyes closed and digging my knuckles into their sockets, but it continues. Finally, I drag myself from the bed, slowly, putting it off. My shaking hand outstretches to lift the blinds.
Thatcher has a hand cupped on the glass peering in. My heartbeat continues pounding against my ribcage. He says something, and I watch his lips lightly press together and spread again, forming some kinds of words that I can’t hear. I point to my ear, mouthing “I can’t hear you,” slowly so he can get the gist of what I mean.
He rolls his eyes and fiddles with the doorknob for a second and the door pops open. I stand there, stunned, as it slides on well greased hinges. “I said,” Thatcher says, “I was wondering if you want to come on an adventure with me.”
I don’t break rules. I never have.
Thatcher extends a hand towards me.
I shy away. Rules are the only things I’m ever sure are one hundred percent real. Everything else could be a hallucination. They give me guidance. Structure in a structureless world.
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