Today we’re on our way to see the neurologist, the “head doctor” who reads my brain waves. It’s supposed to be science-y, but it feels a little like visiting a psychic and watching her pretend to tell my fortune. I’m trying my best not to pay attention to the worry that’s doing laps in my stomach. This appointment is a big one. It might really tell my future, and I’m not sure I’m ready to hear it.

“Where is your jacket?”

Despite the rush, Mom has all the time in the world to look me over while I’m riding the lift that folds down onto the curb like a hand opening and carries me up and inside the van. It’s like the world’s slowest amusement park ride. But she doesn’t wait for an answer, because I’m finally up now and locked in. We’re already going to be late. And I’m secretly glad. If it’s bad news, it’s bad news a few minutes later. I watch Lauren shrink and finally disappear out the back window.

Mom keeps checking her phone. I reach as far as I can and grab it from her.

“Ellie!”

“No texting while driving, young lady.”

“I wasn’t texting. I was about to text.”

“Same difference. Same eyes off the road. Text who?”

Mom doesn’t answer.

I don’t know why I ask. I know who. Dad. Dad the lawyer who never calls or comes to anything because he’s busy with his new family. Mom says he hopes to run for mayor someday. I bet he practices acceptance speeches in the mirror. The therapist Mom made me see for a while when I turned ten and starting ignoring Dad’s phone calls and emails said I have “unresolved issues.” She said I needed to learn to “express the hurt” if I ever wanted to have a “meaningful relationship” with him. But honestly, it’s been Mom and me for so long, I think I’d rather just leave him to his bright and shiny new family.

“He might make it this time,” she says eventually as we pull into the parking garage and the radio goes fuzzy.

“Sure. Sure.”

Mom and I both know Dad won’t be here. Even though this is kind of a huge appointment, epic maybe if it pans out the way we want, he still won’t show. He doesn’t do doctors or hospitals or sickness of any kind—which explains the whole leaving us when I was still a not-toddling toddler. Whenever he visits, I make a point to lean over and drool a little. This would be one of the “defense mechanisms” the therapist mentioned.