I’m falling. And then I see my own shadow rising at breakneck speed from the asphalt to meet me and hear a noise like eggshells breaking on the rim of a china cup.

I’m falling for the umpteenth time, and something is watching me fall. It seems to be watching me closely, opening for me. A mouth. A huge open mouth. Now the bottom of the lake opens up for me and sucks me toward it. But then I’m hurled upward again. I rush up through the black funnel, as if an angler has caught me on his line, his hook driving deep into my heart, and is now reeling me in. I rise up hard and high from the lake into dazzling light . . .

“Adrenaline.”

“Seven.”

“Get the boy out of here!”

I lose my balance. I throw up my arms, but it feels as if I don’t have any. I want to break my fall and then I see the boy, looking at me, and he cradles me in his gaze.

“Eight, nine, ten,” counts a voice, but then screaming drowns it out.

I see the neon tubes beyond the flashing lamps. I see the smocks and tubes, hear the machines, and I feel the hardness of the bed.

I’m here! Please, I want to say, I’m here! Nobody notices me. Apart from my son.

Somebody holds my hand, and I recognize the shape of the fingers, the texture of the skin, and the firmness of the muscles underneath. I know this hand. It belongs to . . . Eddie.

Hold me, Eddie . . . I don’t want to die. Hold me, I beg you!

Then I see myself. I see myself reflected in a metal pole with two drips dangling from it. I see my face. It’s lopsided, my head battered. I see my eyes glass over and turn smooth and hard, and beyond them I see myself disappearing into myself, into the depths.

Eddie! Hold me!

She holds me tight, and I try to drag myself back into the room by her hand, back to life, but I don’t have the strength.

And then something inexplicable happens: her hand lets go of mine. I fall into a bottomless pit, and above me, far above me, something closes. A huge glass barrier, like a tinted shop window, closes, as I sink and vanish into myself. It shuts, and the lake freezes over. A hard, dark, impenetrable layer of ice or glass cuts me off from the world. The glass appears to be rising while I slide deeper and deeper, and the colors fade, as do all sounds and smells. There’s a silent absence of life in this . . . nonworld.

Eddie no longer loves me, cries my heart, which has stopped beating.

Eddie

Dr. Saul kicked us out.