“Oh,” I say, anxiety settling on me like a cloak. “I need them. They keep me calm.”

“Well,” he says, “I’m not sure about that. Did a doctor prescribe them?”

“Yes,” I say, “He gave them to me in his office.”

“I don’t know where your doctor got them—but I would stop taking them, if I were you. They stopped manufacturing these pills about ten years ago. They have extreme side effects. Hallucinations, memory loss. Some people experience rapid weight gain. I am happy to recommend an alternative.”

“Oh,” I say. “I won’t be able to afford that.”

He sighs and sits on the bed, which I know they’re not supposed to do. Mommy would have been upset. But he looks exhausted, so I don’t say anything. “It’s tough,” he says. “There’s not enough support or funding. But I’ll bring you the forms. You might be eligible for aid.” He hesitates. “It’s not just the medication that concerns me. There is a great deal of burn scarring on your back, legs and arms. There are also many scars from sutured incisions. That would normally indicate many hospitalizations in childhood. But your medical records don’t reflect that. They don’t seem to reflect any medical intervention at all.” He looks at me and says, “Somebody should have caught this. Somebody should have stopped what was being done to you.”

It never before occurred to me that Mommy could have been stopped. I consider. “I don’t think they could have,” I say. But it’s nice that it matters to him.

“I can give you the name of someone who can go over your medical history in detail, someone you can talk to about … what happened. It’s never too late.”

He sounds unsure and I understand why. Sometimes it is too late. I think I finally understand the difference between now and then. “Maybe some other time,” I say. “Right now I’m kind of tired of therapy.”

He looks like he wants to say more but he doesn’t, and I’m so grateful to him for that that I just start crying.

The orange-haired man brings me a toothbrush from the gift shop, sweatpants, a T-shirt and some underwear. It’s kind of embarrassing that he bought me underwear, but I need it. All my clothes were ruined by blood.

Doctors come and give me the stuff that makes the world go underwater. It keeps the others in here quiet, too. For the first time in many years, there is silence. But I know that they are there. We all move gently in and out of time.