He was about to ask where she was when the rear door opened and she came in through the kitchen, carrying a paper grocery bag. She looked at him, at the empty cup. Jack picked up a pancake and took a bite. His stomach protested, but he swallowed it down. She pulled the pot from the coals by its handle and set it off to the side. She didn’t say a word to him.

“I’m eating,” he said. “And drinking.”

You won’t throw up, he thought. You won’t throw up.

She walked to him and crouched and slid her fingers over the inside of his wrist. The morning rays lighting rogue wisps of her hair. Her eyelashes. Her skin. His heartbeats beneath her fingers.

She scrutinized him for a moment. Frowning. Then she opened the grocery bag and laid a towel on the floor and put everything on the towel. Cotton swabs and tape and gauze. Pair of tweezers. A syringe, scissors. Needle and suture thread. A little glass vial. Bottle of Betadine. She examined it all with an air of purpose.

After a moment, she stood. “Let’s get this over with.”

Jack felt his insides go slippery, jump into his throat. “Where’d you get all that?”

“My father.”

“Your father own a pharmacy or somethin’?”

She glanced away. “He keeps it on hand.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Nothing.” She spoke curtly. “He doesn’t know I took it. I’m not stupid.”

“And where does your father think you are?”

“He doesn’t know anything. You let me worry about that.”

They stared at each other.

Fire. Dry heat.

“What did Matty tell you, anyway?” Jack asked.

“Enough to know you need help.”

She crossed her arms, her face fierce. She looked like she was being scraped by the edge of a sharpened blade.

“It’s this, or you go to the doctor,” she said. “Your choice.”

All this time Matty had been listening, engrossed. “What’s going on?”

Jack’s head ached. At his side he could sense warm blood pulsing from damaged places just beneath his skin. This was crazy. Idiotic. Except, in some lucid part of his brain, he knew it had to be done.

Jack said to Ava, “I don’t want him to watch.”

“Watch what?” Matty asked.

Ava gathered the toy cars and brought them to Matty. She crouched and looked in his eyes. “Jack needs me to help him get better, but it’s going to hurt a little. He doesn’t want you to see that. So I think you should play with your cars over by the piano for a while. There’s only one rule. While I’m helping Jack, you can’t come over. Okay?”

Matty sat with his shoulders slumped. Then he inhaled deeply. He drew up his legs and clasped his knees. “You could say my name if you need me.”