Page 52 of The Girl Beneath the Sea

And I want it anyway. I want a piece of Roan that they cannot put in the river.

The doctor looks at his watch again and bends over the desk.

He does this every morning. He bends and looks at the stick without picking it up and then he straightens and says, “Thank you, Your Highness,” and he wraps it in the paper towel and puts it in his bag and he goes.

He bends. He looks.

He does not straighten.

I watch his back. I watch it stay where it is, for one second longer than it has ever stayed, and then two.

Then he picks the stick up.

He has never picked it up before. He holds it up toward the light from the window and looks at it and then he turns his head.

He looks toward the older doctor, who is still standing with his back to the room, and says his name.

The older doctor turns around.

He comes across the room and he takes the stick out of the younger man’s hand and he looks at it. Then he lifts his head and he looks at me.

He looks at me. In the eye. For the first time since I was twelve years old.

I look back at him.

Nobody says anything. The younger doctor takes the stick back and does not wrap it in the paper towel. He puts it into a small plastic bag from his case and seals the bag and puts the bag into his jacket, inside, against his chest.

The older one picks up the second wrapper, tonight’s, and puts that in his pocket too. There will not be a tonight’s. They both know it and I know it.

They bow together, properly, from the waist.

“Your Highness,” the younger one says.

They go. The door shuts and I hear them speak to the men outside, low, our language, and I hear feet going away fast on the carpet.

I sit in the chair.

The television is showing the weather. Then I put my hand flat on my stomach, over my shirt, low, where I understand it is.

There is nothing to feel. I know that. It is far too soon. I keep my hand there anyway.

Hello, I think. I have not decided what I am going to call you yet. But your father is not dead. I have decided that too.

I sit with my hand on my stomach and I watch the weather, and I wait for the door to open again.

14. Roan

I shake the last of the cereal box into the bowl and get about half of what a normal person would call breakfast, plus the dust off the bottom. No milk, obviously. I’ve not exactly been out for shopping trips.

I eat it dry with my fingers, sitting on the camp bed with the phone propped against the lamp, taking the occasional sip of coffee when my mouth gets too dry.

The coffee is instant stuff from the jar. A month ago I would have said a man could live on cans, cereal and instant coffee forever.

And yeah, I still could, but fuck me, I don’t want to.

There is one can of beans on the shelf behind me, along with two of soup, one of peaches. That’s what’s left. I’ve been eating it down slow, but I’m coming to the end of it.

Another few days and I’m out of food.