I had to say something or I’d start sniffling.

“The Times-Picayune? I carried that when I was about your age.”

“Yeah,” he said. We had a point in common.

“It’s hard on you, too,” I said.

“I’m older. I can take care of myself,” he replied. “I’m just tired of people telling us they know how we feel. They don’t unless…” He trailed off, still a young kid himself.

Of course, it took an eleven-year-old boy to point out to me why I was identifying so strongly with this boy and this girl.

“You’re right,” I said. “No one ever knows exactly how you feel. People often can’t imagine pain so they try to remember it.”

Patrick looked puzzled.

I wasn’t explaining myself clearly to these kids, perhaps not even to myself. I started again. “When I was five, my mother left. I don’t know why. I’ve never seen her since. When I was ten…my dad was killed. It’s not the same thing that happened to you, but…”

“But it’s pretty close,” Patrick finished for me.

“Yes, so I kind of know how you feel, but not exactly.”

“Yeah, you’re one of us,” Patrick said and he smiled at me. He had Barbara’s smile, warm and wide.

“How did your dad die?” Cissy asked, looking up at me.

I couldn’t think of what to say, how to explain something that I tried my best never to think about. “He died in a fire,” I finally said, leaving it as simple as I could.

“Did you see it?” Patrick asked, with the simple innocence of a child trying to understand death and dying because he had to.

“Yes,” I answered, staring at the green wall.

“I’m sorry,” said Cissy.

Mrs. Kelly came back. She was carrying a cup of coffee and a can of soda for Patrick and Cissy to share.

“I’m sorry I was gone so long,” she apologized for an offense she hadn’t committed.

A nurse stuck her head in.

“Mrs. Kelly? You and the kids can sit with her for twenty minutes, if you want,” the nurse said.

“Oh, thank you,” she replied to the nurse. “I’m sorry, Miss Knight.”

“Go sit with your daughter,” I answered.

They got up and started to leave. I wrote down my name and phone number twice and gave one copy to Patrick and one to Cissy. I told them to call me if they needed to.

“Thank you, Miss Knight,” Mrs. Kelly said, a polite and indomitable Southern woman.

I watched them disappear down the corridor. I took a long ragged breath. I wasn’t going to cry. Those kids didn’t need it. I stood for several moments, staring out the window at a nondescript gray building. At some point, I noticed a white-coated figure off in my peripheral vision, watching me. Damn, this was a hospital. You would think a woman with a bruise on her face was a fairly common sight.

“I thought it was you,” the figure said. I turned to face whoever it was. Cordelia Holloway, just the person I wanted to see.

“Small world,” I replied.

“What happened to your jaw?” she asked.

“Doorway.”

“Male or female?”

I could see what she was thinking. That I was the kind of girl who got involved with people who hit other people.

“Neither,” was the only reply I could come up with. “What are you doing here?”

“I work here. You?” she asked.

“Visiting a friend.”

“You didn’t put her here, did you?”

“No!” I almost yelled. “Don’t you have any lives that need saving?”

“Ah, Micky, winning friends and influencing people, as usual.” Sergeant Ranson had arrived on the scene and was standing in the doorway. Just the sort of cavalry I needed. She came in and handed me a plastic bag. I assumed that it contained the clothes and purse I had left in my favorite basement. She and Cordelia nodded to each other in greeting. I tossed the bag over onto the couch. It landed with a heavier clunk than I thought a dress would make.

“Don’t do that. It’s loaded,” Ranson informed me. As in loaded gun. We all looked at each other. How do you make polite conversation about loaded guns?

“Excuse me, Joanne,” Cordelia finally said, “But are you really giving a loaded gun to someone with suicidal tendencies?” she asked.

Ranson and I both looked at her and then at each other. Did somebody know something that I didn’t?

“Care to explain those?” Cordelia clarified, pointing to my bandaged wrists.

“Rope burn,” Ranson replied for me.