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she can tell he isn’t really trying and he makes little progress. “I can’t,” he spits.
     
     
    “You can, ” she says, pushing the gun into his skin. “You can and you will.”
     
     
    “My ribs,” he gasps in pain.
     
     
    “Don’t be such a baby.”
     
     
    “They broke my ribs.” Now he is crying. “My hand, too. I can’t move.”
     
     
    “Why don’t I shoot you and put you out of your misery.” This shuts him up. She shoves the gun into her waistband and gets down real close to his ear. Even so close, she can see that he’s millions of miles away from her. The rims of his contacts catch the light, floating discs over dilated pupils. She hadn’t known about the contacts. They will have to come out. “Now, we’re going to get you into that chair, understand? It may hurt for a moment, but then we’ll be on our way.”
     
     
    He shakes his head again, fat tears falling out. “I can’t. Please.”
     
     
    She wraps her arms around him. “Ready? One, two . . .”
     
     
    An anguished howl curls out of him as she pulls him into the chair. He mutters obscenities, which she chooses to ignore. “There. See? That wasn’t so bad.” Pushing the wheelchair through the snow is hard work, all the way to the cellar doors. Her body runs with sweat yet she feels chilled to the bone. “You don’t seem to realize the favor I’ve done you,” she manages to tell him. “You don’t seem to get that I saved your life.”
     
     
    He doesn’t say anything now, but she can see that his face is all wet and a sound rises from his throat, more animal than human. At the cellar steps, she turns the chair around where he can see the bleak, snow-covered horizon, the watchful, indifferent trees. “Say good-bye to the outside world, Dr. Knowles—you won’t be seeing it for a very long time.” With the utmost care, she guides the chair backward down the makeshift ramp into the damp mystery of the cellar, a place where she would hide as a young girl, among the bulging sacks of potatoes and jars of canned peppers that her mama had made years before. They’re still here, covered with dust like specimens in a laboratory.
     
     
    “You’ll be safe here,” she reminds him. “No one will know, no one will suspect.”
     
     
    “They will,” he mutters. “They will.”
     
     
    “Never!” she insists. “They’ll never find you. You just do what I tell you and you’ll be all right, because I may just lose my patience with you and if that happens it’s not going to be pretty. You got that, huh? You got that?”
     
     
    He shows her no response, just droops in the chair. She wheels him over to the mattress, then dumps out the contents of her bag. Canisters of pills fall out like hail. She opens the canisters and makes a little pile in the palm of her hand. “I want you to take these pills, an antibiotic and something to make you sleep. I have a friend in the ICU. I can get anything you need. You just tell me what you want. You just tell me what to get. Here, come on, take these. It’s just some Keflex, and some painkillers—it’s good stuff, I’m told, four bucks a pill on the street.” He shakes his head wildly like a singing blind man, tears running down his face. “Here, Michael, look, I’m not trying to poison you.” She directs his face to hers and for a moment their eyes lock and he lets her feed him the pills and she watches them sink down his throat. Next she maneuvers him out of the chair, onto the mattress. Again he whines in pain. “There.” She fluffs his pillow. “Are you comfortable? Is the pillow all right?”
     
     
    He doesn’t answer her.
     
     
    “I’ll need your contacts now.” Without waiting for his response, she pinches out the warm discs and feels his tears on her fingertips.
     
     
    “I can’t see very well without them.”
     
     
    “I’m sorry” is all she says.
     
     
    “You’re not,” he whispers. “You’re not sorry for any of