Rachel Alexander 04 - Lady Vanishes

bird trying to fly. Dashiell went slowly toward her, his tail waving from side to side, and put his head in her lap. At this, instead of touching him, Charlotte began to wail, hugging herself and swaying from side to side.
    I waited to see what would happen, already starting to feel the confinement of the place, bars on the windows, things bolted down. Even though I’d only been at Harbor View for fifteen or twenty minutes, I always reacted the same way when I first came into an institution like this one, as if the walls were closing in on me.
    Charlotte was quieting down, so fortunately there was something I could do about my claustrophobia, something that could help all three of us.
    I began to talk softly, using her name, telling her mine, mentioning that Dashiell needed a little walk, asking her if she’d like to be the one who walked him.
    Charlotte went straight to the dresser across from the foot of the bed, stepping over her doll on the way, then opening the bottom drawer and taking out a pair of red woolen gloves.
    “It’s pretty hot outside,” I told her.
    Even knowing better, I waited for a response.
    “Hey,” I finally said, “take them along, see if you need them or not. It’s always best to be prepared.”
    She was rooting in the drawer again. This time she came up with fur earmuffs. She smelled them before putting them on.
    She was almost pretty, her short hair, the color of buckwheat honey, framing her face and curling against her cheeks, her skin fair; and despite the stiffness of her movements, she didn’t seem clumsy. There was something graceful about her, in the careful way she moved about, never looking directly at anything, still knowing what was around her.
    Charlotte took Dash’s leash from around my neck and hung it around her own neck, heading for the door. Before heading down the stairs, she slipped on the red gloves, making sure each finger went in the right place; then, holding the banister, she began to descend the stairs, Dashiell rushing ahead, then running back up to butt her with his big nose before running down to the next landing, turning, and coming back again.
    “Lady’s back,” I heard with still a half a flight to go to get to the lobby.
    “I knew she was. I told you—”
    “First Lady’s—”
    “Back. She’s back.”
    It could only be Dora and Cora, the Weissman twins. When we arrived on the main floor, they looked up at me, confused.
    “Who’s—” Dora began. She rolled her wheelchair closer.
    “She?” Cora finished. Her chair stayed put, but she leaned forward and eyed me suspiciously.
    “Rachel. And Dash.”
    “Why is she—” Cora said to her sister.
    “Talking to us? We don’t—”
    “Know her,” Cora finished. She shrugged her shoulders, rolled her eyes, and dismissed me with a flap of her liver-spotted hand.
    “Know who?” Dora asked.
    Cora looked at me, then back at her sister. “She’s taken every dime I have. Some daughter—”
    “She is,” Dora said, nodding in agreement, Charlotte waiting at the door, Dashiell at her side.
    “Hang around, ladies, I’ll see you when Charlotte and I get back.”
    I poked my head into Venus’s office to tell her I was taking Charlotte out.
    “Does she have her earmuffs?”
    “She does.”
    “Sound sensitivity,” she mouthed, making me feel pretty stupid for not looking beyond the surface. She probably wore the gloves so she wouldn’t have to touch unfamiliar things.
    At the door, Charlotte took the leash from around her neck and hooked it to the D ring on Dashiell’s collar. Things like that were what kept me up at night when I’d worked with Emily, knowing that there was more inside than we could get to and not knowing how that could be changed, or if it could.
    “Ready?” I reached for the doorknob.
    “Where is she taking—”
    “Lady?” Dora shouted.
    “Some people have—”
    “All the nerve. What is she doing—”
    “Here anyway?” Cora asked no one in particular.
    Leaving the Weissman twins for later, I opened the door, and we walked out into a wall of heat and noise. As fast as I could, I headed for Jane Street, hoping to get Charlotte away from the din, though she seemed oblivious to it. Perhaps she felt protected by the earmuffs, or was so happy to be out with Dashiell that nothing else registered. Suddenly she began to sing. Holding tight to the loop of the leash with one gloved hand, the other hand firmly in mine, a behavior I was sure she had been taught, she