Strangers

refer Marcie to another doctor," Besancourt said. "Ted Coverly. He's a child psychologist, and a good one. I'm sure he'll ferret out the cause of this. Funny thing is… I have a hunch we may have cured Marcie without realizing we were doing it."
        Jorja blinked. "Cured her? What do you mean?"
        "In retrospect I can see that her behavior had all the earmarks of a phobia. Irrational fear, panic attacks… I suspect she'd begun to develop a severe phobic aversion to all things medical. And there's a treatment called "flooding," wherein the phobic patient is purposefully, even ruthlessly exposed to the thing he fears for such a long time-hours and hoursthat the power of the phobia is shattered. Which is what we might've inadvertently done to Marcie when we forced her into the hospital."
        "Why would she have developed such a phobia?" Jorja asked. "Where would it've come from? She's never had a bad experience with doctors or hospitals. She's never been seriously ill."
        Besancourt shrugged, sidled out of the way of some nurses pushing a patient on a gurney. "We don't know what causes phobias. You don't have to crash in a plane in order to be afraid of flying. Phobias just… spring up. Even if we accidentally cured her, there'll be a residual apprehension that Ted Coverly can identify. He'll root out any remaining traces of phobic anxiety. Don't worry, Jorja."
        That afternoon, Monday, December 30, Marcie was released from the hospital. In the car on the way home, she was almost her old self, happily pointing out animal shapes in the clouds. At home, she dashed into the living room and settled down immediately among the piles of new Christmas toys which she had not yet had much opportunity to enjoy. She still played with the Little Ms. Doctor kit, though not exclusively or with that disturbing intensity that she had exhibited on Christmas Day.
        Jorja's parents raced over to the apartment. Jorja had kept them away from the hospital by arguing that they might disturb Marcie's delicate condition. Marcie remained in a splendid mood at dinner, sweet and amusing, leaving Jorja's parents disarmed.
        For the next three nights, Marcie slept in Jorja's bed in case she suffered an anxiety attack, but none materialized. The nightmares came with less frequency and less power than before, and Marcie's sleeptalk awakened Jorja only twice in three nights. "The moon, moon, the moon!" But now it was a soft and almost forlorn call rather than a shout.
        In the morning, at breakfast, she asked Marcie about the dream, but the girl could not remember it. "The moon?" she said, frowning into her bowl of Trix. "Didn't dream about the moon. Dreamed about horses. Can I have a horse someday?"
        "Maybe, when we don't live in an apartment any more."
        Marcie giggled. "I know that. You can't keep a horse in an apartment. The neighbors would complain."
        

    ***
        
        Thursday, Marcie saw Dr. Coverly for the first time. She liked him. If she still had an abnormal fear of doctors, she hid it well.
        That night Marcie slept in her own bed, with only the company of a teddy bear named Murphy. Jorja got up three times between midnight and dawn to look in on her daughter. Once she heard the now-familiar chant - "moon, moon, moon" - in a whisper that, because it was an eerie blend of fear and delight, made the hair prickle on her scalp.
        And on Friday, with three days of school vacation still ahead for Marcie, Jorja put her in Kara Persaghian's care once more and returned to work. It was almost a relief to get back to the noise and smoke of the casino. Cigarettes, stale beer, and the occasional blast of halitosis were infinitely more pleasing than the antiseptic stink of the hospital.
        She picked up Marcie at Kara's place, and on the way home the girl excitedly showed her the product of a day spent drawing on butcher's paper: scores of pictures of the moon in every imaginable hue.
        

    ***
        
        On Sunday morning, January 5, when Jorja got out of bed and went to brew coffee, she found Marcie at the dining room table, engaged in a curious task. The girl, still in her pajamas, was taking all the photographs out of their picture album and making neat stacks of them.
        "I'm putting the pictures in a shoebox, because I need the… album," the girl said, frowning over the hard word. "I need it for my moon collection." She held up a