The Law of Nines

Around the side, the usual collection of service vans were crowded into the small lot that was really nothing more than an irregular blacktopped area off the alley. The back of the building was virtually deserted compared with the activity in front. That had always added to Alex’s feeling of alienation; he wasn’t visiting a normal patient, someone who would eventually get better and go home, he was visiting someone who was imprisoned because she was a danger to society and would never be released.

He guessed that in the back of his mind he had always felt a sense of shame over that, not to mention anxiety that he might end up the same as his mother. Now he felt a sense of anger, because it was seeming more and more likely that her condition was the fault of strangers meddling in their lives, strangers who wanted something and didn’t care who they had to hurt to get it.

Out of habit, as they took a shortcut across the grass and patches of bare dirt beneath the shade of the huge oaks, Alex glanced up at the windows on the ninth floor. He saw nothing more than shadows through the nearly opaque glass.

“Are all the windows covered with wire?” Jax asked as she noticed him looking up at the top floor.

“All the ones where we’re going.”

When he pulled open the steel door at the back entrance, Jax paused and wrinkled her nose at the unfamiliar hospital smell. She stole a quick glance to each side before stepping through the doorway.

Inside, the smell of food mixed unappetizingly with the hospital smell. The kitchens were back off the entrance area. Often-times smaller supplies were taken to the kitchen through the back entrance.

As he did at every other visit, Alex tossed his keys, change, and pocketknife in a blue plastic tub on a table to the side of the metal detector. His phone was taking a bath in the outlet mall. As he had coached, Jax walked slowly through the metal detector. With her hands hooked in her back pockets, she looked completely natural, as if she did it every day. Wearing jeans and the black top she looked completely normal, as if she belonged with him. Except that he had never been with any woman as breathtaking as Jax.

The older security guard, Dwayne, who never smiled at Alex, smiled at Jax. She returned the smile. As well as Alex was beginning to know her, though, he recognized that her smile wasn’t sincere.

After Alex had gone through the metal detector, Dwayne reached in the tub as he usually did to hand back the phone.

He looked up. “You don’t have your phone.”

Alex snapped his fingers. “Must have left it in the truck.”

The guard, with no phone to give back, simply placed the tub on a table against the wall that he used as a desk. He would return the keys, change, and pocketknife when they were on their way out. There were no other blue tubs on the table against the wall. The rest of the empty tubs were stacked together beside the metal detector. As was often the case during the day, Alex was the only visitor to the ninth floor.

At the steel desk beyond the metal detector he picked up the registry clipboard and blue plastic pen attached to the clipboard by its dirty string. He signed his name, paused, and then wrote “Jax, fiancée” in the guest column.

Doreen, who had been paying close attention to Jax, took the clipboard from him and turned it around to see how he’d filled in the “guest” portion. Alex had never brought a guest with him when he went to see his mother.

Doreen looked up with a grin. “Fiancée! Alex, I never knew. I’m so happy for you.”

Alex returned the smile and introduced Jax. They shook hands. Doreen seemed unable to look away from Jax’s mesmerizing eyes. Alex knew the feeling.

“How long have you two been together?” the beaming Doreen asked.

“It all happened pretty fast,” Alex said. “She just dropped into my life out of the blue. Surprised the hell out of me, to tell you the truth.”

“Oh, that’s so exciting, Alex. When’s the big date?” she asked Jax.

“As soon as we work out the details,” Jax said.

Alex was relieved that Jax had handled the question with such simple grace.

On their way to the elevator, Alex leaned close. “That telling-the-truth trick of yours works pretty well.”

She gave him a smile at their inside joke. He noticed that she smiled differently at him than she did at anyone else. There was something special about it, something he liked very much.

When the green metal door of the elevator opened, Alex took a step in. Jax balked, her hand on his arm dragging him to a halt.

“What is this?” she asked.

Before anyone noticed them stopping, he put an arm around her waist and ushered her inside. “It’s an elevator. It takes us up to the ninth floor, where my mother is held.”

She turned around the way he did and faced the front as the door glided closed. “I don’t like being locked in a metal box.”

“I can’t really blame you, but it’s fine, honest. It’s just a device that goes up and down, nothing else.”

“Aren’t there stairs?”