43

The phone is on the floor in the study, just where I dropped it. I tap at the screen as I return the pill bottles to the medicine cabinet in my bathroom. Dr. Fielding, I’m well aware, is the one equipped with an MD and a prescription pad, but he won’t be able to help me here.

“Can you come over?” I say as soon as she picks up.

A pause. “What?” She sounds bewildered.

“Can you come over?” I cross to my bed, climb in.

“Right now? I’m not—”

“Please, Bina?”

Another pause. “I can make it to you by… nine, nine thirty. I have dinner plans,” she adds.

I don’t care. “Fine.” I lie back, the pillow foaming in my ear. Beyond the window branches stir, shedding leaves like embers; they spark against the glass, fly away.

“Iz evitingaite?”

“What?” The temazepam is clogging my brain. I can feel the circuits shorting.

“Is everything all right, I said?”

“No. Yes. I’ll explain when you’re here.” My eyelids droop, drop.

“Okay. Seeyoutonight.”

But I’m already disintegrating into sleep.

It’s dark and dreamless, a little oblivion, and when the buzzer brays downstairs, I awake exhausted.