The Brothers (2 page)

He nods, smiling again. It’s a good sign that he can turn the tears off. He isn’t broken inside. Not like me.

I turn and slip through the branches, keeping to the shade as much as possible. Little scraggly plants grab at my ankles, and insects and lizards dart away like bullets. When I finally find a grove of brush that’s thick enough to hide me from the road, I hunker down and try to go. Here, the sun presses a white-hot finger on my head. Above, a bird caws loudly. And a droning sound picks up. At first, I think it’s an insect, but it grows.

What’s coming? A swarm? No. It’s too deep and rumbling. I stand and tug at my pants.

A car is headed our way.

I lurch forward, but my foot tangles. I fall. The ground comes up hard, smashing my elbow and jarring my spine. While I lie on the ground, hurting, I listen for the squeal of brakes and the crunch of tires. If they move on, they haven’t spotted the Jeep. If they stop, we’re up shit creek, as Auntie would say.

As the sound of an engine grows louder, I press my hands into the dirt and push up. A sharp jab stabs my hand. “What the hell?”

Backing away from me, barbed tail extended and pinchers raised, a brown scorpion stands ready for another attack.

I shriek and fall back. Then I scramble even farther into the brush, the sharp twigs digging at my skin.

I tell myself to breathe. My heart’s racing. There’s a puncture wound on the fleshy part of my palm, red and swollen. As the shock wears off, heat and pain begin to spread. Goddamn it. I turn and look toward the Jeep.
Auntie
. She’ll know what to do.

But before I can take two steps, the pain doubles. A shooting ache radiates up my arm, building, building, each new wave of pain multiplying until the pain is a monster, eating me from the inside out. I try to breathe, but my breaths come in ragged pants like an injured dog’s. I stare at my arm, the source of this jagged lightning that’s gouging out my brain. Am I dying?

My eyes lift to the Jeep. It’s only a few paces, but it looks like miles. I stumble forward. A wave of nausea rolls me to the ground. The
throb, throb, throb
of pain blots out everything.

I force my eyes open. I roll onto my belly, my arm blaring. Then I push to my knees and finally stagger to my feet. As I cradle my arm and run, all I can think about is dying in the desert before I see Clay or Ethan.

No, goddamn it. No!
I stumble forward.

When Doc sees me, he reaches out. “What happened?”

“Scorpion.” I slump against the Jeep as my vision fades in and out. Passing out will be a mercy, but not yet. “Wake…Auntie.”

“Scorpion?” he repeats, his eyes going wide. “Oh my God, Riley. Let me see.”

I forgot he’s a doctor. Reluctantly, I hold out my arm, but I want Auntie. The pain is a clamp on my brain, and each moment that passes draws me closer to blackness. I grit my teeth as Doc pulls my hand toward him.

“What did it look like?” he asks.

“What?” I’m soaked with sweat. I slump against the Jeep.

“What did the scorpion look like?”

“Brown,” I murmur. My fingers tingle. With my good hand, I wipe sweat off my brow. “Is it…serious?”

The worry in Doc’s face answers my question. “Do you think it was a bark scorpion?”

“How…should I know?” I let my head fall back against the Jeep. More bile churns up my throat. “I’m gonna throw up.”

Doc’s eyes lift from my hand to my face. “Lie on your side,” he says, helping me. “I’m going to wake your aunt.”

“She’s already awake,” Auntie says, shuffling toward us. “What’s all this now?”

“Riley got stung by a scorpion,” Doc says.

I close my eyes, not wanting to see the red, angry skin of my hand. The
throb, throb, throb
of the pain gathers my focus. “Am I gonna die?” I ask.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Auntie says, her voice floating somewhere near my head. “But lie down already, will ya?”

I writhe on the backseat of the Jeep, twitching with pain. It’s like one million fire ants marching up my veins and shooting down every one of my nerve endings. I sweat and moan, roll and toss. Soon I’ll ask someone to kill me.

“Auntie!”

Her head appears around the passenger side headrest. “What, precious?”

My eyes focus on her eye patch and the web of scars around it. “I need something.”

Her hand reaches out and brushes sweat-drenched hair off my face. “What do you need?”

“I don’t know,” I almost scream. “Something. Medicine.”

Auntie nods, licking a dry tongue over her lips. “We gave you everything we had.”

I moan. Rolling back and forth on the Jeep seat, I keep my arm lifeless on my stomach. I bite my lip and arch my back. Nothing,
nothing
makes the pain stop. “How long?” I murmur through cracked lips.

Auntie sighs and strokes my cheek. “Too long,” she says sadly. “To you, it’ll probably feel like an eternity.”

“Oh God,” I moan.

Doc’s face appears at the Jeep window. He looks down at me, his expression twisted with sympathy, and then he looks at my aunt. “I could drive into town. Try to barter for morphine. Something.”

“Morphine costs more than your leg,” she says, nodding at him. “And you’re a bender. No one will trade with you.”

Doc grits his teeth and growls. “I feel so helpless.”

Auntie waves a dismissive hand. “How do you think she feels?”

Doc goes quiet. For a while, they say nothing. This makes the pain seem bigger. I was able to push some of it to the back while they were talking. Now there’s nothing but the
throb
. “Tell me something,” I say through gritted teeth. “Tell me something to take my mind off.”

Doc’s face tightens. “Tell you what?”

But Auntie nods, her arthritic fingers brushing through my hair rhythmically. “A story. A story is good medicine. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it.”

“A story?” Doc scoffs. “She needs drugs.”

Auntie’s face has grown thoughtful, like she’s rummaging in old drawers for the tale that will draw me out of my pain. I watch her wrinkled face as the
throb, throb, throb
pulses down my arm.

“Did I ever tell you about your mama and Arn? About how they met?”

I try to think past the pain. “Bits and pieces.”

“That’s a good one, even if the ending is sad. But to start, I’ll have to go a ways back. Back to the Breeders. Back to when I was Nanny Bell.”

“Yes,” I say, desperate now. “Tell me.”

A low hum starts in her throat as she strokes my hair in time. “This story is true in parts, but memory grows slippery with age. And age I got in spades, puddin’. I’ll tell it, though, the best I can. For Janine. For you, baby.”

The stirrups beneath my heels are cold. I focus on the metal and not on the man’s hand moving beneath my gown.
All part of the process,
the nannies would say.
The doctors don’t like touching you there, but it’s a necessity. Grin and bear it.

There’s pressure and a pinch in my privates, but I don’t gasp. I bite my lip and clench the rough white paper at my sides.

The cold, metal device slides out, and I breathe deep. It means he’s done. It’s over. Until next month.

“I just don’t know, Jan,” Dr. Houghtson says. It’s his worried voice. I’ve heard it a lot lately. It sends my bare skin into gooseflesh.

“What is it?” I say, pushing up on my elbows to peer over the tent my knees make of my examination gown. “Did you…see something?”

He shakes his head. Not answering me, he walks over to the small industrial sink in the corner of the exam room and begins scrubbing his hands. The unanswered question hangs like a storm cloud between us.

He doesn’t tell me I can take my heels out of the stirrups. Doesn’t pat my shoulder and tell me the exam is over. Instead, I lie there, my exposed lower half on display like an exhibit. I squirm on the exam table, something that would make the nannies frown.
The doctors want well-behaved girls. Don’t ask too many questions. Don’t do anything until you are told. They know what to do.
But the nervous sweat that began as I walked to this appointment keeps building. It slides between my breasts, darkening the pink exam gown to a deep maroon at the center of my chest. The breast exam—I had one last month—is even more awkward because I’m so close to his face, I can see the hairs twitch inside his nose as he palms the soft tissue on my chest.

The rush of water at the sink continues. Dr. Houghtson scrubs and scrubs. He always washes his hands like this after he touches me. I wonder if he’s so tidy with all his patients or just me. If I’m the dirty one.

I swallow hard and look at the poster on the wall across from me. “See something? Say something,” it says in bold letters. A girl with a knowing look stares at me from the poster. Below it, in font too small for me to read, the commandment continues. I don’t need to read it to know what it says. “Rat on your fellow hall mates and earn rewards.” Well, it’s nobler sounding than that, but that’s the underlying message. Spy on each other. Keep each other in line.

It’s another way they control us. Nanny Bell told me.

The water shuts off and Dr. Houghtson turns around, wiping his hands on a towel. My heart pounds again. Is the exam not over? He’s still frowning and staring off into space. Finally, he remembers me.

“You can sit up. I’m finished.” He gives an absentminded smile, one that does nothing to settle my snapping nerves.

I lower my legs and sit up on the exam table. Rivers of sweat run down my chest, pits, and back. Hopefully, there’ll be hot water for a shower when I get back.

“Can I get dressed?” my voice peeps out. Maybe my submissiveness will shake him out of his daze. Maybe he’ll tell me what’s wrong with me.

Dr. Houghtson looks up at my face and then away, like whatever he has to tell me is too painful. I form sign language letters with my fingers into my lap.
Help me
, I sign. Over and over. My fingers tremble on the E, but thankfully, Dr. Houghtson doesn’t notice what I’m doing. He’s too busy staring out the tiny window with a blank look on his face. I keep signing into my lap. H-E-L—

“I believe you have endometriosis,” Dr. Houghtson blurts.

I blink at him. “What?”

He drops his eyes to the cracked stool seat in the center of the room. The yellow foam stuffing is beginning to peek out of the red leather cover.

“It means the tissue that’s supposed to stay on the
inside
of your uterus may be growing
outside
your uterus.” When he sees the confusion on my face, he tries again. “It means you probably can’t get pregnant.”

His words feel like a nail through my heart. The sharp, piercing pain slices through my breastbone and into the soft matter. My hands slap over my chest as I gasp.

He puts a hand on my shoulder. His dark brown eyes are soft, and he opens and closes his thin lips several times before speaking. I stare like an idiot, waiting. Maybe he didn’t mean what he said.

“There still might be a chance.” His hand strokes my shoulder and onto my back like a nanny might do to soothe a fussy babe. All my shocked brain can think is,
I hope he doesn’t feel the sweat puddles there.

“A chance?” I repeat.

He nods, still stroking. Running his fingers through the hair that brushes my shoulders, he says, “Maybe we can try direct implantation. It’s risky and expensive, but the guys in the lab owe me a favor.”

I nod, not really understanding. My brain is flooded with the implications of what he’s saying. If I can’t get pregnant, I’ll be
put out
. The sweat begins again.

He locks eyes with me. “But we’re running out of time. When is your seventeenth birthday?”

At first, I can’t think. Then, “May eighteenth.”

“Two months? Jesus!” he says. Then he stops himself and mutters an apology prayer. Once again, his fingers begin tracing through my hair as he mumbles the words to his god, his fingers tugging on strands like Nanny Jo tugs on old rosary beads.

My arms begin to shake. I know the nannies would frown upon it, but I can’t help the tremble in my hands. I’m so cold. When I lift my gaze to Dr. Houghtson, I feel tears in my eyes. “Can you…fix me?” My fingers try to form the letters M-E in my lap, but my hands shake too much.

His face softens. Both hands clutch my shoulders, and he holds me so close I can smell the flowery soaps he uses before and after touching me. Black stubble has sprouted on his cheeks and chin since he shaved this morning. His beard, like his hair, would be full and thick if he let it grow.

“Jan,” he says, locking me with a look. “I will do
everything
in my power to fix you.” He grips my shoulders tighter. “Do you believe me?”

He’s so serious, staring into my eyes with his big, brown ones. Puppy-dog eyes, Nanny Doris would have said. But he’s a doctor and I’m just a Breeder girl. Why should he care? When I don’t answer, he asks again. “Do you believe me?”

I nod, a tear slipping down my nose. But the fear has embedded in my heart and sprouted roots. Two months and then my life is over.

Somehow, I dress myself in the quiet of the exam room. Dr. Houghtson left me alone with my news. In the silence, the fear seems to spiral. I’ve heard about girls who were
put out
before. I’ve seen the educational videos the hospital has shown us to warn of the dangers outside. Images of venomous snakes, thorny cactuses, and rampant disease flood my brain. But that’s not what will kill you. No, it’s the men—the traders and their clients, who buy and sell infertile women. The men and what they use you for, that’s what will kill you.

Or make you wish you were dead.

I stagger out of the exam room and down the hall, my slippers making a
scuff, scuff
sound on the linoleum. Some of the nannies who work on this floor look at me, but I don’t make eye contact. None of them know me well enough to read the terror blaring from my eyes. Nanny Bell will know, though. I need to get myself together before I see her.

I make my way to the elevators. When I swipe my red scan pass under the sensor, the elevator dings. The doors open and swallow me up again. Another swipe of my scan pass and all the floors save one light up. As a courier, I’m allowed to run packages and supplies all over the hospital, but I’m not allowed on the top floor. I’ve always thought it’s because they didn’t want us bugging the heads of the hospital. But now I wonder if it isn’t to prevent us from finding the stairs to the roof. Seven stories would make quick work of me.