Pasha Malla - The Withdrawal Method

TUESDAY MORNING Karel hurried to work, figuring there had to be somewhere they could stow Sally before any kids showed up. He could only guess how the board of directors might react to a patient getting swallowed.

When Karel arrived, Sue was dangling a frozen mouse by its tail into the terrarium, her hand perilously close to the python's head. The lid rested against the wall.

Sue sighed and stared at the snake. "She won't eat a thing."

"We're not keeping it, are we?"

"No, no," she said, straightening and patting Karel's arm. "They sent the wrong one. We were supposed to get two corn snakes. I don't know how this happened."

"But in the meantime?" Sue's hand held Karel at the elbow. He swayed a bit and felt the bulge of her hip against his thigh.

"In the meantime we should enjoy having Sally with us. Do you have any idea what one of these pythons costs? It's a real treat having an animal like this around."

"And the kids?"

Sue looked at Karel for a second, eyes scanning his face as though she were searching for something. The tiny hairs on her cheeks were orange in the light of the playroom. After a moment she let go of his arm and pulled away. "Oh, kids are always great too."

"No, no. Will it be safe? With the kids?"

"Listen, Karel, as long as no one climbs in there with it everything will be just fine. Even then she's so lethargic I doubt there'd be much danger. I think she's depressed."

They both looked at Sally, who had yet to move anything other than her eyelids.

"Maybe she's lonely," Karel offered.

Sue tossed the mouse into the terrarium. It bounced off Sally and landed on its back near her head. "Better get that lid back on before the patients arrive."

THAT MORNING KAREL stayed outside with the goats, dogs, Ewing, and one thin, jaundiced boy who had gone into hysterics over the snake and been relegated to the pen. In the playroom the rest of the kids huddled around the terrarium whispering and pointing at Sally. Sue got out the art supplies and soon the walls were plastered with drawings of a patterned spiral in repose.

Karel stationed himself between Ewing and the goats. The yellow boy poked for a while at a clump of dung with a stick, then threw his stick into the woods beyond the pen and, apparently having conquered his fears, wandered inside. The goats were eating plastic bags on the far side of the pen. Karel and Ewing stared at each other, neither quite sure what to do.

"So," said Karel, squatting.

Ewing shrieked.

Karel held up his hands. "Hey, I'm not going to hurt you."

Again Ewing yelped. His arms flapped at his sides like the wings of some desperate flightless bird. He yelped and flapped and started hopping in place, eyes wild and manic.

"Jesus," said Karel. "What's your problem?"

Ewing ducked past Karel and bounded up to the playroom door. He slapped his hands against the window and hooted until the door opened. Karel was left crouching in the hay and mud of the pen. The goats watched him, chewing.

AT FIVE, AFTER locking Sally up, Karel was ready to head out, but Sue intercepted him at the doorway. "My car's in the shop. Want to take me to dinner?"

"Yeah? I mean, no, I can't. I have this thing tonight. With my cousin."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah, I actually meant to ask you to come — it's just some charity dinner, or something."

"The SPCA benefit?"

"Maybe. I thought it was World Wildlife?"

"SPCA. I volunteer there sometimes." Sue looked intrigued. "You're going?"

"Well, yeah, I guess. I have tickets. Just have to go home first and grab them."

"Perfect. I'll be your date."

The inside of the Neon smelled like wet fur. Karel mentioned this to Sue as they pulled out of the parking lot, but she just laughed and said she didn't even notice that animals smelled different from people any more.

"So you've worked with animals for a long time?" Karel asked.

Sue smiled out the window and said, "Of course."

"Doing pet therapy?"

Her smile disappeared. "No."

"What, in a zoo or something?"

"Not a zoo." Sue looked at Karel, hesitating. "In a lab."

These three words were like a door closing shut on a private, secret room. Karel didn't say anything for a while, just kept driving. The sky was deepening into a sombre purple. The car swallowed the yellow dividing line as it appeared on the road out of the dusk.

Karel broke the silence: "I was charged with abusing a child."

He could sense Sue stiffen in her seat. Karel breathed, signalling and turning the car off the main boulevard onto the quiet, dark road that wound up through the hills to the trailer park.

"At the daycare," he continued, "where I used to work. I was there for three years after finishing my ECE." He had to concentrate to keep his hands steady on the wheel. "Then one day my boss came up to me and she was like, 'There's been a complaint."'

Sue watched him, waiting.

"It was — I don't know. It…" Karel breathed. "I just said, 'What?' That's all I could think, What? What? Like it couldn't be real. And I went home that night and my mom and dad were waiting with dinner on the table and I couldn't even look at them, let alone explain what had happened. I felt like I'd maybe even done it — that I might have blacked out for a bit and like sleepwalked my way into something. Or just been kidding around and maybe touched a kid in some way I shouldn't have, without realizing."

"Oh, Karel," said Sue. She reached out and took one of his hands from the steering wheel, cradled it in her lap. He looked over and then turned back to the road. Behind the looming shapes of oak trees identical duplexes slid by, some glowing from the inside, others just dark shadows in the dusk. Her fingers played over his; her thumb stroked his thumb.

"There was an inquiry. It turned up nothing but it went on for months. You live in a small town, everybody talks, and even when they figured out I hadn't done anything, I'd go around and people would still look at me like I was guilty."

Karel drove, his left hand clutching the wheel, his right in Sue's lap. She ran her nails over his knuckles. The sky was a deep bruise.

They turned another corner, headed up a private driveway, and arrived at the trailer park. Karel pulled the Neon in front of Wayne's trailer and sat there, the engine idling. "Looks like we're going to be a little late. Do you think it's a big deal?"

Sue stared out at the trailer. "You live in that thing with your cousin?"

"Yeah."

A chorus of crickets chirped away somewhere nearby.

Karel turned to Sue. "Do you want to see inside?"

In the trailer Karel poured them both glasses of juice. He flicked on the table lamp and a yellow splotch of light spread across the couch. They sat down together and Sue gazed around as if some detail might reveal the secret of the place.

Karel sucked back his juice and cupped the empty glass in both hands. "So, you volunteer over at the SPCA?"

"Saturdays," she said, staring at the curtain that hid Wayne's bed.

"You must be busy, Sujata." The name just came out. Karel felt strange, as though he'd crossed some unspoken boundary.

Sue lifted the glass of juice and sniffed it. In the lamplight, the fuzz on her face was golden. "What's your cousin like?"

"Wayne? Oh, he's all right."

"All right?"

"Well he's nice enough, but one of those people who lives totally for himself — 'in the now,' or whatever. Just look at this place. His whole world could up and roll away."

"Not like you."

"Well, no, that's not what I'm saying — that I'm better than him or anything."

"Right. So what are you like?"

"What do you mean?" Karel sat there, staring at the floor, pulling at some loose stitches on the couch with his free hand. "I'm looking for my own place."