Free The Dismantling by Brian Deleeuw

impulse to use this office had died before the computer even arrived.
    He stood up, his head pulsing from the whiskey, and crept as softly as he could into the hallway. He had not set foot in Amelia’s bedroom since his father had stripped it clean of its contents, donating the clothes to Goodwill and junking everything else in a grief-fueled burst of efficiency a month after her death. The room was at the end of the hall. Simon paused for a moment before gripping the cool brass knob and pushing the door. It stuck in the frame, then released with a tearing sound. He stepped inside. The streetlights shone through naked windows. The room was entirely bare, nothing but a thick layer of dust on the floorboards and walls. He felt as though his presence were an intrusion. The dust he’d stirred up resettled onto his bare feet, and he sensed a familiar void opening up inside him, a featureless, bottomless pit of shame and self-loathing to be endlessly filled with his sadness, his anger, his guilt. Amelia was dead, and it was his fault, and nothing he could ever do or say would change that. Turning away, he quickly left the room, shutting the door behind him, not caring about the noise he made as he hurried down the hall and back into his own bedroom, where he collapsed onto the bed and fell finally into a sweaty and shallow sleep.
    Â â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢Â 
    H E was sitting in the Health Solutions office the following afternoon, still tasting the whiskey in the back of his throat, when the desk phone rang. It was Maria, telling him that the tests had gone smoothly. Her transplant coordinator—she meant DaSilva, of course—had met her in the lobby and accompanied her throughout the day, from examination room to lab to imaging department. Simon hadn’t been particularly worried about the tests—he knew from the results of the California exams that she enjoyed above-average health—but still, he was always relieved when a donor’s first visit to Cabrera went off without a hitch; it validated his work up to that point, he supposed, and it was no different this time, with Maria. As she talked now, Simon pictured her going back to the Royal Crown, sitting alone in her room, anxious and stir-crazy, the surgery looming in her mind.
    â€œI just wanted to let you know everything went fine,” she said. “So—”
    â€œWhat are you doing right now?” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them.
    â€œI’m . . . nothing. Heading to the hotel, I guess. Why?”
    He wanted to pretend it was because she might need a distraction, but he knew that wasn’t the entire truth. “I thought you might want to do something this afternoon.” Silence. “That I might do something with you.”
    â€œBecause I’m here alone,” she said flatly.
    â€œI just thought—”
    â€œI told you already, I don’t need your pity.”
    He flushed, and was glad she wasn’t there to see it. “This isn’t pity.”
    â€œWhat is it, then?”
    â€œIt’s . . . courtesy,” he finally said, then immediately felt stupid for saying it, the word bizarre and anachronistic to his ears.
    She laughed—but, to his surprise, genuinely and without malice. “What did you have in mind?”
    â€œIt’s your first time here. We can do whatever you want.”
    â€œI have no idea, Simon.”
    â€œThere must be something you want to do.”
    He waited through a long silence before she said, “Okay, yeah. There is something.”
    What she wanted to do was see what her liver looked like—or, not her liver, but
a
liver. She’d noticed ads on the subway for an exhibition that displayed dissected and preserved human cadavers. Would he take her there?
    â€œWhere are you?” he asked.
    â€œOutside the hospital.”
    â€œTake the F one stop into Manhattan, and meet me outside the station,