Free Low by Anna Quon Page B

blared on, but the common room was empty except for her. She got up, clutching her johnny shirt around her. Her stomach was empty but the thought of eating made her feel sick. She went back to her room to lie down, under the white blanket that made her think of a shroud.
    Adriana was asleep when her father came to visit that evening. It was her first full day on Short Stay, he noted. Thankfully, he’d had his own doctor’s appointment and had been able to take the time off work, which seemed to him, at this particular time in his life, an irrelevance. He’d told his GP of 20 years that Adriana was in hospital and that he felt a kind of vertigo, as though he stood on the edge of a cliff. The doctor nodded his head and asked him about his sleep. Mr. Song realized he’d spent half the night awake, thinking, but the last thing he wanted was a prescription for sleeping pills. He didn’t want them anywhere in his house.
    Mr. Song sat quietly in a chair at the end of her bed, reading the paper. He always folded the paper up to show only the article he was reading, never spread out the pages like Jazz liked to do, which is part of what drove them crazy about each other.
    When Adriana awoke, her father was immersed in the news of the world. He shook his head, squinted, and whistled under his breath. Adriana blinked at him and shifted to a sitting position. She felt angular, every bone aching.
    Her father looked up, and his face was strange to Adriana. She noticed the wrinkles around his mouth, the pain in his eyes. She turned her face away. Mr. Song tried to erase his sad expression. “Hi, honey,” he said. Adriana raised her fingers and let them fall back on the bed. Mr. Song took her hand, noticing how cold it was.
    â€œLast night I brought you some clothes and things from the bathroom at home,” he said helplessly. Adriana looked away from her father at the locker in the corner of the room, as there was no where else to put her eyes. The locker was brown, with a fake wood grain pattern, and a latch for a lock. It was, she noted, for a very thin person, big enough for a coffin.
    Mr. Song looked at his hands and cleared his throat. “Have you talked to the doctor today?” he asked.
    Adriana responded hoarsely, “Yes.” She let her chin fall to her chest and closed her eyes. She hadn’t called him to let him know, Mr. Song thought, a small hurt, but a significant one. She didn’t want to talk to him about what was happening to her.
    Mr. Song stood up, saying, in a trembling voice, “I just have to go to the bathroom.” Adriana did not acknowledge him. As he left the room she lay down again, hugging one of the pillows to her chest.
    When he returned to her room, after splashing water in his face in an attempt to dissolve his worry, there was no one around, only the television blaring in the common room. He opened Adriana’s door slightly, saw she was asleep and stood looking at her. Her lips relaxed and slightly parted, her face finally smoothed of the ravages of her depression. She looked much like she had as a child, on an early summer evening, when his wife made her go to bed, despite the fact that neighbourhood children were still playing outdoors in the sunshine. He would check on her 15 minutes later and find her with her eyes closed, breathing quietly and rhythmically, her face golden in the setting sun. His wife had been right that she was tired, right that is was time for bed. It always reassured him that she knew what was best, that there was safety in this world after all.
    As Mr. Song turned to leave, Fiona stopped by with her clipboard. She cocked her head to one side. “Still sleeping?” she asked in a low voice. Mr. Song nodded. “Would you have time to talk to the doctor?” He eagerly agreed.
    Fiona led him to an interview room, and Mr. Song was surprised to see an Asian-looking woman sitting in one of chairs. She smiled primly and