Free My October by Claire Holden Rothman

her.
    â€œIt’s awful, Hannah. I moved my computer upstairs this afternoon so I could watch him. I feel like a prison guard.”
    â€œI’ll do my best,” she said, thinking of what lie she could tell her mother. Hugo had broken a bone. He had mononucleosis. Something serious but not life-threatening.
    â€œIt was a Luger,” Luc said, interrupting her thoughts.
    The little person in the glass looked back at her, startled.
    Luc cleared his throat. “You didn’t tell him, did you?”
    â€œNo,” said Hannah, although this was not strictly true. In Hugo’s last year of elementary school, he had asked her about it, and she had set out the facts as clearly and simply as she couldto a person who was eleven years old. She had mentioned the gun, certainly, but not what kind it was. At least, not that she recalled.
    They said goodbye, and for a moment Hannah stood staring at her reflection. She looked so unhappy. Had she somehow been the cause of this? Her eyes ached. Her skull ached. She pulled a phone book from the drawer where her parents kept it. “Metropolitan Toronto,” it said on the cover, with a helpful picture of the CN Tower. She was searching for the Via Rail listing when she heard the front door open. Connie.
    Hannah had no idea what to say. The pain in her skull was intensifying. She wished she had insisted on speaking to Hugo. She’d gotten so caught up with Luc and his fearful temper that she hadn’t even asked. And now it was too late. Her mother appeared in the doorway.
    â€œI saw him,” she said, grim but satisfied. Her face was grey with fatigue. “The doctor,” she said in answer to Hannah’s blank look. She dropped her purse on the floor and took off her coat. “He finally came.”
    Hannah made an effort to focus. She closed the phone book and put it back in the drawer. “Which doctor?”
    â€œUfitsky. You know. The neurologist.”
    â€œOh. Right,” said Hannah. “Ufitsky.” The phantom brain specialist who was said to stalk the halls of M-Wing, although few people ever had the luck to meet him. “What did he say?”
    â€œNothing. Next to nothing. He’s practically aphasic himself.” Connie walked over to the stove and lifted the pot lid, sniffing.
    â€œSquash and ginger,” said Hannah. “I made it for you.”
    Connie put the lid back. “You’d think in all those years of medical training he might have picked up some people skills,”she said. “But no. He wouldn’t even look at me, though I’d been waiting all day. From seven thirty till … what time is it, anyway? God. Thirteen hours. For what? To be insulted.” She leaned against the stove, shoulders slumping.
    Hannah wanted to reach out to her. But she kept her hands to herself. “Did he say anything about Father?”
    â€œHe didn’t say anything about anything. He spent thirty seconds with us.” She turned as if in imitation of the phantom Ufitsky and left the room, carrying her coat and purse.
    There was a jangling of hangers in the vestibule, followed by a groan. Hannah found her mother groping through the contents of her green leather handbag.
    â€œMum?”
    There was a faint smell of mothballs. Hannah gathered her courage and put a hand on her mother’s shoulder.
    â€œGoddammit,” said Connie, moving beyond her daughter’s reach. “I left my wallet at the hospital. Under your father’s mattress.”
    Hannah looked at her with surprise.
    Connie caught the look. “Don’t patronize me. I hid it. I was tired and needed a nap.”
    Hannah wished her mother would permit herself to be held, just this once. But that wasn’t Connie. “How did you manage to get home,” Hannah asked, “without your wallet?”
    â€œTaxi chit,” her mother said, as if it were obvious. She waved a little booklet under her nose. “I keep