that already too?â
The forced little smile. âItâs okay.â
Dana looked down at her phone and typed.
3:26 PM Q: Y didnât Rgr come 2 get me?
âRoger wanted to come today,â her mother said, âbut he had commitments.â
ANSWER: He didnât want to.
âThen he didnât really want to come, did he?â Dana said without emotion. âIf he really wanted to come, he wouldnât have made other plans, would he?â
âThatâs not true, Dana,â her mother said. âRogerâs running for reelection, and heâs still running the business. He has a busy schedule that isnât always under his control. That doesnât mean youâre not important to him.â
âJust that other people are
more
important,â Dana pointed out. âIt doesnât matter. I donât like him anyway.â
Her motherâs jaw dropped. âDana! Thatâs not true!â
âLynda! Iâm pretty sure it is.â
âYou and Roger have always gotten along!â
âBut I donât think I like him,â Dana insisted.
âI donât know why youâd think that. You just donât remember; thatâs all. Heâs been like a father to you since you were fourteen. Heâs been there for everything since your dad diedâyour school activities, graduation, college, moving you to Minneapolis. You donât remember any of that?â
Dana shrugged. Her memories of Roger Mercer were as adynamic as she was. They evoked no strong emotions in her. He was simply present in the pictures in her mind and the photographs on her phone. When she looked at those images, she couldnât say what she felt about him. But she knew she didnât like the man who had come to see her during her stay at the Weidman Center. He had shown up exactly once a month for a few hours on a Sunday. He had come out of duty and nothing else as far as Dana wasconcerned. He didnât know what to say to her. He didnât want to look at her. He grabbed any excuse to leave the roomâa phone call, a coffee run, the menâs room, to check on the baseball game on the television in the visitorsâ lounge. Maybe he had been close to Before Dana, but he wanted nothing to do with After Dana.
She supposed she couldnât blame him. She would have preferred Before Dana as well, but she didnât have a choice.
âYouâre just tired,â her mother declared.
âAm I?â
âLike Dr. Dewar said: Leaving the center is a big step. Itâs a positive step, but itâs stressful, too. You have a lot of emotions swirling around inside of youâgood and bad.â
âNot really,â Dana lied. âIâm adynamic, remember? I donât have emotions.â
If her mother was going to say something, she swallowed the words back and kept her eyes on the road. One of the emotions Dana had just denied having bit her in the conscience. Guilt.
She
was
tired, physically and mentally. She
did
feel the stress of taking this step. The Weidman Center was a safe place. Everybody knew her there. Everyone knew what to expect from her and of her. They were all used to looking at her. They didnât know Before Dana. People back home
only
knew Before Dana. The idea of introducing them to After Dana made her sick to her stomach.
What would people in the real world know about flooding or adynamia or any of the other strange storms that went on in the mind of someone who had been damaged the way she had been damaged? Nothing. The only people who could understand it were people who had gone through itâand the loved ones who had shared the experience.
Like her mother.
âIâm sorry,â Dana murmured.
Her mother shook her head. Tears filled her eyes and choked her voice. âYou donât have anything to be sorry for.â
Dana slid down in her seat and stared at the road ahead, uncomfortable with the notion of
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