Left Neglected by Lisa Genova Page B

before any of the therapists have started working on me, probably even before the kids have gotten dressed at home. And Bob is here.
    “Can you see me now?” asks Bob.
    I see the prison, the window, the visitor’s chair, the TV.
    “No,” I say.
    “Turn your head.”
    I turn my head. I see the prison.
    “No, the other way.”
    “There is no other way.”
    “Yes, there is. Turn your head to the left. I’m standing over here.”
    I close my eyes and imagine Bob standing. In my mind’s eye, he’s wearing a black, long-sleeve, crewneck tee and jeans, even though he never wears jeans to work. He’s got his arms folded, and he hasn’t shaved. I open my eyes and turn my head. I see the prison.
    “I can’t.”
    “Yes, you can. It’s simple.”
    “It’s not.”
    “I don’t understand why you can’t just turn your head.”
    “I did.”
    “To the left.”
    “There is no left.”
    I hear him sigh in frustration.
    “Honey, tell me everything you see in here,” I say.
    “You, the bed, the window, the chair, the table, the flowers, the cards, the pictures of me and the kids, the bathroom, the door, the television.”
    “Is that everything?”
    “Pretty much.”
    “Okay, now what if I told you that everything you see is only half of everything that’s really here? What if I told you to turn your head and look at the other half ? Where would you look?”
    He doesn’t say anything. I wait. I imagine Bob standing in his tee-shirt and jeans, searching.
    “I don’t know,” he says.
    “Exactly.”
    E LLEN IS DANCING TO THE Black Eyed Peas. She’s hysterical. Much better than Regis and what’s her name. I wish I could get up and boogie with her, but I’ve learned my lesson after yesterday’s misadventure to the bathroom.
    Bob left for work over an hour ago, and now my mother is here, hovering next to me in “her” chair. She’s wearing a lavender fleece sweatsuit and white New Balance sneakers. She looks like she’s ready for a jog or an aerobics class at a gym. I doubt she’s ever done either. I catch her watching me instead of Ellen, and I feel like I just made eye contact with a cornered sparrow. She looks down and inspects her sneakers, shifts in her chair, turns to see what’s going on outside the window, shifts in her chair, throws me a skittish glance, darts her focus to the TV, and fusses with her hair. She needs some sort of project.
    “Mom, will you go get me a hat?”
    “Which one?”
    I have only one non-ski hat that I can think of, a huge straw sunhat, but I’m clearly not on a tropical vacation or sitting poolside. I own plenty of bandanas and scarves and could use one of those to cover my head, but I don’t want to look like a cancer patient. I want to look normal, like someone who could theoretically go back to work in two weeks. And I don’t want to scare the kids.
    “Can you go buy me one?”
    “Where?”
    “The Prudential Mall.”
    She blinks a few times. I know she wants a way out of this proposed field trip.
I don’t know where that is, I don’t know what kind you want, I don’t want to lose my seat.
    “I need an address,” she says.
    “Eight hundred Boylston Street.”
    “Are you sure that’s right?”
    “Yes, I work there.”
    “I thought you worked at some business company.”
    She says this like she’s busted me in a big lie, like I really work at the Gap, just as she’s suspected all along.
    “Berkley’s in the mall.”
    “Oh.”
    I wish I could go myself. I’d pick out something hip and pretty at Neiman Marcus or Saks Fifth Avenue, and then I’d swing into work, check in with Jessica and Richard, find out what’s going on with staff evaluations, correct any misguided decisions Carson is making about our next generation of consultants, and maybe sit in on a meeting or two before coming back.
    “But you have therapy in a few minutes,” she says.
    “You can miss it.”
    “I need to see what they do so I can help you.”
    “I really need a hat before