You Are My Only by Beth Kephart

against the strap of the wheeled chair. Bettina at the window, staring.
    â€œTwenty-three,” Dr. Brightman says.
    â€œTwenty-three what?”
    â€œTwenty-three days since admission. Four hours out of the infirmary. How are we doing?”
    I say nothing. I am not well. He must release me.
    â€œNervous breakdown and delusions,” he says, reading from the chart. “Mrs. Rane?”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œHow are we doing?”
    â€œDr. Brightman,” I say.
    â€œYes?”
    â€œI’m Emmy Rane.”
    â€œThat is correct.”
    â€œThere’s been a mistake. I should not be here.”
    I comb my fingers through my hair to make it neat. I fix the string tie at my neck and sit up proper. If he sees who I am, he will release me. If he understands. Any mother would cry for the want of her baby. Any woman would hate Peter with all her might. Dr. Brightman moves a stack of papers onto another stack of papers. He fiddles around in his shirt pocket, and now here is a pair of horned-rim glasses. Dr. Brightman is an ugly man. His hair is the wrong color. His hair is painted.
    â€œYou’re having trouble settling in?” he asks.
    â€œExcuse me?”
    â€œYou’ve had an episode?” he says. “According to Bettina?”
    â€œI’m fine.”
    â€œYou are not fine.”
    â€œOf course, sir, I am not fine. Someone is out there with my baby.”
    â€œGrave inconsistencies,” he says. And then he writes it down.
    He wears a watch, its face like the moon. He scratches his forehead with a sausage finger. Outside, beyond the office door, someone is screaming. On the freedom side of the window, the sun is crinkling. “Perhaps we were premature,” he says, “in releasing you from the infirmary. Do you think you need more time, Mrs. Rane, in the hospital environment?”
    â€œI do not,” I say. “I do not need any more time here at all. What I need is to go find my baby.” I pull at the chair’s leather strap with my one good hand. I kick at the chair with my casted foot. I think about Autumn, crying when they piled me into the chair, when they leather-strapped me to it. “Don’t do it,” she was saying. “Don’t take her. I can save her.” How much time has gone by? Who has been watching? Who is out there, in the woods, on the streets, in the alleys, behind the trees, looking for my baby?
    â€œBettina?”
    â€œDr. Brightman?”
    â€œI’m recommending the cleanse.”
    â€œThe cleanse, sir?”
    â€œThe cleanse,” he repeats. “And we’ll resume the lorazepam. We’ll see if that helps, before we return her to infirmary.”
    â€œSir.”
    â€œMrs. Rane,” he says, speaking now to me. “This is a team effort. We are at work on your behalf.”
    â€œSomeone has my Baby.” I say it quiet. I say it without kicking. I do not pull at the leather strap. I am well. I have my reason.
    â€œI’ll write a scrip,” he says. “Send it to the pharmacy.”
Sophie

    The minute she drags herself across the walk and chuffs down the street, I’m gone—the door slamming behind me, my feet on the slate, my fist against the Rudds’ door, pounding.
    â€œWhat is it, love?” Miss Cloris asks, stepping back, as if I might keep pounding, door or not, even if Harvey’s home, prowling, protecting.
    â€œI was just wondering,” I say, “if you could use a visit.” Beside Miss Cloris, Harvey goes up on his back feet like a dancer, then flops back down. He looks me straight in the eyes, lets his tongue fall loose.
    â€œWe could always use a visit,” Miss Cloris says. She wears a striped shirt, the purple and red stretching longwise, over a pair of nubby stretch pants. There’s a belt around the barrel of her waist—thin and silver-glittered.
    â€œCan I come in, then?”
    â€œYou can.”
    â€œThank you,