The Healer

The livery car was already waiting at the corner when Myra and Andy stepped out from under the eaves of the Riveredge. Black sedan, no decals, windows smoked but not so much you couldn’t see the driver: Mildred, in a wool coat and reading glasses, holding a hardback book in one hand and a travel mug in the other. She looked up and saw them before they reached the curb, and in a single motion closed the book without marking her place, set it spine-down on the passenger seat, and pressed the ignition button. The sedan shuddered awake, throwing pale exhaust over the crusted snow.

Myra paused before the car, running her gloved hand along the fender and up to the frame, as if testing for warmth or structural integrity. Andy didn’t say anything—he’d learned, by now, that this was her way of seeing when she didn’t want to look. Myra’s eyes, always unfocused, stayed fixed on a spot above the mirror as she said, “Arabella sent her.” Not a question. “She knows where we’re going.”

Andy nodded, then opened the back door for Myra and helped her in, waiting for her to be settled before he circled to the other side. He had a wild notion of asking Myra what she saw when she looked at Mildred, but figured it was probably not a good question to ask near the driver.

The car’s interior was warm, a hint of floral air freshener fighting with the scent of stale coffee and the old, ingrained leather of the seats. Mildred glanced at them through the rearview. Her eyes, sharp and colorless, flicked from Andy to Myra and then away, like she was checking items off a list. “Good afternoon,” she said, in a voice that sounded like it had once belonged to a phone operator but was now being run off a low battery. “Buckle up, please. The roads are still icy.”

Andy watched Myra as she clicked her seatbelt into place, her tails compressed against the seat back, the tips flicking against the fabric in a rhythm only she understood. He did the same. Mildred adjusted the rearview one more time, then pulled away from the curb with the slow, careful confidence of someone who had never once surrendered a parking ticket without a fight.

The car rolled north, leaving the care home and the Williams family behind. For a while, no one spoke. Andy was mildly surprised that Mildred knew how to drive. The neighborhoods slid past in increments of paint color and porch clutter: plastic snowmen still up in January, flagpoles with one or two battered streamers, minivans with the usual constellation of bumper stickers. The sky was the color of day-old dishwater and the sun, such as it was, hung behind the clouds like a flaw in the glass.

After a mile or so, Andy cleared his throat. “You all right?”

Myra took her time with the answer. When she finally spoke, it was in the measured tone of someone dictating notes for a record she’d never read again. “I thought it would feel like a search. Like going back to where something was lost. But it didn’t.” She pressed her gloved hand to the door handle, then let it fall to her lap. “It felt like arriving somewhere you’ve never been but were always supposed to.” She tilted her head back against the headrest. “I don’t know if that makes sense.”

“It does,” Andy said.

A silence grew between them, not quite comfortable, not hostile—more like the quiet of a waiting room where no one wants to be the first to break bad news.

Andy tried again. “What did you get from the room? From James and Dorothy.”

This time the answer was immediate. “Thirty years of holding the same feeling, not letting it shift, not letting it die. But it changed, while we were there.” Myra’s mouth twitched, as if she wanted to add something, then decided against it. “It’s not resolved. But the grief isn’t the same. Now they know their daughters are alive. The world is bigger than the loss, again.” She looked at nothing, her eyes glassy in the winter light.

Andy watched the landscape roll past, the grid of Harvey giving way to the more industrial margins, billboards half-obscured by salt grime and snowplow spatter. He waited a moment. Then: “You didn’t know about Kelly.”

“No.”

“And you didn't let yourself hope that James and Dorothy were still alive.”

Myra was quiet for a beat. “Laura didn’t either. My Mom didn't tell me about Kelly, I guess she feared something might have happened. So we assumed.” She turned her head slightly toward the window, not quite looking out. “You don’t hope for something you’ve been told isn’t there.”

Andy thought about that. Outside, a billboard for a personal injury attorney slid past, the lawyer’s face sun-bleached to a pale smear. “Are you going to tell Marie?” The question sat between them. Myra’s tails slowed their rhythm against the seat. “That her parents grieved her for thirty years,” Andy continued, carefully. “That her sister missed her. That they want to see her. That they want to see Sarah.”

“Yes,” Myra said. Then, after a moment: “I don’t know how.” She pressed her fingers together in her lap. “There’s no good way to hand someone back a life they stopped expecting.”

Andy nodded. He didn’t push it further. After a moment, he asked, “And Kelly?”

That got a laugh, so quiet it might have been a cough. “Thirty years of hope compressed into a single person. The way she holds herself—it’s like she’s holding up the roof and the world at the same time. She’s angry but not at anyone, just at the physics of the situation.” Myra flexed her hands, testing the knuckles. “She walks through that facility like someone who learned all the shortcuts because she had to.”

Andy considered this. He remembered the woman’s face—how she took the news, how she hung in the doorway and refused to leave until the last word was said. “She reminded me of someone,” he said.

“Who?”

He hesitated. “Your mother, I think. Not in the details, but in the way she filled the space. Like she had no other choice.”

Myra nodded, the motion slight, her ears angling in the direction of his voice. “My Mom... Aunt Sarah was the harem mom, at first, she said. But when the transformations became too much, my Mom took that role over. And she was the one holding everyone together in the shack, however hard it was.” The car slowed at a traffic light, the only car in the intersection.

Andy could see the driver in the next lane—a man in a Cubs hat, tapping at his phone, a takeout bag on the dash. Beyond that, nothing but the long view of the expressway and the skyline, a faint blue ghost in the distance. He said, “What about Laura?”

Myra’s tails stilled. “When James said Sarah’s name, I felt something from Laura I haven’t felt before. Not just grief. Not just wanting.” She searched for the word. “It’s what you get when someone sees you, and you didn’t think it was possible. There’s not a word for it.” She flexed her fingers again, then let them rest. “I don’t know what it means for her, yet. Determination, maybe. Stubbornness. But it was strong.”

Andy offered a faint smile and let the words hang. He looked out the window, watching the landmarks blur together, each one less specific than the last, until only the motion of the car and the pulse of the road beneath them seemed to matter. “That tracks.”

In the front seat, Mildred adjusted her glasses and switched to the middle lane without signaling. She didn’t ask for directions, didn’t consult a GPS. Andy got the sense she could drive the length of the Midwest in a whiteout and never once get lost.

He looked at Myra, watched the way she held her hands, the way her shoulders stayed just a little too tense for rest. He wondered how much of the trip she was narrating in her mind, the fields of emotional noise she could see but never describe, the weather systems of anger and hope and longing mapped in colors he’d never know. He didn’t ask. Some things were better left to their own coordinates.

As they left Harvey behind and the city grew out of the flatness ahead, Andy reached across the seat, just once, and squeezed Myra’s hand. She didn’t squeeze back, but she didn’t let go either. The rest of the ride passed in silence. Mildred drove, the world unspooling around them, the sky lightening as they drew closer to the heart of the city.

The diner was aluminum and glass, with the kind of roofline that made it look as if it had been delivered in one piece from somewhere far away and only grudgingly affixed to its slab of city sidewalk. At five-thirty in the evening, the inside glowed with the soft, even light of a place that never closed, never changed its bulbs, and never updated its coffee machines even when the health inspector left a warning. The stools at the counter were the same model Myra remembered from residency—white vinyl with cracked blue piping, each one polished by a thousand late-night shifts and the slow, grinding passage of elbows. She could no longer see their colors, but Andy supplied that information.

Myra stood for a second just inside the door, her fingers tracing the outline of the formica counter. She did not look around, but she didn’t need to: she already knew exactly where everything was, could feel the ghosts of a hundred exhausted meals hovering just above the linoleum. “Two booths,” she said, quietly to Andy, then made for the one closest to the window.

They sat. Andy took the far side, facing the door; Myra sat with her back to the street, one tail curled neatly beside her, the other propped as a counterweight so she could keep her posture correct even when she let her body relax. She took her gloves off, laying them on the table, then ran the tips of her fingers across the napkin dispenser. Her hands were steady, but her ears flicked once, twice, as if tuning to a distant frequency.

Andy looked at her, then at the counter. “You used to come here a lot?”

Myra nodded, tracing a circle on the fake woodgrain. “Between shifts. Two in the morning, sometimes six. Always alone, always with a chart or a journal article open beside the coffee.” She let the memory fill up a breath. “Never longer than twenty minutes. Sometimes I just stood, didn’t even sit down.”

Andy followed her gaze to the counter, where a pair of night-shift laborers and a woman with a medical badge were arguing softly over the merits of two different brands of gas station coffee. He imagined Myra there—standing, reading, making herself invisible but present. He felt the pang of it, a weird kind of loss for something he’d never known.

He was about to say something when the waitress appeared at their table. She was in her sixties, her hair the kind of bottle blonde that owed more to time than to chemistry, her uniform crisp but her shoes worn down to the soul. She set down two menus, then did a double-take as she got a better look at Myra. The recognition hit her in a quick, practiced way—like she had a file for every face that had ever come in off a night shift, and Myra’s was already annotated.

“Myra?” the woman said, her voice careful. “Dr. Calder?”

Myra turned her face toward the sound, eyes not quite focusing. “Hi, Ruth,” she said, with a little more warmth than Andy expected. “How are you?”

Ruth exhaled, a half-laugh, half sigh. “I’m good, Doctor.” She hesitated. “I’m sorry about…” She didn’t finish the sentence, set the menus down, then leaned in just a bit, her expression going soft around the edges. “I heard from someone at the hospital you were in. That you… Well. That you disappeared for a day or so. That people were asking.”

Myra smiled, a tired line. “Rumors get around.”

Ruth studied her for a second, then flicked her gaze down to the menus and back up. “Can I help you with the menu?” she asked, quiet but direct.

Myra shook her head. “I can manage, thank you,” she said. “I know what I want.”

Ruth seemed to accept that. She asked Andy what he wanted to drink, then Myra. Myra ordered black coffee, Andy iced tea, and Ruth left, giving Myra a last, searching look over her shoulder as she went. Andy saw it. Myra didn’t.

The quiet came back in, this time less comfortable, more loaded with everything that had just passed.

Myra spoke first. “My eyes don’t track unless I make them, I realized,” she said, keeping her voice low. “It’s not just that I can’t see. They don’t know where to look anymore.” She folded her hands together, fingers interlaced. “I did not think of buying a Reality Adjustment for my Emotion’s Map, and I don’t know if people would assume it lets me see. So… when we leave here, I think… I need you to walk me, describe what’s in front of me if I ask. It helps others believe I’m navigating only with your help.”

Andy didn’t ask what Myra meant by “others.” He could see it in her posture: upright but not tense, every gesture a little more deliberate than it needed to be, as if she was rehearsing her own movements in real time. He reached for his menu and flipped it open, the laminated plastic faintly sticky from a thousand hands, and watched as Myra’s fingers traced the perimeter of hers without opening it. Her hands were steady, still the hands of a doctor.

“Should I…” he started, but trailed off, unsure.

Myra turned her face a few degrees toward him. “I know what they serve. Just tell me their specials.” She tapped her fingertip once on the table. “They used to rotate the pancakes. Sometimes apple, sometimes pecan.”

Andy flipped through the menu, scanning for changes. “Apple this week,” he said. “Also banana-walnut.”

She nodded. “Banana-walnut is a disaster here. Go with apple.” She laced her hands together and rested them on the edge of the table. “You’ll have the hash, though. They make it from scratch.”

“Sure.” Andy closed the menu, not bothering to ask if she wanted anything else. He flagged Ruth, who was topping up coffee at the counter, and placed the order for both of them, using Myra’s name and preferences. Ruth wrote it all down with a nod, eyes flicking from Andy to Myra, and back again.

Andy watched Ruth retreat to the kitchen, then looked at Myra, who sat perfectly still, ears pointed in his direction. The tension between them was not the result of anger or sadness; it was the tension of two people adjusting to new information about each other in real time.

Myra spoke first. “The blindness is easy to fake,” she said, her voice low. “Not because I want to deceive anyone, but because the truth is worse. If people think I’m completely sightless, they pity me, and the conversation ends there. If they think I’m faking, or exaggerating, it becomes a performance for their benefit. Either way, it’s not about me.” She shrugged, the movement contained by the jacket. “So I let them see what they want.”

Andy absorbed this, then said, “Is that why you asked me to walk you out?”

“Yes,” she said, and for the first time since they’d arrived, a hint of a smile appeared. “It’s about managing expectations. You said it yourself, only one or two days have passed since we disappeared. A newly blind woman wouldn’t have adapted that quickly.” She lifted a napkin, then put it back exactly where it had been. “If you want, you can hold my arm when we leave. The effect is stronger that way.” She paused and smiled. “I’d like that for… other reasons, too.”

Andy nodded. “I can do that.” He studied her face, the way the muscles around her mouth tightened and released in tiny increments, the way her ears flicked at the smallest changes in the room. He wondered if it was exhausting, keeping track of so much sensory input all the time. “Can I ask you a question?” Myra nodded.

“Back in Harvey... I didn't realize you could pick up residual emotional impressions from places, too. Is it an Emotion's Map upgrade?”

Myra shook her head, tails swishing lazily between her and the backrest. “No, not really. Do you remember my first transformation? Echoes of Inner Worlds? Somehow it... interacts with Emotion's Map. Echoes lets me sense residual emotions, and Emotion's Map makes them manifest. I didn't know transformations could interact like that.”

“Huh,” Andy said, quietly. “So the world is...”

Myra offered him a faint smile. “Very colorful to my sight.”

The coffee arrived, poured in two thick ceramic mugs. Ruth placed them in front of each, hesitated a half-second at Myra’s side, then said, “Let me know if you need cream or sugar,” and walked away. Andy watched as Myra picked up her cup, not by feeling for it but by reaching for the exact spot where it sat, lifting it without a tremor.

Andy took a sip. “Is this weird for you?” he asked. “Being back in the real world. Even just for a night.”

Myra’s answer was immediate. “Yes. But it’s also…” She searched for the word. “Clarifying. The hotel is so dense with emotion that it’s hard to separate what’s you from what’s the atmosphere. Here, the signal is weaker, but it’s clean. I can feel things I couldn’t before.”

Andy tried to imagine what that was like. “Like what?”

Myra looked past him, her eyes going glassy and distant. “Pain,” she said. “Sadness. The difference between fear and anxiety. Before, I could only guess sometimes. Now, it’s almost as precise as a blood test. You can see the shape of the hurt, not just that it exists.”

Andy considered this. “Does it help?”

She nodded. “It helps. It also hurts.” She ran her thumb along the edge of the mug, tracing the line over and over. “I can’t shut it off. If someone is in pain, I see it. I can’t close my eyes and shut it off. If they’re angry, it’s like being in the same room with a faulty circuit—I know something will blow, but I don’t know when.” She smiled, the expression so small it almost didn’t register. “You were right, though. I did want to come back, even if just for a day.”

Andy looked at the window, at the city outside. The sun had already slipped behind the clouds, and the streetlights had come on early. He could see the blurred motion of cars passing, the faint glow of a neon sign two blocks away. He thought about how Myra must have experienced all of this: not as color and light, but as a field of emotional ****, each presence a different pulse.

He sipped his coffee. “What do you want from this?” he asked. “Not tonight, but after. When you go back.”

Myra considered the question. She set the mug down and folded her hands again. “I want to practice medicine,” she said, quietly. “But not the way I did before. Not the eighty-hour weeks, not the vending machine meals, not the chart open beside the coffee at three in the morning. Not medicine as atonement.”

Andy waited.

She said, “I want to be present for it. I want to be there for my patients, not just for the hospital, or the system, or to pay back something I owe to the world.” She tilted her face toward him, her eyes unfocused but her attention laser-sharp. “I want to do the work, but I want to have a life, too. Maybe even a family. I never admitted that before. Not out loud.”

Andy felt the words settle in him, heavy and real. He reached across the table, hesitated, then placed his hand over hers. She let him.

He said, “You can do all of that. You're not alone anymore.”

Myra smiled, fuller now. “Thank you,” she said. “For saying it. For a long time, I didn’t believe it.”

The food arrived: two plates, steaming, the smell of fried potatoes and apple compote mixing with the bitterness of coffee. Ruth set the dishes down with a practiced motion, then said, “If you need anything, just call,” and moved on to the next table.

They ate in silence for a while, the only sound the clink of cutlery and the hum of the heater overhead. Myra cut her pancakes into perfect triangles, then ate them one by one, each bite deliberate and measured. Andy watched her, saw the way her tails kept her perfectly balanced even when she reached for the syrup or sipped her coffee. He realized, with a pang, that he’d never seen her look more at ease.

After a while, Myra set down her fork and wiped her mouth with the napkin. “You’re being very quiet,” she said.

Andy shrugged. “I’m just… glad to see you like this. I remember witnessing you at the hospital, via the Garden of Glass, always moving, always trying to get to the next thing. You’re calmer now.”

She smiled, a little sheepish. “I am. It’s new. The lack of urgency, the forgiveness. I like it.”

Andy let the words hang for a bit. Then, softly, “I love you.”

The words didn’t land with a crash; they settled, gentle, in the space between them. Myra took a breath, then reached across the table and touched Andy’s hand with her fingertips. Her grip was light, but steady.

“I love you, too,” she said.

They finished the meal in a comfortable quiet, each aware of the other, each processing the conversation in their own way. The evening outside had deepened, the windows now full of reflected neon and the spill of headlights. Ruth brought the check, and Myra paid, then she tilted her head in Andy’s direction and say, “Ready?”

Andy nodded, then slid out of the booth and came around to her side. Myra rose smoothly, no hesitation, but she paused just a beat before reaching for Andy’s arm. When she did, she placed her hand in the crook of his elbow, her other hand sliding her gloves back on.

They stepped out into the vestibule. The cold hit them immediately, the air sharp and raw, and Andy felt Myra’s grip tighten just slightly on his arm.

“Which way?” he asked.

“Two blocks east,” Myra said. “Then north. Loyola’s up ahead.” She paused. “Would you mind? I know it’s not really date-worthy, but…”

Andy shook his head. “It’s perfect,” he said. She walked beside him, matching his pace exactly, letting him do the steering while she handled the balance. At the crosswalk, she made a small, calculated misstep—her foot tapping the curb before finding it—and Andy recognized it for what it was: a marker for any observer, a cue that she was as blind as she seemed.

They crossed the street, then another, and Myra let herself lean into Andy just a little, her tails acting as both counterweight and shield against the wind. “I like this,” she said, “We should do it more often.”

When they reached the hospital’s front entrance, she stopped, angled her face toward the light, and said, “Wait.” She let go of Andy’s arm, reached into her coat, and—just for a second—her hand vanished into the space of her Inventory, returning with the white cane, topped with a silver foxhead pommel. She unfolded it, pressed the button at the joint, and it extended with a soft click. She ran it once along the ground, testing it, then nodded to herself.

“Let’s go,” she said, and together they stepped through the sliding doors, the warmth and the scent of disinfectant washing over them. Andy glanced at Myra, saw the confidence in the set of her shoulders, and thought: This is what she wanted. This is where she belongs.

They walked the halls together, the world outside receding behind them as the hospital lights flickered on for the night.

The lobby at Loyola was mostly empty, the only noise the soft hiss of air from the revolving doors and the low rumble of a floor polisher running laps on the far side. The lights were set to overnight dim, making the marble floors shine darker than they did by day. There was one security guard on duty, stationed behind a plexiglass desk. Andy steered Myra toward the reception, their steps in perfect sync, Myra’s hand resting on the crook of his elbow, her white cane skimming the edges of their path.

The guard—mid-thirties, compact, tired—looked up from his monitor and blinked twice before recognition lit his face. He straightened, hands flat on the desk. “Dr. Calder?”

Myra turned her face toward the sound. “Evening, Jamal.”

“You’re—” He cut himself off, shifting his attention to Andy, then briefly to Myra’s fox tails and ears, then back to her face. “You’re supposed to be in the hospital. They said you—” He checked himself again, lowering his voice. “I mean, it’s good to see you up and moving. Are you… are you all right?”

“I’m stable,” Myra said, with just enough gravity to close the subject. “I’m here to check in with my team, and then I’ll be out of your hair.”

Jamal looked relieved. “I’ll let the desk know you’re on the floor.” He paused. “People been asking.”

Myra nodded. “Thank you.”

Andy guided her away from the desk and into the main hallway, which was wide and cold and mostly empty except for a pair of maintenance workers chatting at the vending machines. They walked in silence to the elevator, the tap of Myra’s cane a steady counterpoint to their footsteps.

Inside the elevator, the lighting was harsh and clinical. Myra shifted her grip on Andy’s arm, then released him to fold her cane as the doors closed. Andy glanced at her, unsure if he should break the silence. It was Myra who spoke.

“It feels different,” she said, not looking at him. “Being back here. I didn’t think it would.”

“Good different?”

She thought about it. “Not good or bad. Just… different.” She smiled, a little. “Like coming back to a house that’s been repainted. The emotions here are strong.”

Andy watched the numbers light up above the door. When the elevator stopped at 5, Myra re-gripped his arm, then let the cane unfold and clicked it into place. As they exited, Andy saw her ears angle forward, and in the next moment, a woman in blue scrubs and a long, brown braid stepped into the hall ahead of them, walking fast and with the energy of someone who didn’t get tired.

The little tag on her chest said Rosa. She stopped dead when she saw Myra, both hands going to her hips, and didn’t move them.

“Maria Jesus,” Rosa said. “You’re alive.” She took three steps forward, examining Myra from head to toe. “You’re not supposed to be up. You’re not supposed to be out, either.”

Myra tilted her face upward, fixing on Rosa’s location by the sound of her voice. “It’s good to hear you, too.”

“You know what the attending said?” Rosa did not wait for an answer. “That you walked out four days post-onset, no escort, no follow-up, and then you texted him at midnight that you were ‘managing.’ The man nearly had a heart attack.”

“I’m fine,” Myra said. “I’m here for an outpatient consult. Not staying overnight.”

Rosa’s eyes went to Andy, taking in the height, the face, the way he hovered half a step behind Myra. “Who’s this?”

Andy started to introduce himself, but Myra beat him to it. “This is Andy. He’s my fiancé.”

There was a half-second pause where Andy tried to process the word and keep his face neutral. Rosa looked at him, then at Myra, then at the two of them together, her eyes flicking between their faces.

“Okay,” Rosa said, after a moment. “That’s new.”

Andy smiled, extending his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

Rosa shook, her grip iron-strong. “Likewise.” She looked back at Myra. “You’re going to have to check in with the attending before you go. He’ll want neuro, he’ll want to update your chart.”

The effect of Rosa’s presence was immediate: the moment she squared up to Myra, the world contracted to a three-person equation. No social pleasantries, no time for easing in. In the hospital, especially at night, everything was shorthand and old debts.

“I can walk you through neuro,” Myra said, voice flat, “but I’m not staying the night. I’ll do an outpatient workup, full series, at some point next week. But I'm okay.”

Rosa’s mouth compressed to a tight, straight line. She regarded Myra with the clinical skepticism of someone who had once physically carried her down a flight of stairs when Myra’s blood pressure tanked after a three-shift day. “The attending won’t like it.”

“He never does,” Myra said.

“He’ll want a panel. And a consult. No one knows your current neuro status. No one knows if you even have a visual field.”

Myra’s fox ears did not twitch. “I don’t. And I can tell him that myself, if he wants it on the record.”

A pause, while the tension held. Then Rosa looked at Andy, openly. “How is she really?”

Andy didn’t blink. “She’s stable. Fatigue, some tremor if she pushes it, but she can walk a couple miles without assistance. She’s already adapting, remarkably well. She’s not reckless.”

Myra let the comment stand. It was, for the moment, true.

Rosa inhaled, a long drag of air through the nose, then let it out. “Half the floor’s been asking after you,” she said, in a different register now. “Even the day guys. When I told them you walked yourself out, three bet you’d show up within a week. Only one had you coming in as a patient. The other two figured you’d show up in a lab coat and start writing orders.”

Myra almost smiled. “Accurate. But not tonight.”

Rosa didn’t ask for an explanation. Instead she pivoted to the practical: “You want to see your patients?”

“Just the ones who asked to stay on my list.”

Rosa nodded. “They’re both still here. One’s up for discharge in the morning, other’s waiting on a scan. If you want, you can use the coat room to clean up.”

Myra shook her head. “We’re fine. Lead the way.”

Rosa started walking. Myra matched pace, cane tapping exactly as it would for someone needing it, but not with the groping uncertainty of the truly lost. Andy fell in beside her, half a step behind, performing the role of sighted guide but also observer: he tracked the layout, the colored line on the floor, the small details—every poster and warning sign, every scrub-clad tech in the hallway.