UnWholly

The sea is rough this morning. Spray launches high into the air with the pounding of eight-foot rollers. An island can be seen in the distance.

“No one ever told me where we are.”

“Molokai,” Cam tells her. “In Hawaii. The island used to be a leper colony.”

“And Roberta owns this place?”

Cam detects unveiled bitterness in the way Risa says her name. “It’s owned by Proactive Citizenry. Actually, I think about half the island is. This place was some rich guy’s summer home once, but now it’s their medical research center—and Roberta is the head of medical research.”

“Are you her only project?”

It’s a question Cam has never even considered before. As far as he knows, he is the center of Roberta’s universe. “You don’t like her, do you?”

“Who, me? No, I love her dearly. Evil scheming bitches are my favorite kind of people.”

Cam feels a sudden protectiveness and an unexpected spike of anger. “Red light!” he blurts. “She’s the closest thing I have to a mother.”

“You’d be better off storked.”

“Easy for you to say. A ward like you doesn’t even know what a mother is.”

Risa gasps, then brings her hand back and slaps him hard across the face. The momentum of the slap pushes her off balance, and she falls backward—but the nurse is there to catch her. He gives Cam an accusing glance, then returns his attention to Risa. “Enough for now,” the way-too-muscular male nurse says. “Back into bed.”

He helps Risa back to bed while Cam stands impotently at the window, not sure who to be mad at—himself, her, or the nurse for taking her away from him.

“Did the slap sting evenly, Cam,” she asks with a nasty bite in her voice, “or do the kids in your face all feel it differently?”

“Teflon!” he says, refusing to let her comment stick.

“Muzzle!” He ca

“I know I invited that slap,” he tells her calmly, “but watch what you say about Roberta. I do not speak unkindly of the people you love—have the same courtesy for me.”

•   •   •

Cam gives Risa some space. He knows this change in her life must be as traumatic as it is wonderful for her. He still doesn’t quite understand what made Risa change her mind about allowing the operation, but he knows Roberta can be persuasive. He likes to pretend that some of it had to do with him—that deep down, beneath her initial repulsion, was a curiosity, perhaps even an admiration for the mosaic that had been created from all his disparate parts. Not the one they put together for him, but how he took what he was given and made it all work.

They eat one meal a day together. “It is imperative,” Roberta tells him, “if the two of you are ever going to bond, that you dine together. Meals are when the psyche is most vulnerable to attachment.”

He wishes Roberta didn’t make it all sound so clinical. Growing accustomed to each other’s company shouldn’t be about Risa’s “vulnerability to attachment.”

Risa does not yet know that she is here to be his companion.

“Do not rush this,” Roberta has told Cam. “She must be groomed for the role, and we have other things pla

“And if I don’t?”

“I have every confidence in you, Cam.”

Risa is in his thoughts through each activity of the day. She becomes a thread weaving through all the seams of his mind, binding them together more tightly. And she’s thinking of him, too. He knows because of the way she watches him secretly. He plays basketball one afternoon with an off-duty guard. He has his shirt off, revealing not only his seams, but his musculature, in tip-top shape. A boxer’s six-pack abs, a swimmer’s powerful pecs—flawless muscle groups reined in by a finely tuned motor cortex to produce the perfect layup. Risa watches him play from a window in the main living room. He knows, but he doesn’t let on—he just delivers spectacular game, allowing his body to speak for itself. Only when he’s done playing does he glance up at her, to let her know that her stolen glimpses of him aren’t stolen at all—they’re given freely. She backs away from the window into shadows, but they both know she was watching. Not because she had to but because she wanted to, and Cam knows that makes all the difference in the world.

46 • Risa

Risa walks up the spiral staircase. Risa walks down the spiral staircase. Risa works with Ke

As much as Risa dreads the daily meal with Cam, she also finds herself looking forward to it. It’s out on the veranda, weather permitting, and whichever meal it is, it’s always the best meal of the day. Cam, who has been happy to show off his remarkable physique to her from a distance, is awkward at the meals, and just as uncomfortable as she is to be thrust together like it’s some sort of arranged marriage. They don’t speak of the day she slapped him. They don’t speak about much of anything. Risa puts up with him. Cam puts up with her putting up with him. Finally he breaks the ice.

“I’m sorry about that day,” he says as they eat steaks together on the veranda. “I was just upset. There’s nothing wrong with being a state ward. In fact, parts of me know what it’s like. I have memories of state homes. More than one.”

Risa looks down at her food. “Please don’t talk to me about that, I’m eating.”

But he doesn’t stop. “They’re not the nicest of places, are they? You have to fight for every bit of attention, otherwise you live a life of bare adequacy, which is the worst life of all.”

She looks up at him. He’s put into words the feelings she’s always had about the way she grew up.

“Do you know which homes you were in?” she asks.

“Not really,” he tells her. “There are images, feelings, specific memories, but for the most part, my language center didn’t come from state wards.”

“I’m not surprised,” Risa says. “Language skills are not a strong point at state homes.” She grins.

“Do you know your history?” Cam asks. “How you ended up there? Who your birth parents are?”

Risa feels a lump in her throat and tries to swallow it down.

“No one knows that information.”

“I can get it for you,” Cam tells her.

It leaves her with a feeling of dread and anticipation. And this time she’s very pleased to say that the dread wins out.

“It’s not something that I’ve ever needed to know, and I don’t need to know now.”

Cam looks down, a little disappointed. Maybe a little bit crushed, and Risa finds herself reaching across the table to clasp his hand. “Thank you for offering. It was very kind of you, but it’s something I’ve come to terms with.” It’s only when she lets go of his hand that she realizes that it’s the first time she has voluntarily made physical contact with him. The moment is not lost on him, either.

“I know you were in love with the boy they call the Akron AWOL,” Cam says.

Risa tries not to react.

“I’m sorry he died,” Cam says. Risa looks at him in horror until he says, “That must have been a horrible day at Happy Jack Harvest Camp—to be there when it happened.”

Risa takes a deep, shuddering breath. So Cam doesn’t know he’s alive. Does that mean that Proactive Citizenry doesn’t know either? It’s something she can’t speak of, can’t ask about, because it would provoke too many questions.

“Do you miss him?” Cam asks.

Now Risa can tell him the truth. “Yes, I do. Very much.”