John gives Tasha an odd look. "Who's she?"

"Your new little sister," I say. John is dark, gaunt, twitchy; he likes to leave me notes in handwriting "disguised" to look like a little kid's, scraggly and slanting to the left. Today's, on the fridge, says cordyceps—which, knowing John, is probably some disgusting slug that lodges itself in orifices, but still an improvement on kill you kill you kill you, his other favorite theme. He seems very normal in person. "Her name's Tasha. She wandered into the hospital. She doesn't have a place to stay."

"We don't really have a place for her either."

"She can stay in my room."

"Oh," says John. "So that's how it is."

"What you're thinking isn't how it is. What I said is how it is. I'll stay in Dexter's room. Unless you want me to move in with you."

John's face looks as though I've turned a squirrel inside out and shoved it in his mouth. He looks at me, then at Tasha. Tasha looks back at him. "What's cordyceps?" she asks.

"No idea. You and I should talk about His Majesty when he's at work."

"You don't work?" Tasha asks.

John looks away. "He doesn't work, Dexter doesn't work," I say. "I'm the only one who pays the rent here." John is a lawyer—a big-time prosecutor, once, but he won't enter a courtroom now. He says he got tired of putting away poor black people on harmless possession charges. I think maybe he cracked a bit under the pressure, and I think maybe he likes not being the provider for a while. He used to walk around the trauma ward looking for clients—his wife, or maybe ex-wife, is one of the night nurses, but he and I met during the day, not long before he walked out. We went round back by the dumpsters and had a smoke and talked and he stared straight at the sun. Damnedest thing. He doesn't really smoke any more. Neither do I.

"Well," says Tasha, "I can pull my weight, at least."