Good girls do not. I write that on my chalkboard every single day, thousands of times over. Good girls do not wear short skirts. Good girls do not sit with their knees apart. When I am not well enough to write it, I lie here and stare at the chalkboard from my bed. Good girls do not chew gum. I burn the words into the board with my eyes until it is everywhere I look, almost wallpaper on the off-yellow walls. Good girls are patient. I do this every day.

            That’s why Mother put the chalkboard in the room. At first we tried Big Chief tablets, but the nurses said it was unhygienic and cluttered the room. Chalk dust is hardly better, but it does give me an excuse to tidy and look like I am keeping busy.

            “Why are you here today, Min?”
            I greeted him with silence. Good girls do not contradict their elders.
            “Min, we go through this every week.”

            I crossed my legs at the ankles and folded my hands in my lap.
            “ Why are you here today, Betty?”
            “ Because Mother believes I should be, sir.” I trained my eyes on the drapes. The bottom seam was folded in one corner. I refolded my hands.

            “What was in Ann Landers today, Betty?”

            “A wife has trouble with her mother-in-law. The mother-in-law needs to move into her family’s home because she is growing infirm with age, but the wife and the mother-in-law do not get along so well. Ann Landers advised the wife to be grateful to the woman who gave her son life and find church groups with whom her mother-in-law could find friends.”

            Doctor Thornsen looked at his clipboard. No doubt he had today’s Ann Landers downloaded and printed out on the paper before him. Today, a woman wrote to explain that she doesn’t know how to tell her new boyfriend that she slept with his best friend while they were both drunk in Mexico. There was a time when filth such as that would not find its way into family newspapers at all.

            “That’s a lie, Betty. I suspect you know it.”

            “I am sorry, sir. I felt that you would not wish to hear of those things when ladies are present.” Good girls do not speak of such unpleasantness.

            “Your mother tells me you are onto a new book.”
            “Yes, sir. It is by a man named George Eliot. It is called Silas Marner.”
            “George Eliot was a woman writing as a man, I thought.”
            “No, sir, I do not believe so. Ladies do not need to masquerade as men.”
            “But sometimes it’s necessary, isn’t it? Sometimes women need to take on different identities because they’re limited by the outside world?”

            “But ladies do not do such things.” Good girls are always honest. Except when there is no other choice.

            Every day a nurse comes and tells me I must go to an infuser unit. It is a place for people who have organ transplants or terminal diseases, but I do not think about that. I cannot remember the specific church to which I hold membership at present, and it is possible that when I remember, I may be against organ transplants and what they call extraordinary life-saving measures. Good girls err on the side of caution, after all. I suppose it is working out for the patients, who wheel in with their jokes and their IVs, and when it does not work out, they do not come in anymore.

            The nurses in the infuser unit try to schedule the same people at the same time. It is their hope that we will form a loose community of semi-permanent residents.

            “Charlie, liver transplant. How ya doin’?” He held out his hand, scarred with spots. He was quite a bit older than me. Most of the other patients are.

            “Good afternoon. My name is Betty. I am here to have my blood taken.” I took his hand and curtsied. Though it hurt, I said to myself that I must not wince, and I did not volunteer my condition. Good girls do not reveal unnecessary personal details.

            “Let’s see what’s on the TV.” Mother visits only every other day now, and only on Saturdays does she stay during the daytime. Sometimes she comes when I have another episode, but not always. She must consider my sister and brothers. They prefer to keep their distance. When they came, I would grow impatient at their lack of etiquette and respect and their gossiping tongues, but one must be kind to one’s younger siblings.

            At 9 o’clock, Dobie Gillis is on. Mother brings the morning papers. If I am well enough to hold the paper, I read the Lifestyles section. If I am not, she reads it to me, everything except the comic strips. If Mother is not here, one of the faceless shuffle of volunteers will read for me.

            At 9:30, we watch The Patty Duke Show, which is my favorite. It is about a girl who has an identical cousin. Patty Duke plays both girls, but they are very different from each other. Sometimes the characters pretend as though they are the same person. I wonder if sometimes Patty Duke has trouble remembering which lines go with which character. Mother and I receive breakfast at 9:30. The hospital has an excellent food service.

            From 10:00 until noon, I must go to the infuser unit.There I prefer not to watch the television at all. Instead, I ignore the yelling and shouting that comes from the daytime talk shows and soap operas and read a magazine. If I am allowed to go home, the first thing I would like to do is bake a cake. It will have red, white, and blue colors, and resemble our nation’s flag.

            “Hiya, I’m Charlie. Liver transplant.” He held out his hand to shake mine. Charlie introduces himself every day, and tomorrow or the next day when I see him again he will forget.

            “Good afternoon. My name is Betty.” I no longer curtsy to him, and he does not notice.

            “Watcha readin’, Betty?”

            I lowered an eyelid, the one facing away from him so he would not see my impatience. “I am reading an article in a magazine called Good Housekeeping.”

            “Why’s a girl your age readin’ that for? Shouldn’t ya be readin’ People?”

            “The article is about child-rearing, and when I leave here I hope to be of greater help to Mother and take care of my siblings.” The orderly who helped me into the recliner looked sharply at the infuser nurse. He quickly corrected his eyes, but I saw just the same. I held my tongue so I would not say something indelicate.

            I have never agreed with airing out the sort of messiness we ladies undergo during the visits of our monthly friend. When the friend stopped visiting, I was as thrilled as I was anxious. Then it started again, weeks late.
            “ Miss Hunt, can I borrow the pass?”
            “ Yes, Min.”

            I went into the bathroom stall and slipped my shorts down around my ankles. And the blood kept coming.

            “ Min, are you all right?” said Lia, my best friend, sent by Miss Hunt. She found me on the floor. I heard her, but I couldn’t answer. I tried, but only moaned. I tried to get up, the mortification of being found with my shorts around my ankles, blood everywhere, I’d never be able to show my face in high school again, I’d die of mortification, and I tried to push myself up but my arms lay there. I could see Lia coming over like she was at the end of a blurry set of binoculars. That’s what I remember.

            My memory picks up again with me being here, an IV put in my neck, my head turned to one side resting on a pillow wet with my own drool.

            I miss my friends. I was going steady with a boy, or something like it.

            Today Ann Landers died. Her sister, Dear Abby, died a few years ago. The newspaper said that Ann Landers did not write her column for several years before her death. I read that she was senile and forgot things from time to time. I was happy to read that, because now I know that she never gave up on the expectation of common decency and social behavior of people.

            It made me happy because I am not alone. I forget things, too.

            “Min, I’m a neuropsychologist.” That is how Doctor Thornsen introduced himself.

            I did not realize he was addressing me at first, and stared at the walls. The walls in his office are vibrant and full of colorful shapes. Doctor Thornsen works with children on occasion, and bright shapes are attractive to children.

            “Min, I do know you haven’t lost your power of speech entirely. Sometimes after a bad stroke, patients are scared of people they don’t know well, and that’s all right.” He wrote on his pad and paused, waiting for me to say something to him, but I would not. “But I’m here to help you. You can talk to me. It will help you get better so you can leave.”

            “My name is Betty.” Doctor Thornsen did not react like my mother did, like the nurse did or the other doctors. He wrote on his pad. He has tried to call me by the name of someone else ever since, but eventually he allows me this favor.

            This was months ago. Doctor Thornsen’s job is to help me with my memory. Sometimes when I am talking my words do not come out as I intend, and he has exercises to help me with that problem. He also tries to explain to me about why I am still here. He is the only person in the hospital who wants me to leave as badly as I would like to leave. I am thankful, because he means well. Even if he forgets my name.

            Sometimes I can remember things I thought I forgot, because of the exercises Doctor Thornsen gave me. I must be careful because I do not know if I remember events correctly, and I seem to have lost track of time. I remember snippets.

            “What’s happening, Lia?”
            “ I can’t understand you, Min… should I get Miss Hunt?”
            “ Lia? What’s happening?”
            “ I can’t get anything out of this girl. Gimme a butterfly needle.”
            “ It blew. I got nothin’.”
            “ Open the jugular. We gotta get some Heparin in her NOW.”
            “ Are we at the three-hour window?”
            “ Just past. Those fucknuts at County said a sixteen-year-old girl can’t stroke out. Assumed she took E and gave her charcoal.”
            “ Get a line into that jugular and get an ultrasound tech down here. Someone clean up all this blood and let’s get some units into her somehow, she’s miscarrying bad.”
            “ Who are you people? Where’s Lia?”
            “ What’s she saying?”
            “ I think she’s just mumbling. I couldn’t make out any words.”
            “ Honey, don’t try to talk. This won’t hurt, I promise. Be a good girl for me, OK? I need you to hold real still.”
            “ Excuse me, are you Min’s mother?”
            “ Yes.”
            “ Was she sexually active?”

            For a week my mother only visited when she thought I was asleep or when a nurse called and told her I was having problems again. I understood. I was punished for the sins of the other girl. Perhaps it is better, then, that I am here. It is easier to be good.

            The vials were the same number as always, eight large, and two small. Every time, they took out nearly a pint of blood, though by now it took a few tries.

            “Lie back, honey.” The nurse pulled out a needle. I looked away and felt the cold of the ultrasound goo as it was spread on the outside of my thigh. I know what my veins look like without the ultrasound now. I burn them onto my body with my eyes because I can not see them from the inside out, the big ones deep in the muscles, the ones you can see on your feet on the outside of your ankle where the skin is so thin sometimes the needle nicks the bone and the nurses cry because they don’t want to hurt you. I have even seen the tiny spidery ones where you wouldn’t think they could fit a needle in there but they can because they have tiny ones meant for premature babies even though I’m sixteen and I shouldn’t be here with old forgetful people and sick kids with big tumors and borrowed organs…

            The ultrasound scanned for a place on the vein that wasn’t already scarred over. I reminded myself that good girls do not cry out.