She looked at the blue plastic cup in my left hand. I had finished the coffee ten minutes ago but had not found a trash can yet.
“Leave that cup there,” she said, pointing to the nightstand.
“I can throw it away for you,” I said.
“No,” she said. “Leave it. My eyes are tired, and the blue is a pleasant color to look at.”
It was a strange request, but residents often had small, stubborn preferences that made no sense to anyone else.
I set the empty cup next to her tea mug.
“Will you need anything else before I go off shift?” I asked.
“Just a question,” she said.
She looked at me for a long moment, her eyes bright behind her glasses.
“When you were a boy, did anyone ever tell you who your father was?” she asked.
The question hung in the warm room, competing with the hum of the heater.
“No,” I said. “The records were sealed.”
“Sealed,” she said, her voice thin but firm. “As if a child is a secret to be kept in a drawer.”
“It was just the way they did things back then,” I said.
