She shook her head, her eyes darting toward the nurse’s station at the center of the floor where a clerk was filing papers.
“I can’t say more,” she whispered, her voice cracking slightly. “Just look. Before they come for the evening shift.”
“Evelyn, please,” I said, reaching out to touch her arm.
“Look under his mattress before you leave tonight, Sarah.”
She turned quickly, her sneakers squeaking on the linoleum as she disappeared down the service stairwell.
I stood alone by the vending machine, the heat of the paper cup warming my palms, though my fingers felt entirely cold.
The plastic cup rolled across the linoleum, spilling dark coffee over my clean white sneakers.
By seven o’clock that evening, the brown stain on my right sneaker had dried into a stiff, dark crescent.
I sat in the vinyl visitor chair of Room Four Hundred Seven, watching the autumn light fade through the narrow window. The radiator in the corner gave a low, metallic hiss, releasing a dry warmth that smelled faintly of scorched dust and old floor wax.
Ben lay back against the stiff hospital pillows, his fingers idly working the knot of his crooked black bow tie. He looked tired, but his cheeks carried a flush that did not match the pale walls of the room.
“You need to head on home, Sarah,” he said, his slow reassuring drawl scraping softly in the quiet. “Get some sleep at the cottage. You have been running yourself ragged all day.”
I twisted the plain silver band on my right hand, feeling the cheap metal slide against my skin. The memory of Nurse Evelyn whispering by the vending machine was still a cold weight in my chest, making every breath feel shallow.
“I can stay a while longer, Ben,” I said, keeping my voice level. “The drive back to the cottage is short, isn’t that so.”
“No use both of us wearing ourselves out, kid,” he said, offering a weak smile that did not reach his eyes. “Everything is moving forward exactly on schedule, kid.”
He shifted his weight, pushing himself up to adjust the extra pillow behind his head. The effort seemed theatrical, his breath coming in a series of short, deliberate grunts that felt almost rehearsed to my trained ears.
