“I usually have my supper at seven o’clock,” I said. “Could I perhaps take a plate back to my room for later?”
“Dinner is served strictly at five thirty, Mrs. Green,” the nurse said, her voice flat.
“I am not quite hungry yet,” I said.
“We do not allow food in the residential quarters,” she said. “You cannot wait in your room.”
The nurse moved away before I could reply, leaving the smell of lukewarm gravy between us.
I reached down under the table, my fingers searching the dark bottom of my purse.
They brushed the cold, sharp ridges of my brass front door key.
It lay flat against the leather lining, completely useless in a building where every lock belonged to someone else.
I realized my front door key was now sitting at the bottom of my purse with nowhere to go.
I walked back to Room 114, the corridor quiet except for the distant hum of a television.
Martha looks down at her green ceramic teapot on the laminate windowsill, realizing there is no stove to heat it.
