Chapter 4: Ward C

The nurse parked me in the dayroom after lunch, the way she did every day.

Facing the television. Brakes on. A blanket over my knees.

A game show was on with the sound off.

Nine women sat in the room, in chairs bolted to the floor.

For six weeks I had looked at them through a fog.

Now I looked at them clearly, through my lashes, one at a time.

The old woman by the window, in a cardigan buttoned wrong. Her name was first on the frame, nine years ago.

The tall woman in her forties who did crosswords in pen. Her name was fourth.

The girl curled on the sofa with her knees up, picking at a scab on her wrist.

Her name was last, the one with "He paid him" under it.

She looked about twenty-four.

The nurse went back to her station.

The aide at the door was on her phone.

I let my head roll to the left, toward the window.

The old woman was watching me.

She'd been watching me, I realized, for a long time.

"You stopped drooling on the left side last week," she said.

Her voice was dry and rusty.

I didn't move.

"It's all right, dear. I stopped drooling on both sides in two thousand and twenty."

She turned back to the window.

"They never notice. They don't look at our faces."

I breathed slowly through my nose.

Then I lifted one finger off the blanket.

She saw it.

Something moved at the corner of her mouth.

"The crossword lady is the professor's wife," she said. "That's what it says on her chart. She'd like you to know she's a chemist."

The woman with the crossword didn't look up.

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