She leaned closer and lowered her voice.
“It’s for the lady.”
“What lady?”
She gave me the look children reserve for adults who are being deliberately stupid.
“The lady with nobody.”
Inside the bag was a small package of chocolate cookies.
“Sophie.”
“She might like them.”
“She might.”
“You should give them to her.”
“Why me?”
“Because I’m eight and you’re the grown-up.”
That logic was difficult to challenge.
But before I could move, Laurel looked across the hall.
Sophie froze.
Laurel lifted one hand.
“Are those cookies?”
Sophie looked at me.
I nodded.
She walked across the corridor slowly.
I watched from my bed as she stopped in Laurel’s doorway.
“My dad brought you coffee.”
“He did.”
“It’s bad.”
“So I discovered.”
“These are better.”
Laurel looked at the package.
“Are you sure?”
Sophie nodded.
“I picked chocolate because Dad says everybody likes chocolate unless they can’t be trusted.”
“I have never said that.”
Both of them looked at me.
Laurel’s eyes were amused.
Sophie whispered loudly, “He says a lot of things he forgets.”
That was how Laurel met my daughter.
The following morning, I bought two cups again.
When I reached Room 418, Laurel was sitting upright with her laptop closed. The visitor’s chair had been moved from the wall to the side of her bed.
She nodded toward it.
“You can sit down this time.”
I entered carefully.
“It doesn’t mean we’re friends,” she added.
“Good. I’m not dressed for that level of commitment.”
Laurel took the coffee.
This time, she did not ask why I had come back.
For the next half hour, we talked about things that did not matter enough to be dangerous. The coffee. The hospital food. The clock in the hallway that ran seven minutes slow.
Laurel told me the soup tasted as if someone had described vegetables to hot water. I told her the scrambled eggs had the texture of insulation foam. By the time a nurse came to check her blood pressure, the distance between us felt smaller.
“What do you do?” Laurel asked after the nurse left.
“I restore old buildings. Historic houses, storefronts, churches. Anything people are willing to save before someone replaces it with gray vinyl and calls it progress.”
She looked at my sling.
“Does your job normally involve getting hit by trucks?”
“Only during tax season.”
That earned another smile.
“What about you?” I asked.
“I coordinate software projects for a company that makes educational programs.”
“That sounds organized.”
“It involves convincing six departments they agreed to something they definitely did not agree to.”
“So we both repair things people have neglected.”
“Mine send emails.”
“Buildings are easier.”
She glanced toward my room.
“Your daughter?”
“Sophie.”
“How old?”
“Eight.”
“She’s funny.”
“She knows.”