“I brought real coffee, and before either of you asks, yes, there are two cups.”
Sophie reached into the bag.
“And a cinnamon roll.”
Laurel looked at her.
“Whose?”
“We can share it.”
Clare looked at me.
“She decided that in the elevator.”
Within ten minutes, Clare had learned where Laurel worked, which part of Arizona she came from, and that she preferred cinnamon rolls to muffins. Sophie had learned Laurel knew how to draw a horse better than I did and that software people apparently knew several ways to fix frozen tablets.
Clare never interrogated people.
She simply spoke as if they already belonged in the conversation.
Sophie did the same thing.
When Clare stood to leave, she wrote her phone number on the back of a receipt.
“If Graham gets discharged before you do and you need anything brought from outside, call me.”
Laurel hesitated.
Clare placed the receipt beside her laptop.
“You don’t have to use it.”
Sophie took the pen.
Under Clare’s number, she drew a very small coffee cup.
“For emergencies,” she explained.
Laurel smiled.
Then Clare looked at me.
“Your doctor wants you back in bed.”
“My doctor is not here.”
“Your nurse is standing behind you.”
Denise was indeed waiting in the doorway.
I returned to my room under supervision.
Across the hall, Laurel picked up the receipt, looked at Sophie’s little drawing, folded it carefully, and placed it inside her book.
The next morning, Laurel was gone when I crossed the corridor.
Her bed was empty and the visitor’s chair had been returned to the wall.
For one ridiculous second, panic went through me.
Then Denise told me Laurel was in physical therapy.
I carried both coffees back to my room and waited.
Almost an hour later, a therapist pushed Laurel down the hallway in a wheelchair. Her face was pale and both hands were clenched tightly around the armrests.
The therapist helped her into bed and praised her progress before leaving.
I waited until Laurel had closed her eyes.
Then I crossed the hall.
“Bad morning?”
She opened her eyes.
“I stood for twelve seconds.”
“That sounds like progress.”
“It felt like twelve seconds of being stabbed in the knee.”
I set her coffee on the table.
“Do you want me to call Denise?”
“No. She already gave me medication.”
“Do you want me to leave?”
Laurel looked toward the chair.
“No.”
I sat down.
For several minutes, neither of us spoke.
There was no clever sentence that could make the pain smaller.
No question that could improve the morning.
So I stayed quiet.
Gradually, her breathing slowed.
“They said I may be able to go home next week.”
“That’s good.”
“It should be.”
“But?”
“My apartment is on the second floor.”
I pictured the brace, the crutches leaning against the wall, and a flight of stairs waiting outside her door.
“Does the building have an elevator?”
“No.”
“Have they tested you on stairs yet?”
“Tomorrow.”
Her voice carried more fear than she had allowed into anything else.
“What happens if you can’t manage them?”