I stopped outside Room 312, where the nameplate on the door had already been slid out of its metal slot, leaving only a blank gray strip.
Evelyn was inside, pulling the blue privacy curtains back from the empty bed.
Her ID badge was pinned to her scrub top, and she adjusted it with a quick, nervous tug when she saw me.
“He was discharged into state custody at ten this morning,” Evelyn said, her voice dropping to its usual quiet, clipped register.
“I came to see you, Evelyn,” I said, reaching into my purse.
I pulled out a small, wrapped tin of the lemon shortbread biscuits she liked from the bakery near the professional park.
She looked at the tin, then at her own hands, before accepting it.
“You did not have to do that, Clara,” she said.
“The administration,” I said, clearing my throat before speaking of the difficult matter. “Gary told me they had an internal hearing.”
“They did,” Evelyn said. “Dr. Paulson is suspended pending the medical board’s final investigation. They found three other altered charts from his private clinic clients.”
“And you?” I asked, twisting my silver wedding band around my finger out of habit before remembering I no longer had to wear it.
“My union representative was in the room,” she said. “The board issued a formal commendation for my role in the audit. My shift stays the same.”
“I was afraid I had ruined your life,” I said.
“You did not ruin anything,” Evelyn said, placing the shortbread tin on the rolling bedside table. “I have two children to support. I could not live with the alternative.”
She looked toward the window, where the autumn sun was hitting the brick wall of the opposite pavilion.
“He left his shaving kit in the bathroom,” she said, nodding toward the small door. “The orderlies were going to throw it in the incinerator.”
I walked into the small bathroom, where the institutional white tile was clean and dry.
His black leather shaving kit sat on the edge of the sink, next to a blue plastic comb with three missing teeth.
I picked them up and put them into the brown paper bag Evelyn handed me.
“Thank you,” I said.
“He was never sick, Clara,” she said quietly, her hand resting on the metal bed rail. “I watched him walk down the hall this morning without his cane. He did not even limp.”
I looked at the empty bed where I had spent so many nights sitting in the vinyl chair, praying for a recovery that was already real.
“I know,” I said.
The afternoon air was cool, carrying the smell of damp leaves and car exhaust as I walked out to the parking lot.
Martha’s blue Buick LeSabre was parked near the loading zone, its tailpipe emitting a thin plume of white exhaust.
Roy, Martha’s husband, was already lifting a heavy cardboard box of Ben’s old books into the trunk.
He was a tall man with grease-stained knuckles, and he nodded to me as I approached with the paper bag.
“Is this the last of it?” Roy asked, wiping his forehead with his sleeve.
“Just his shaving kit and his comb,” I said, handing him the bag.
