“So my bag is in a place no one can get to?” I ask.
“There’s a locked closet in the administration wing for residents’ personal belongings. Residents aren’t even allowed in the administration wing.”
“The administration wing?”
“That’s where you went when you arrived.”
I will have to find a way to get inside that closet. Somehow, I must. I have to. “All right,” I say. “But the amaryllis bulb needs to be kept in a cool, dark place. Is it cool and dark in there?”
“So that’s what that was!” the nurse says as we arrive at the nurses’ station. “I’m afraid that’s been tossed.”
I stop just short of the station. “What do you mean it’s been tossed?”
Nurse Tipton taps on the glass to get the attention of another nurse inside, who stands in front of a wheeled tray filling little medicine cups. “I need to sign Miss Maras out,” she says.
“What do you mean it’s been tossed?” I ask again, struggling to repeat myself calmly.
Nurse Tipton turns to face me. “It looked like something that needed to be thrown out, so... it was thrown out.” She turns back around and takes a clipboard from the other nurse through an opening in the glass and starts writing on it.
“But it’s not trash,” I reply with forced composure. “It’s an amaryllis bulb and it’s mine.”
Nurse Tipton glances at me as she slides the clipboard back through the opening. “Well, sorry, but like I said. It’s been thrown out.”
“But surely we could take it out of the trash. I only just got here.”
Nurse Tipton stares at me a moment. “You’ve been here three days, Rosie.”
I feel the dizziness from before start to creep over me, and I will it back, closing my eyes a moment to steady myself. “That’s not possible.”
“Well, it is possible, because it happened. We had to keep you medicated the last three days because you kept trying to hurt people and escape the room. We had to double your last dose. Your memory’s probably foggy now.”
I stare at the woman, open-mouthed. I have no recollection of any of that.
“You can ask anyone here,” Nurse Tipton continues. “You came here on Thursday morning. It’s now Sunday and it’s almost lunchtime. So how about we get you set up in your room, get you into some day clothes, and then go down to the cafeteria? I’m sorry about the bulb, but it’s gone now.”
“But Helen gave it to me,” I whisper, and my eyes burn with tears ready to fall.It was my bit of buried treasure, I want to say.My little scrap of hope. The promise of something good that waits for me.
“Well, maybe this Helen person will give you another one someday. It’s not like it was the only one in the world. Shall we go, then?”
I nod numbly. Helen will never give me another bulb. I already know I will never see her again. Nor will I hear from her again, will I? Of course I won’t. The bulb she gave me is gone.
Perhaps I deserve for it to be gone.
Nurse Tipton withdraws a key ring from her pocket, opens the door by the nurses’ station, and leads me out into a foyer. Across the space and to my left are closed doors just like the one we came through. To my right is a set of double doors with window insets. A staircase is visible beyond the glass, and an elevator is next to it. “Can you handle the stairs?” she asks.
“Yes,” I manage.
Nurse Tipton uses a different key to open the door to the stairs, which we then begin to climb.
“We just left Ward 2,” Nurse Tipton says as she adjusts her pace to match mine. “I suggest you don’t do anything to findyourself back there on that side of the second floor. The other side is the infirmary and surgery. The third and fourth floors are for the residents’ rooms. The third floor is for women, fourth for the men. The fifth floor is where the dayroom is, and the library and the therapy rooms. The first floor is off-limits except for the cafeteria and the visiting rooms.” The nurse looks back at me as we climb, letting her gaze drop to the round little mound at my waistline. “Female residents have no contact with the male residents outside the fifth-floor dayroom. None.”
Again I hear the cool edge of judgment in the nurse’s voice.
“You’ll find out all the rules tomorrow,” she continues as she turns back around. “Mrs. Crockett—she’s the matron here—will give you a tour and explain all the expectations.”
“Expectations?”
“Yes. There are behaviors that will be expected from you and others that will not be tolerated. We have rules here that every resident must abide by. You can’t just do whatever you want. We have five hundred residents here, so our rules are important and necessary.”
