She puts the drawing in her folder very carefully. It’s the careful that gives it away. She should have tucked it in likethe rest; she should have made it disappear. She treats it like evidence. I treat it like a window to the truth.
By the fourth night I’ve stolen three things: a paperclip, a hairpin, and a slice of time between the end of rounds and the start of the guard’s midnight cup of courage. The paperclip becomes a keycard shim. The hairpin becomes a spine for my little paper flower of permission. The slice of time becomes a shape I can step into and wear.
I don’t use any of it.
Not yet.
If you break a place too fast, it remembers. If you bend it slowly, it forgets what shape it was before.
I am patient because I am busy. There is so much to know. Which cameras flash a red LED when they’re recording and which don’t. Which orderlies like to talk in the corridor, and which whisper in dark doorways. Which cupboard holds the sedatives that work quickly and which holds the ones that only look like they do. Which doors have magnets that hum audibly and which have silent attracts that will bite my fingers if I slide a card without buying a few milliseconds with a grounded touch. Which blind corners hold the ghosts of others who were not as good at waiting.
They bring me a new book. Not from the approved list. Someone made a mistake or a choice. It’s a thin volume on post-war medical architecture – hideous and fascinating. Diagrams of airflow in containment wards. A photo of an observation room with a mirror that is not a mirror. A chapter heading that disobeys the margins:A.R.K.The acronym is something dead:Acute Rehabilitation Kernel. A lie you can belief-check. But the caption under the photo has the wrong font, as if a hand changed it after printing and the ghost of the first word is still sitting beneath. It saidARKbefore it said anything else. The pictureis old, the gloss scratched, the corner folded by someone who needed to find it twice.
I look at the ceiling until the camera pans away. I tuck the book under the mattress.
When Doctor Callaway comes for check-in, I am prim. I am solvable. I sit with my hands folded and my smile arranged like a weapon. She asks me if I want to add anything to my schedule.
“Yes,” I say.
“What?”
“Garden,” I say, simply.
She holds my gaze. She does not blink. “Soon,” she says.
“Tomorrow,” I counter.
“Soon,” she repeats.
We sit in that word until it becomes a room. We sit in that room until I know exactly where the windows should be.
“Fine,” I say. “Then one concession.”
She waits.
“I want to help,” I say, earnest as a sermon. “I want to be good. I want to learn.” I lower my lashes just so. “Let me in the kitchen.”
She actually laughs. It’s small, incredulous, out before she can reel it back. “Absolutely not.”
“I bake,” I say. “It soothes me.”
“You turned a man into mulch,” she says blandly. “You don’t get to make muffins.”
“You’re very judgemental for a woman who told me to finish him,” I say brightly.
She flinches. It’s tiny. It’s enough.
“I will consider supervised preparation of tea,” she says stiffly.
“Baby steps,” I say. “Toddlers. Crawling infants. Whatever gets me near the cutlery drawer.”
“No cutlery.”
“I’ll use my hands,” I say, and let the thought hang there until she has to push it away or acknowledge it.
She stands. “We’re done.”
“Doctor,” I say, as she reaches the door.
