I heard Carter’s heavy hand push open the door to Room 7. “Mother,” he announced, his tone suddenly dripping with a fake, saccharine concern. “I brought my attorney. We need you to sign some papers regarding your care.”
I couldn’t breathe. I slipped out of the neighboring room and into the hallway, pacing like a caged animal. I had forty-eight hours left. If I didn’t get Edith to willingly bathe, Higgins would transfer her, and Carter would legally erase her.
I was so consumed by the rising panic that I didn’t hear the footsteps behind me until a heavy hand clamped down on my shoulder.
I spun around. Carter stood there, his expensive cologne clashing violently with the faint smell of bleach and old age that permeated the hall. His eyes were cold, calculating slits.
“You’re the girl who’s been assigned to my mother, right?” he asked, though it wasn’t a question. “The one she assaulted yesterday?”
“She didn’t assault me,” I said, keeping my voice low but firm. “She was startled.”
Carter smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. He reached into his tailored breast pocket, pulled out a crisp, heavy business card, and slid it into my scrub pocket, his knuckles brushing against my chest. Underneath the card, I felt the unmistakable texture of folded hundred-dollar bills.
“My lawyer is going to need a sworn statement about my mother’s violent outbursts,” Carter whispered, leaning in close so I could smell the stale coffee and mints on his breath. “A detailed account of how she’s lost her mind and refuses care. Cooperate, and there’s a lot more where that came from. Try to play hero, and I’ll make sure you never work in healthcare again.”
He patted my pocket, his eyes gleaming with a predatory certainty. “Think about it, sweetheart.”
He turned and walked back into his mother’s room, the door clicking shut behind him, leaving me alone in the hallway with the ticking clock deafening in my ears.
I took the money and the business card, walked into the staff bathroom, and threw them both straight into the trash. I didn’t care about my job anymore. I didn’t care about the looming health inspection. I only cared about the seventy-six-year-old woman sitting in Room 7, surrounded by vultures waiting to pick her bones clean.
The problem was, trust with a person like Edith doesn’t arrive in a dramatic wave. It accrues, agonizingly slowly, in tiny deposits, and it can be wiped out in a single wrong move.
I had twenty-four hours left.
I decided to stop fighting the current. I didn’t bring up the bath. I didn’t mention her son, or the lawyer, or the psychiatric ward. I just brought her hot coffee—the dark roast she preferred—and a fresh Sunday crossword.
“Capital of Norway, four letters,” I asked her that afternoon, pulling a chair up to her window, pretending I didn’t know the answer.
“Oslo,” she said, her voice raspy, not looking up from her lap.
“Show-off,” I murmured.
For a fleeting second, the corner of Edith’s mouth twitched. A small, rusty smile. It was the smile of a person who has not been teased with genuine affection in a very long time, and had forgotten the warmth of it.
I realized then what my real job was. Everyone else in this building—Higgins, Vanessa, Carter—approached Edith as a problem to be solved. A compliance issue. A legal hurdle. Every interaction she had carried a hidden ask. Sign this. Bathe here. Be quiet.
What I offered Edith was the rarest gift one human can give another: attention with no agenda attached. Presence that wants nothing back.
But as the sun dipped below the horizon, painting the Oakridge parking lot in bruised shades of purple and orange, the reality of the timeline crashed over me. Tomorrow morning was Thursday. The transfer papers were sitting on Higgins’s desk.
I knocked on Edith’s door at 8:00 PM, holding a fresh cup of tea.
The door was locked.
“Edith?” I called softly, pressing my forehead against the wood. “It’s Hailey.”
Silence.
“Edith, please. Let me in.”
Thud.
It was a heavy, dull sound from inside the room, followed by the faint rustling of plastic. Panic seized my throat. Had she fallen? Had the stress of Carter’s visit triggered a heart attack?
“Edith, if you don’t open the door, I have to get the master key!” I warned, my voice cracking.
I heard the slow, shuffling drag of her orthotic shoes. The deadbolt clicked, heavy and final. The door creaked inward.
I pushed into the room and stopped dead in my tracks.
Edith wasn’t hurt. She was standing by her bed. On the mattress lay a small, battered vinyl suitcase. She was meticulously folding her floral cardigans and placing them inside. Next to the suitcase was a stack of her crossword books, neatly tied together with a piece of yarn.
She wasn’t fighting anymore. She was packing. She knew about Sunny Pines.
“Edith…” I choked out, the tears hot and sudden in my eyes. “What are you doing?”
“I heard the nurses talking in the hall, Hailey,” she said, her voice entirely devoid of emotion. It was a flat, dead sound. “I know where they are sending me tomorrow. I know what Carter is doing.”