The hallway was surprisingly warm, and the hospital nothing like Randy was used to. Concrete blocks made up the exterior walls and thick coats of soft cream paint covered both them and the flimsier interior ones. Depending on the location, the lighting was either too bad to even read by or so bright it could inspire headaches. It was clean, though. And no matter where they went—Admissions, Emergency Care, Radiology—there was a blue-coated volunteer, usually with silver hair and a brilliant smile, to offer a magazine or direct a person to a drinking fountain.
Admissions had been easy, once he got past the humiliation of having to explain how he’d walked off his own front porch. He decided to leave out the first part of the event wherein he’d bashed his knee on the coffee table chasing a gh
