Carol is dressed and seated on the edge of her hospital bed when the day nurse arrives, bag zipped and at attention at the foot of the chair, shoes on, hair brushed, reading glasses perched and ready. The IV pole is the only evidence that she belongs to this room and not to the brisk world already turning outside her window.
The nurse—Kayla, or so the badge says—pauses in the doorway, caught by the spectacle of a patient so upright and self-possessed at 6:17 a.m. She smiles, setting her hands on her hips in a way that makes her scrubs crinkle at the waist. “Most people, you know, try to stall for breakfast. Not escape it.”
Carol glances at the tray table, where the plastic dome covers a soggy square of French toast and a miniature carton of milk sweating onto the Formica. “You clearly ha
