Chapter 15
Morning came in warm and thin through the blinds. I woke before my alarm and the room felt different, calm in a way it hadn't been in weeks. The glass on the nightstand was empty. The pill bottle was capped. My chair was pulled up beside the bed where I'd left it, brakes locked.
She was already awake, sitting in the chair by the window. She wasn't in the maid uniform. She wore a plain gray sweatshirt and jeans, her hair still pulled back. She had a notebook open on her lap.
"You slept through," she said.
"I did," I said. I sat up slow and reached for the water myself. My hands were steady. "Six hours on the nose. I took it at two."
She nodded. She didn't get up to help.
I looked at her and I felt the weight of the last two weeks lift just enough to let me speak clearly. "I want to talk about the job," I said.
She closed the notebook halfway. "Okay."
I had rehearsed this once in my head at 2:03 a.m. when I was waiting for the pill to settle. "I don't need a night maid," I said. "I need a daytime aide. Eight to four. Weekdays. You come, you help with transfers and groceries and the log, you leave. Nights are mine."
She listened without interrupting. The light cut across the white bedding and made the dust visible in the air.
"That's fewer hours," she said.
"It pays more per hour," I said. "Same weekly rate you were getting for live-in. No overnight. No sleeping on my bed because you're too tired to get to the couch. And you don't do pills for me anymore. You watch me do it. You check the time."
She looked down at her hands, then back at me. "You sure you want me to stay at all? After everything."
"I do," I said. "I realized I was trying to prove I didn't need anyone in the room. That wasn't working. What works is knowing you're here and I can still do it myself."
She opened the notebook fully again. On the page she'd drawn a simple grid in pen. Days across the top, hours down the side. "I made this," she said. She turned it so I could see. "If we're partners on it. You initial when you take it. I initial when I witness. Therapy on Tuesdays and Thursdays at ten. We both write down what the PT says so we don't argue about it later."
I wheeled closer and looked at the grid. Her handwriting was small and neat. Monday through Sunday. Six a.m., twelve, six p.m., midnight with a line through midnight that said AS NEEDED ONLY. She'd left a space at the bottom for notes.
"We do it together, but you control it," she said. "That's the contract."
"That's the contract," I repeated.
She pulled a pen from the pocket of her sweatshirt and slid the notebook onto the nightstand between us. She uncapped the pen. "So we're starting today. Day shift. Eight to four. You want to sign it?"
I laughed, a short sound that hurt my ribs a little. "It's a notebook, not a legal document."
"Still counts if we both sign it," she said, but she was smiling now.
I took the pen and put my initials in today's six a.m. box. My letters were shaky but legible. She put hers right next to mine, smaller. J.M. and S.R. side by side.
"Fair terms?" I asked.
"Fair terms," she said. "And I keep the uniform in the closet unless you specifically ask for it for some medical thing. I'm not your maid. I'm your aide."
"Noted," I said. "Burn the cap if you want."
"I like the cap," she said. "But yeah, not for work."
We sat there for a minute. The house was quiet. No pill to offer. No water to hold toward someone else's mouth. Just two people awake in the same room, separate.
I reached for the empty glass and set it squarely on the coaster. I picked up the pill bottle, checked the cap was tight, and set it back down next to the log. The chair beside the bed stayed where it was, not pushed away, not pulled closer. It was just there, available if I needed it.
She stood and stretched. "I'm going to make coffee," she said. "You want some?"
"In a minute," I said. "I'm going to sit here a minute."
May you like
"Okay," she said. "I'll be in the kitchen. Eight to four starts now."
She walked out and left the door open. Light from the hallway fell across the floor and touched the wheel of my chair. I didn't call her back. I didn't need to.
