Chapter 5
My phone buzzed at 3:47. I was still at the nightstand, pen capped, notebook open to the page I'd just photographed.
The guard hadn't moved since I'd sent it. He stood near the window with his hands clasped, sunglasses on even though the daylight coming through was flat and white. I could see his reflection in the window glass and mine in the phone screen.
I'd stepped into the hall to take the photo. No flash, top-down, the lined page squared in the frame, the black pen laid straight across the top margin like my supervisor liked. I sent it to the agency group thread with the timestamp and the patient initials, the way they'd taught us in orientation. Chart photo, dose log, time noted. Routine check.
The reply came in less than two minutes. Not from the group. A direct text from Maribel, my supervisor.
Maribel: Photo received. Count off. You logged 2mL at 1430. Bottle volume in photo looks low for that count. Recheck against bottle. Need reconcile before 1600 next entry. Don't overwrite.
I read it twice. My thumb hovered over the screen and left a smudge.
The amber bottle was still where I'd left it, tucked against the bed rail on the far side, half-hidden by the fold of the white sheet. I'd logged what the guard told me to log. Two milliliters. That's what the standing order said for 2 p.m., and that's what I'd written, neat block letters, 1430 - 2mL amber - administered per order - initialed. But I hadn't actually drawn from the bottle. The guard had. He'd held it while I charted.
I turned the phone face-down on the nightstand. The glass of water was still there, the cat gone from the table now, probably under the bed. The notebook paper was thin and the ink had bled a little into the grain.
"Everything okay?" the guard asked. His voice was even. He didn't look at me directly. He looked past me, at the wall.
"Chart check," I said. I tried to keep my voice level. "They want me to recheck the volume."
He gave a small nod. "Standard."
I picked up the bottle. It was lighter than it should have been. That was the thing Maribel had caught from a phone photo that I hadn't let myself notice in person. The amber glass was supposed to feel full, the liquid shifting slow. This one shifted fast. When I held it up to the window light, the line of liquid sat maybe a third of the way up, and the white cap had a faint ring of residue around the threads, like it had been opened a lot more than twice.
I didn't say anything. I unscrewed the cap a quarter turn and then screwed it back tight, just to hear the click. My hand had that slight tremor again. I set it back down near the rail, exactly where it had been, label facing in.
Behind me, the guard's sunglasses caught the reflection of my phone screen lighting up again. I hadn't touched it. It lit on its own with another message.
Maribel: Also check lot number. Need photo of bottle label next. Keep original page intact.
I felt my stomach drop. If I photographed the label, the lot number and the volume would be in the same image as my handwritten dose. The discrepancy would be fixed in the record. I couldn't write over it. She'd said don't overwrite, which meant the original ink stayed, and any correction had to be a new line, initialed and explained. That's how the legal part worked. The notebook wasn't just notes. It was evidence.
I picked up the phone and opened the camera again. My hands were damp. I wiped them on my uniform pants, the dark piping on the pocket catching briefly.
"Do you need the label?" I asked the guard, like I was asking permission. I wasn't. I was telling him what was coming.
He shifted his weight. Just a little, enough that his shoe made a soft sound on the parquet. "You do what your supervisor says," he said. His hands were still clasped.
I leaned over the bed rail and turned the bottle until the tiny white label faced up. The lot number was printed in black, four digits and two letters, and under it the concentration. The liquid inside sloshed again. I held the phone over it, trying to keep my shadow out of the frame. The window light was bright and made a hot spot on the amber glass. I took one photo. Then another, closer.
When I set the phone down, the screen still showed the last image: my hand, the bed rail, the bottle, the white sheet blown out by daylight. It was a timestamp of what was actually there versus what I'd written.
Maribel texted again while I was still holding the bottle.
Maribel: Got it. Volume vs log doesn't match. Hold next dose until reconcile. You have until 1600.
That gave me thirteen minutes. Thirteen minutes to decide whether the next line in the notebook told the truth about what was in the bottle or repeated the number the house wanted.
May you like
The guard watched the reflection of my screen in the window. I could see his head tilted just enough to read it. He didn't say hold the dose or don't hold it. He just stood there, and the room was very quiet except for the patient's breathing from under the dark blanket and the faint tick of the wall clock.
I uncapped my pen. I didn't write yet. I stared at the line I'd already written — 1430 - 2mL — and the empty line below it, and the bottle sitting next to it, too light in my hand, waiting to be accounted for.
