Chapter 5 - What the Money Was For
The fluorescent light was still on when I woke up again. It buzzed low over the bed and made everything look too white. My throat hurt and my hands felt stiff. The gray sweater itched at my neck where the snow had melted into it.
The blanket was folded over the rail of the bed. The light-colored one with the fringe. I could see where the ends were still damp and curling. I reached for it without thinking, just to have something to hold.
The woman was still there in the chair beside me. She had her dark winter coat hung over the back of it, and she was sitting forward with her hands clasped tight. When she saw my eyes open, she breathed out.
"Hey," she said softly. "You're back."
I didn't answer right away. A nurse had come in earlier while I was half awake. I remembered the blood pressure cuff squeezing my arm and letting go, and someone saying my temperature was coming up. The hallway door was closed now. I couldn't hear the man or the boy anymore.
She didn't lean in with questions. She just watched me. That made it harder not to think about that morning.
Our apartment kitchen had been cold in a different way. The heat never reached all the way from the living room, and the linoleum stayed cold through my sneakers. The envelope had been on the counter next to the microwave. A plain white business envelope, kind of fat in the middle, with the flap tucked in and not sealed. I remembered because I'd moved my cereal bowl so I wouldn't knock it over.
I hadn't opened it. I hadn't even lifted the flap. I could still see the way it sat there, the corner bent from where someone had counted it or shoved it in a coat pocket first. There was writing on the front in blue ink, but I hadn't stopped to read it. I didn't want to know.
That was the part that kept looping in my head. I had stood there and looked at it and then made myself look away and eat. I rinsed my bowl. I left it exactly where it was.
Later the voices got loud. Fast and sharp, talking over each other in that small space. I could hear drawers opening and closing. Someone checked the counter, then checked it again like the envelope might reappear if they looked harder. Then they were looking at me.
I stared at the hospital ceiling and tried to breathe slow. My chest felt tight remembering how close everyone had been standing in the kitchen doorway. The air had smelled like coffee and wet shoes.
The woman shifted in her chair. Her voice was low when she spoke again.
"You don't have to tell it all at once," she said.
I shook my head a little. Not because I didn't want to tell, but because I didn't know how to say it without it sounding like an excuse. In my head I kept seeing my hands that morning. Picking up the bowl. Setting it in the sink. Zipping my backpack. Hands empty.
I lifted my hands off the blanket to show her. They were shaking a little from being cold for so long. I turned them over, palms up, then palms down, and then tucked them back under the edge of the blanket. I wanted her to understand I hadn't taken anything without me having to fight about the words.
She looked at my hands the whole time. She didn't glance at the door or check her phone. She nodded once.
"Okay," she said. "I see you."
My eyes burned. I looked at the fringe on the blanket and ran my thumb over one twisted strand until it straightened. The snow was still in my hair a little at the ends. I could feel it melting damp against the pillow.
I thought about the counter again. The empty spot where the envelope had been. I didn't know when it had disappeared or who had last touched it before the yelling started. I only knew I hadn't. That morning felt both very close and far away, like something behind glass.
The woman reached over and adjusted the blanket near my shoulders without wrapping it tight, just laying it closer so I could feel the weight of it. Her hand was warm.
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"Rest," she said. "I'm right here."
I closed my eyes, but I wasn't asleep. I was still in that kitchen, seeing the envelope, hearing the house go quiet in the wrong way before the door opened to the snow.
