I set it back, making sure the edges lined up exactly with the shelf.
The kitchen was through a door at the back. A couple days' worth of dishes sat in the sink—the clutter that builds up whenyou assume you have all the time in the world to finish it. There was a mug with a shriveled tea bag still at the bottom. I turned the tap on, found the soap, and started on them. The water was scalding, but I didn't turn it down. I just needed the steam to fill the room.
The fridge was full of things that weren't going to last. I found a box of bin bags under the sink and worked through the shelves methodically: the milk, the Tupperware I didn't dare open, a half-eaten Lunchable. It was a task with a clear end point. I could handle a task.
Because after the dishes and the fridge, there was the rest of it. The wardrobe, the bedside table—the heavy, permanent artifacts of a person who had been here last week and wasn't here now. I wasn't ready for any of that.
The dishes didn't require me to be ready. So I stayed at the sink.
* * *
I made it to the hospital just after two.
Deb was at the nurse’s station, silhouetted against the fluorescent hum of the monitors. She didn't wait for me to reach the desk; she just caught my eye and jerked her chin toward the corridor.
"She’s been awake since noon," Deb said, her voice dropping into that low, professional tone. "Ate a decent lunch. One of the volunteers brought a puzzle. She hasn't touched the pieces, but she won’t let go of the box."
I nodded, my eyes already drifting down the hall. "Anyone come by?"
"No." A beat of silence followed, and she lowered her voice. "Dr. Clarke was in this morning. Early. She had a meeting with Phelps."
I looked at her, wondering how much she knew.
"Thought you should know," Deb said. She didn't offer anything else, just lowered her head and let the scratch of her pen end the conversation.
I stood there for a beat, then headed down the corridor.
The door was propped halfway. Lily was swallowed by the hospital bed, sitting cross-legged with the puzzle box hugged against her chest. She wasn't building anything; she was just gripping the cardboard the same way she’d white-knuckled that stuffed rabbit yesterday. When she saw me, her expression didn't break into a smile, but the tension in her jaw seemed to give up, just a little.
I dragged the heavy vinyl chair closer and sat. The metal legs screeched against the linoleum.
"Hey," I said.
"Hey." Her voice was thin, like paper. She looked down at the box in her lap. "It’s a hundred pieces."
"That’s a hell of a lot of pieces."
"Deb said we could use the table." She didn't look up, just traced the edge of the box with a thumb. "If you wanted to."
I looked at her. Five years old, carrying a puzzle box around a hospital corridor all morning, waiting for someone to come back like they said they would.
"Yeah," I said. "Let's do the puzzle."
She slid off the bed without a word and led me to the small table by the window like she'd been planning the route. She opened the box carefully, both hands, and tipped the pieces out in a pile. Then she looked at it for a moment.
"Mommy always does the edges first," she said.
"That's the right way to do it," I said.
She nodded, like this was important information, and picked up a corner piece. She turned it over once in her fingers, set it down, picked up another. Methodical and careful.
Cassie's kid, alright.
We worked through the edges in silence mostly. She'd hand me a piece occasionally without looking up, some instinct about which ones were mine to try. The afternoon light came in flat through the blinds and for twenty minutes none of the rest of it existed.
A knock at the door. Deb, half in.
"Mr. Henley. Sorry to interrupt." She glanced at Lily. "Can I borrow your uncle for a minute?"