“I can almost reach it.”
“And forcing it will not make it safer.”
“You don’t know.”
“No.”
I stood.
“But I know your speech is slowing. Your eyelid is dropping. You need rest.”
“I hate that you notice everything.”
“I hate that you are hurting.”
He locked the phone and set it on his lap.
“What if the apartment feels like these pictures?”
“What do you mean?”
“Like I’m walking into another man’s life.”
“It might.”
His face tightened at my honesty.
“What will you do?”
“Show you where the bathroom is.”
“That’s all?”
“Then the cups. The medication. The light switches. The safest way through the hallway. Anything else you ask me to show you.”
“And if I don’t want to stay?”
“I will call Dr. Whitcomb. We will arrange another option.”
His expression closed.
“You’d let me leave.”
It was not the question he had asked before.
Not in that voice.
“I will not keep you somewhere against your will.”
“That is not what I asked.”
I sat again.
“What are you asking?”
He stared down at the phone.
“I don’t know.”
