The Head Nurse Told Me to Check the Camera at 3 A.M. and I Was Not Prepared

with the carefully neutral language that institutions use when they are managing a situation they cannot yet fully describe.

He left. I watched him go from the hallway, far enough away that we did not have to speak.

I went in to Liam.

He was awake, sitting up in the bed, the casted arm in its sling, looking at the door with the expression of a child who continue reading …