Chapter 9 - The Circle Completes
I walked down the brightly lit hallway to Room 104. Inside, an elderly woman with silver hair and deeply wrinkled hands sat rigidly in a wheelchair, clutching a faded, tattered green tote bag to her chest like a shield. She was glaring at the staff, her lower lip trembling with a mixture of fear and defiance.
Her name was Eleanor. She was eighty-four, and like Hazel, her records listed no emergency contacts, no children, and no family.
I stepped into the room, gently waving the nurses out. I didn't approach her aggressively. I simply pulled up a wooden chair, sat down a few feet away, and set a small porcelain teapot down on the bedside table.
"Hello, Eleanor," I said softly. "My name is Julian. I’m the director here, but I used to be an orderly."
She narrowed her eyes, tightening her grip on the green bag. "Are you here to take my bag? The last place tried to throw it out. They said it was a fire hazard."
"I would never touch your bag, Eleanor," I said, pouring a cup of hot tea and sliding it toward her. "In fact, I used to know a very beautiful, very fierce lady named Hazel who had a bag just like yours. She taught me that the things we protect are usually the things that keep us alive."
Eleanor relaxed her shoulders slightly, her eyes drifting down to the steaming cup of tea. "What kind of tea is this?"
"Peppermint," I smiled. "The good kind. Not the cheap state-subsidized stuff."
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She let out a soft, dry chuckle, her wrinkled fingers loosening around the canvas strap of her bag just enough to reach out and take the teacup. "You're a strange young man, Julian."
"I’ve been told that before," I said quietly, looking out the window at the beautiful garden where the flowers were blooming in the afternoon sun.
