Page 77 of The Forbidden Center

Astrid

Guerra puts January twenty-third on the calendar for the final assessment. The handover itself is simple, what improved and what remains limited and what Maren needs to carry on with, and I have written hundreds of them, and this one takes me the better part of an hour. When I open February to check another patient, his Tuesday is sitting empty, and it is a space I know the shape of, because he has been in it since November.

I leave it empty.

On the last Tuesday before the twenty-third, Gabi has her coat on before Colt has finished changing.

“You are leaving early,” I say.

“I’m leaving on time.”

“You never leave on time.”

“Growth.”

She picks up her bag. There is nobody else in reception. The last patient went ten minutes ago, Tova is at home with the door locked and the porch light on because I asked her to do both, and the building has the hollow sound it gets once the phones stop.

Gabi checks the back door and then looks at me. “You know the alarm.”

“Yes.”

“You know the lock.”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

She leaves, and she takes her time about leaving, and I stand behind the desk and listen to the outer door shut.

I could be angry with her. I am not, and that is considerably more inconvenient.

Colt comes out with his jacket over one shoulder. “We lose Gabi?”

“She abandoned us to personal responsibility.”

“Dangerous.”

“We will survive.”

His eyes stay on me half a beat longer than they need to. I look at the chart.

We finish the appointment correctly, and I am relieved that we do. He reports the shoulder, I test the reach, we go through the travel version of the program. Then he asks what the work can preserve through the rest of the season, and I give him the answer I can defend in writing.

“It gives you the best chance of keeping the range you have gained.”

“Not the minutes.”

“No.”

He nods once and does not put a joke anywhere near it.

I want to tell him that nineteen good minutes can be better hockey than twenty-two protected ones. I do not know whether the men upstairs will agree, and I will not hand him a thing I cannot stand behind, so I tell him what I know instead.

“The pass to Roman in Dallas. You released it before the contact reached you.”

His head comes up. “You saw that.”

“Yes.”