The duty register had taken on moisture along its lower edge, and Nisha Qureshi was holding it open with a roll of identification wristbands.
It was the sort of solution that would have made the quality team sigh, had the quality team been there at 6:12 on a Friday evening, with forty-seven patients in a department built for thirty-six, a bay monitor that had sounded wrong since lunch, and three phone lines passing the same busy signal back and forth.
“Sign off on Patel before you disappear,” Mo said.
“I’m not disappearing.”
“Your coat’s on the back of the chair.”
Nisha looked up from the register. Mo Adeyemi, who had been charge nurse long enough to know that a visible coat amounted to a declaration of intent, nodded toward bay 9.
“Mrs. Patel’s been waiting for her son for two hours. She says she’s going home if no one talks to her.”
“I talked to her.”
“At four forty.”
“It was an excellent conversation.”
“She’s had time to change her mind.”
The wall phone rang. No one moved. It stopped, started again immediately at the next extension, then on the cordless handset Jodie wore at her waist. The department had a particular way of producing noise without conversation: alarms, wheels, automatic doors, calls that never connected. Nisha set down her pen, took the wristband holding the register open, and put it back on the cart.
“I’ll sign off on Patel. Then I’m leaving.”
Mo checked the clock above the screens.
“You’ve been leaving since five thirty.”
“It’s a fluid concept.”
She crossed the corridor, dodging a wheelchair being pushed too fast. In bay 9, Mrs. Patel sat on the edge of the bed with her shoes back on, one hand resting against the dressing on her forearm. The white band hung loosely around her wrist, with room for two fingers beneath it.
“You see, Doctor,” she said. “I’m ready.”
“That’s exactly what worries me.”
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