The Chair Has Already Been Moved

The woman coming off duty left the room ready for a person who did not arrive.

She put a chair beside the bed, turned the lamp toward the wall, and carried away the basin. The chair's front leg settled into an old dent in the floor. Someone had sat there often enough to leave a place for the furniture. That person was not expected tonight.

At the door, her replacement held a notebook open against his chest.

“Anything else?”

From the bed, a finger rose. Both workers looked at it.

“That question.”

The woman waited.

“Every time someone comes in. I have to go around the room in my head.”

Her replacement shut the notebook. Then he opened it again, more quietly, though it had not made much noise.

Outside, a trolley struck the raised strip across the corridor. The woman listened until it had passed. She had bread in a bag by the coat hooks. Earlier, there had been a time when the bread and a place to eat it were both available. She had spent that time finding the basin. Now there was the bread.

“I can't stay,” she said.

The person in the bed turned toward the wall. The lamp made a pale oval there, approximately the shape of the basin seen from above.

She wanted to add something to her refusal. A reason large enough to weigh against this turning away. She could describe the bus, the bread, the person waiting at home. Each description would take a little longer, and perhaps invite a judgment. She said only, “He is here.”

It was true. It did not describe what he knew.

She took the notebook and wrote at the foot of the existing page. Then she crossed out the last line.

“What did you cross out?” the replacement asked.

“Something I thought she wanted.”

They stood with the notebook between them. The person in the bed could see the backs of their hands.

“You can talk in here,” she said. “Just don't make me chair the meeting.”

The woman gave the notebook back. Her replacement sat down. The chair rocked, its leg slipping out of the dent.

“It was better where she put it,” said the person in the bed.

He moved it back.

For a while the three of them attended to that small success. It was easy to see, and nobody needed to explain what had improved. The woman nearly smiled. Then the person in the bed began to cry.

The woman stood beside the door. Her own eyes filled. She had been thinking about the bread, then about how ashamed she would be to say she had been thinking about it. The replacement reached toward the box of tissues and stopped with his hand resting on the table.

“Leave it there,” said the person in the bed.

They could not tell whether she meant the box or his hand. He left both for a moment.

The woman took her bag from the hook. At the corridor window she could see the bus stop, but not the timetable. She stayed there long enough to take one bite. Behind her, the replacement came out carrying the basin.

“Where does this go?”

She swallowed and showed him.

When she returned to the window, a bus was pulling away. There might be another soon. She finished the bread while standing, keeping the crumbs in the bag.

Inside the room, the chair remained in its dent. The notebook was open on the table. Under the crossed-out sentence, there was still space.
