After the rescue, at the hospital, Rae stopped with her hand on the doorframe. Maya nearly walked into her.
Elias lay under a thin blanket, his burned arm wrapped and his leg supported. His glasses weren't on the bedside table. A nurse was checking the line beside him. When he saw Rae, he tried to sit up.
“Stay where you are,” the nurse said.
He eased back with a sound he couldn't hide. Rae went to the chair nearest the bed. Maya took the other one, leaving her coat over her knees because she was cold and couldn't find anywhere else to put it.
“Everyone?” Elias asked.
“The eleven residents are out,” Rae said.
He shut his eyes. “Ruth?”
“She's with them.”
The nurse finished what she was doing and left a cup of water within his reach. He thanked her. His voice was rough. When she went out, he looked at the cup and then at his hand, as if the two things had failed to agree.
Rae moved the cup closer to his other side. He reached, caught it awkwardly and spilled a little over the blanket.
“Here,” she said.
“I can.”
She kept her hand under his. His face tightened, not with anger this time. He let her steady it while he drank.
Maya watched the wet patch spread across his blanket.
When he had finished, Rae put the cup back. She wiped his fingers with the paper towel the nurse had left, then folded it too carefully.
“I'm sorry,” he said.
Her hands stopped. “I know.”
He waited. She laid the towel on the table.
“Jory has your glasses. They're bent.”
“I can't read that.” Elias nodded toward the information card on the rail.
“It's instructions for the call button. The nurse showed you.”
“I didn't hear.”
Rae lifted the button from beside the rail and put it where his uninjured hand could reach it. “Press this. They'll come.”
He looked at it for a long moment. Then he nodded.
Maya asked whether he wanted them to get the nurse again. He said not yet. Nobody filled the silence after that. A cart rattled along the corridor and someone laughed softly beyond the door.
“Your things,” Elias said to Rae.
“In my van.”
“All of them?”
“Yes.”
He looked at her bag beside the chair. “You don't have to decide everything tonight.”
She pushed the folded towel a little farther from the water. “I told you about the work before this happened.”
“I know.”
“I'm still not taking the calls.”
He watched her, then looked down at the button in his hand. “All right.”
Rae sat back in the chair. Her hands lay empty in her lap.
The nurse returned and told them he needed rest. His knee had been injured in the fall. The burns and the smoke would need more treatment and checks. It was too soon to tell them how much use he would regain in the hand.
Rae stood. Elias moved his good hand an inch toward her, then stopped. She touched it before picking up her bag.
“We'll bring the glasses,” she said.
“Thank you.”
Maya followed her out. In the corridor, Rae leaned against the wall and covered her face. Maya stood beside her without asking her to put words to it.
They went back to the recreation hall before morning. Coats hung across folding chairs to dry. Somebody had put a sign on the kettle saying it needed to be refilled before switching it on. Beneath that, in another hand, someone had written please.
By daylight, Rae was at a table with Ruth and the envelope. All eleven residents had reached the hall. Felix's work bag lay under his chair, the badge safely inside. He'd called his supervisor, who had arranged cover for the morning and told him to rest. Felix kept checking the message as though the kindness might expire.
Ada was listing her books for the assistance worker. She knew the position of every shelf but went blank when asked for a number.
“The ones you talk about at breakfast,” Felix said. “Start there.”
“I talk about a lot of them.”
“I know.”
Ada smiled, then wrote three titles. Her cat objected from the carrier. She put one finger through the grille and told him she wasn't enjoying this either.
Ruth turned to Rae. “I need something with a name at the bottom. People have employers and rent due. They can't keep telling everybody I said the house is closed.”
“The officer can give you the official confirmation,” Rae said.
“The worker's requesting it. I want what you know about the installation too.”
Rae took a clean sheet. She wrote slowly, checking the address with Ruth and recording the batch, her own work, the units now out of service and the house's closure pending assessment. She didn't promise a date when the rooms could be used again.
She signed.
Rae handed the statement to Ruth, who asked for a second copy.
“Does this put you in trouble?” Ruth asked.
“They'll interview me.”
“They'll interview everybody, I expect.” Ruth folded the paper. “Tell them the truth. I don't have another kind of house to give them.”
She went to the assistance worker. Rae stayed in the chair a moment, shoulders low.
Maya set a mug beside her. “Tea.”
“I've had too much.”
“Then hold it.”
Rae took it. Her hands looked cold.
“I left Dad without his phone,” she said.
“He can ask the nurse to call if he needs somebody.”
“I know. I told them he can reach me. They have my number.”
Maya nodded.
“He kept looking at the bedside table. Like he'd lost something.”
“He had.”
Rae gave her a sharp glance. Maya regretted the answer until her daughter looked back at the mug.
“Yes,” Rae said. “He had.”
The assistance worker called Ruth away again. There were places for some residents with family, a temporary arrangement for the others, forms asking for answers that didn't fit neatly into boxes. Ruth had her own clothes at the house and hadn't decided where she would sleep next.
Felix brought her a chair. She waved it away, then took it after looking at his face. He put her bag under it before she could move on.
Maya helped copy phone numbers from the envelope onto separate slips. It was an ordinary task and she was grateful for it. She gave residents public contacts rather than her desk number. Ruth corrected a digit Maya had misread. Ada asked for a second copy because she tended to lose the first.
Rae's phone rang. Nora Pike.
Rae answered and went a little way toward the window. Maya could hear her side of the conversation.
“Yes. I'm all right. My dad's being treated. No, I haven't gone back to the shop.”
She listened.
“I don't know when your coat will be released. I can call the manager and ask who is holding the belongings now.”
Another pause. Rae said, “I'll tell him you want him to call you, not your niece.”
She came back with her mouth set in a shape Maya knew: half affection, half defeat.
“She heard about Calder's. She wanted to know if everybody got out. Then she asked about the coat.”
“It's her coat.”
“I know.” Rae put the phone on the table. “I was relieved she asked.”
Maya nodded. She pictured the blue coat and the narrow pocket Nora had sewn inside it.
Later a message came from Elias, sent through the hospital contact they'd arranged. He needed a change of clothes. The keys to his house were with Jory. He asked if Rae could bring a bag when she had time.
She read it twice.
“I'm not going to manage the crews,” she said.
“No.”
“But I can get him clothes.”
“Yes.”
“You don't have to keep saying yes.”
Maya smiled a little. “I'm practicing.”
Rae took a breath that nearly became a laugh. “He won't know where the socks are.”
“You do?”
“Top drawer. He thinks they're in the second. He never remembers he moved them.”
Rae read the message again and put the phone down.
“Do you want company?” Maya asked.
“For the house, yes. Not the interview. That's tomorrow.”
“All right.”
“I didn't say no because I don't trust you.”
“I know.”
“I just don't want to look at you while I'm answering.”
Maya nodded. “I'll wait outside if you want a ride afterward.”
They stayed until Ruth had the slips she needed and a worker could take over the copying. Outside, daylight made the hall look smaller than it had at night. Two wet blankets hung over a railing. Rae stood beside Maya's car and looked at the sky.
“I don't want to listen to the last file,” she said.
“You don't have to.”
“It still exists.”
“Yes.”
Rae got into the passenger seat. Maya waited until she'd fastened the belt, then started the engine.
They went to get her father's clothes.