“Don’t tell me.”
I did.
I told him the whole thing.
The office.
The nurse.
The transport chair.
The word unauthorized.
He listened without interrupting.
Then he turned and walked into the kitchen.
I followed him.
He stood at the sink for a long moment with both hands on the counter.
The house was clean in the careful way poor houses often are.
Not because people have extra time.
Because taking care of what you have is the only power left some days.
Finally he spoke.
“So they let him sit in that death trap for months,” he said.
I did not answer.
“They let him roll through those hallways squealing and wobbling and cutting his knuckles on busted metal.”
He turned around.
“But the minute it gets fixed, now everybody’s nervous.”
I nodded once.
That was all I had.
He looked tired enough to crack.
“What kind of system waits until something starts working to decide it cares?”
I had no answer for that either.
Mason was in the living room with a sketchbook on his lap.
He was drawing with a blue pencil.
Always blue.
He did not look up when I sat on the edge of the armchair nearby.
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