But by the third day, she started watching me like a hawk. I was scanning her meds one afternoon when she looked at me a little longer than usual. “Wait,” she said with a smile.
“Do I know you?”
My stomach dropped. I clicked the scanner onto the workstation. “I don’t think so.”
But it was too late.
I watched in horror as recognition spread across her face. “Oh, my God.” Her smile widened with cruel delight. “It’s YOU.
Library Lena.”
Just like that, I was 16 again, standing in a cafeteria, staring at the lunch she’d just tipped out of my hands, while her friends laughed. And that smile told me she hadn’t changed a bit since that time. She wasn’t going to let this go.
I didn’t answer. I just held out her medication cup. “These are your morning meds.”
She took them without looking away from me.
“So, you became a nurse, huh? Strange… you spent so much time in your books. Why not a doctor instead?
Could you not afford med school, Lena?”
I hated how she could find the truth, after all these years, and cut right into it with just a few words. “What about your personal life?” she continued, studying my hands. “Husband, kids?”
Another question I didn’t want to answer, but I’d have to say something.
“I have three kids,” I replied. I was definitely NOT going to tell her I was working myself to the bone to raise them alone after my husband left me for his younger colleague the previous year. “What about you?”
“I have a daughter. I feel that having more than one child divides one’s attention too much.
Makes it harder to be a really good parent.”
She smiled at me. I wanted to frisbee my clipboard at her, but instead, I smiled back and left as soon as I could. After that, it became a game for her.
Little comments. Tiny cuts. When I adjusted her pillow, she said, “Can you not tug like that?” even though I barely touched it.
When I flushed her IV, she flinched before I even connected the syringe and sighed like I was rough with her on purpose. If anyone else was in the room, she turned sweet as pie. Then the door would close, and she’d look at me with that same old lazy cruelty.
And I started to realize — it wasn’t random. She was building toward something. One afternoon, a CNA named Marcus came in to take her blood sugar.
As soon as he left, she looked me over and said, “That scrub color really washes you out.”
I kept adding notes to the chart. “Do you need anything else?”
“Really? I don’t think about high school very much.”
She gave a short laugh.
“Yeah. I wouldn’t either if I’d been Library Lena.”
That one landed because it was the same old thing: say something small enough that you can’t prove harm, but mean enough that the other person feels it all day. I started dreading Room 304.
I never told anyone I knew her. It felt childish somehow, like high school pain should have an expiration date. I was 41 years old.
I had a mortgage, bad knees, and a son in college. Why was one woman still able to make my hands shake?
I started counting down the days until her release date. When it finally arrived, I realized I was not going to be rid of Margaret that easily.
At noon, Dr. Stevens stopped me outside the supply room. “Hey, Lena,” he said.
“I’d like you to handle Room 304’s discharge personally.”
I blinked. “Sure.”
“Let me know before you go in.”
It was a somewhat unusual request to start with, but something in his tone set my nerves on edge. That was the moment I knew this wasn’t just a normal discharge.
“Of course,” I said. ***
When I knocked and entered her room a little after three, she was already dressed, lipstick on, purse packed, discharge folder on the tray table. Waiting.
“Well,” she said. “Perfect timing.”
I forced a smile and lifted the discharge folder. “Let’s review your discharge instructions.”
She folded her hands in her lap.
“You should resign, Lena. Immediately.”
For a second, I truly thought I’d misheard her. “You should resign,” she repeated.
“I’ve already spoken to the doctor.”
My fingers tightened around the papers. “About what?”
She tilted her head slightly, like she was explaining something obvious. “About the way you’ve been treating me, of course.”
“What?
I’ve treated you appropriately this entire time.”
“You’ve been rough. Adjusting things harder than necessary, taking your time when I call, and the tone when you speak to me…” She sadly shook her head. “You’ve used your position to mistreat me because of the past.”
