"Yes, Mrs. Whitfield."
"Did Will tell my Harrison about the boy?"
"Which boy, ma'am?"
"The boy with the sandwich. On the bench. The brave boy. Did Will tell him?"
Margaret has heard variations of this for fourteen days now. She has been writing them down at the end of every shift in a small notebook in her locker, the way she has written things down for thirty years of nursing. "I'll ask him, ma'am."
"Promise me you'll tell him. The boy was kind to me. That doesn't happen to old women in coats anymore. Promise me."
"I promise, Mrs. Whitfield."
Eleanor closes her eyes.
In the staff break room that night, Margaret eats a microwave dinner and turns on the small TV mounted in the corner. The local news is running the Whitfield brooch story for the eighth time in three days. They show the school field day photo: the boy with the missing front tooth, yellow gym shirt, smiling.
Margaret's coffee cup stops halfway to her mouth. She sets it down very, very carefully on the table. She walks back to her locker and takes the small notebook out. She flips through fourteen days of pages. She reads the words: the boy with the sandwich, in her own handwriting, written four different times on four different shifts.
She picks up her phone.