Nora's own mother had worked at St. Agnes long before Nora ever wore a striped cafeteria blouse. She had been a housekeeper on the seventh floor, a small woman who knew every stairwell shortcut and could tell which families needed help simply by watching the way they stood outside elevators.
When Nora was thirteen, her mother spent four months receiving treatment for a heart condition that made even walking to the bathroom exhausting. Nora's father worked construction out of state, and the family's days became a procession of bus rides, homework in waiting rooms, and dinners purchased from machines.
One evening a cafeteria cook had left a bowl of soup at Nora's table without asking any questions. Nora hadn't remembered the woman's face, but she remembered the way steam curled above the bowl and the small relief of being treated like a child rather than a problem somebody else had to solve.
Her mother eventually came home, lived another nine years, and spent every one of them insisting that Nora finish school and do something she loved. After her death, Nora took the first reliable job she could find and remained at the hospital partly because it was familiar, partly because her rent didn't care what her dreams were.
She had once planned to study nutrition and community health. An application to the local college lay in a drawer at home, folded beneath overdue utility bills and a photograph of her mother laughing in a supermarket parking lot.
Nora told herself she would fill it out when things calmed down.
Things seldom did.
At the end of her shift, she was wiping down a counter when Lila appeared beside the register. The girl held a folded napkin with two hands, her eyes darting toward the table where Andre was checking his phone.
"Can you give this to him?" she whispered.
"You can give it to him yourself, sweetheart."
"He'll say he's fine."
Nora crouched until their faces were level.
"What's in it?"
"Something true," Lila said.
The seriousness of the answer stopped Nora from asking anything else.
"All right. Would you like me to read it first?"
Lila nodded.
On the paper, in uneven blue letters, she had written:
PLEASE MAKE MY DADDY EAT. HE GAVE ME HIS LUNCH AND HE SAYS HE ISN'T HUNGRY, BUT HIS HANDS KEEP SHAKING. PLEASE DON'T TELL HIM I TOLD YOU. HE IS TRYING TO BE BRAVE FOR ME.
Below the words was a little drawing of three people holding hands beneath a yellow sun. The middle person had curly hair, and someone had carefully added the word MOM above her head.
Nora read it twice.
When she looked up, Lila was studying her expression with the same worried attention she had given the cafeteria doors.
"Was that bad?" the girl asked.
"No," Nora said, swallowing. "It was very kind."
"He's been awake since the ambulance came. He doesn't know I can hear him crying in the bathroom."
Nora held out the note. "Do you want me to keep the secret, or do you want him to know that you see how hard he's trying?"
Lila considered the choice with painful seriousness.