That was what made them unbearable.

Not a single one of them was dramatic; none of them would have appeared in any report the nurses filed; none of them had cost money.

A hand held in the dark.

A particular tea.

A tune hummed low until the fear loosened its grip and sleep could come.

They were the texture of actual care, the thousand tiny unrecorded mercies that make the difference between being managed and being loved, and I had funded none of them because none of them could be funded, and I had provided none of them because I had never once been in the room long enough to see that they were needed.

She told me about the nights.