At four in the afternoon, my mother met me in the tiled hallway outside the locked double glass doors of the unit.

Patricia was fifty-eight and had a beige knit sweater draped over her shoulders.

She held a stiff yellow parking ticket between two manicured fingers.

She sighed heavily before she looked at me.

“They charged me twelve dollars down in the garage.”

“Kevin can get it validated at the front desk,” I said, leaning against the wall to keep the weight off my incision.

“I’m not sitting in those plastic chairs in there again,” Patricia said, smoothing the front of her cardigan with her free hand.