Charles started talking about preparation and inevitability, but I was looking past him at the hallway.

A woman in a gray cardigan came out of the nurses’ station with a clipboard.

She had a hospital lanyard and a purple sticky note stuck to her sleeve.

She looked at our door and wrote something down.

“That’s Marisol Herrera from social services,” Dr.

Ortega said.

“She’ll want to review the intake file at six.”

Marisol looked up from her clipboard.