“That paper doesn’t prove a thing,” he said.

“It proves you wrote down a dead number.”

“It proves I wrote down a number.”

“It proves you wrote it nine days ago.

Nine days before anyone from my unit called this ward looking for me.”

He opened his mouth and didn’t use it.

A nurse’s aide asked me to move the duffel out of the walkway, and I moved it twice before I found the elevator bank that went down to records.

The records counter sat on the ground floor beside a copier that kept warming up and going quiet again.