Moira asks for directions to Hank’s room and then takes the lift up to the second floor. There’s a smaller silk flower display in the foyer area as she exits the lift. Up here there are more indications that this is a hospital – a nurse in scrubs is hurrying along the hallway, and Moira can hear the beeping of a machine in the room adjacent to the lift area. She inhales and detects a very slight odour of disinfectant.
As she pauses in the foyer, looking for signage that will point her in the direction of room 243, a bald guy in a security uniform and an earpiece approaches her.
‘ID please, ma’am.’
She does as he asks, and hands over her driver’s licence.
He takes the photo card and looks from it to her several times. ‘What’s your business here, Ms Flynn?’
‘I’m visiting a friend. He’s in room 243.’
The security guy is still looking at the licence. ‘Admitted when?’
Moira starts to feel anxious. Wants to grab the licence from him and get going. She swallows back the nerves. Keeps her tone even. ‘Yesterday. He’d been attacked and I found him. So I want to check how he’s doing.’
The guard looks at her face for a long moment. Hands the licence back to her. ‘Seems your friend wasn’t the only one who got beat.’
She nods. ‘Yeah.’
The security guy gives her a kind smile. ‘Well, I’m real sorry about that. I hope you and your friend both make good recoveries. For 243 go halfway along the hall, then make a right and it’s the fifth room along.’
‘Thank you.’ Moira tucks her licence back into her wallet.
‘No problem, ma’am.’
She follows the security guy’s directions and finds Hank’s room. Standing outside, her hand hovers above the door handle. She isn’t here in any official capacity, and she doesn’t know Hank well enough to visit him as a friend; they’ve only said hello a couple of times before in passing and he probably won’t even remember she found him yesterday. She hopes he doesn’t see her visiting him as an intrusion of his privacy.
Moira gives the door a quick knock and pushes it open.
Aside from the medical equipment – a drip and a heart monitor – the place looks like a fancy hotel room with pale walls, oak furniture and a comfortable-looking ergonomic bed with crisp linen and a thick blanket. Hank’s sitting in the bed, his attention focused on the football game that’s playing on the wall-mounted television.
As Moira steps into the room he mutes the sounds and looks over at her. He’s wearing a new pair of glasses – a spare pair, she assumes, but his face is a patchwork of purple and black bruising, and there’s bandaging securing a dressing to the back of his head. Even so, his eyes are bright, and aside from the beeping heart monitor and the drip he doesn’t seem to be hooked up to many machines.
Moira softens her posture, doing her best to look non-threatening and non-official – hands by her sides, she rests her weight more on her uninjured leg and gives him a big smile. ‘Hi Hank, I’m Moira. I’m not sure you recognise me, but I’m a resident at The Homestead. I wanted to stop by and see how you’re doing.’
Hank holds her gaze for a couple of beats before speaking. ‘They told me when I woke that I had myself a guardian angel.’ He smiles and tries to sit more upright, wincing from the pain of the movement. ‘From the state of you, all beat up like me, I’m thinking that’s you.’
Moira isn’t sure she likes the analogy, but she nods. She hadn’t really given herself a proper look in the mirror that morning – just washed her face and put on her moisturiser – but she can feel the bruising down one side of her face and the tightness of the skin around the butterfly strips. ‘It was me that found you. I tried to stop the person who attacked you leaving, but . . .’ She gestures to her bruised face.