(Trying not to look at him. Turn your eyes away, quick.)

Another time, on the fourth floor, no money in the drawer. (No wallet.) But a rosary you snatch up and stuff into the backpack.

(Glance at the figure in the bed. Jesus!—a pixilated face you can’t tell is female or male.)

No fear. Cool. Quick escape like Spider-Man.

The trick is looking like you know where the hell you’re going. Nobody gives a shit about visitors.

Except: Excuse me. Who are you, and where are you going?

Female in dark blue uniform, must be a nurse. Middle-aged, hatchet-faced, no smile, and no bullshit. Staring at you suspiciously like with X-ray eyes penetrating your backpack, seeing exactly what you’ve scavenged tonight.

Trying not to stammer. Saying you are visiting your mother in room 7771.

Well, this isn’t the seventh floor. This is the eighth floor.

Express surprise: eighth floor! You’d thought it was the seventh …

Got off at the wrong floor, you guess.

Smiling, not sweating. E-juice cool: tincture of lemon.

But the nurse isn’t persuaded. Husky arms, taller than you. Looks like she could hoist you over her shoulder. No bullshit kind of (dark, almond-skinned) female squinting at your ID. Pretending she is memorizing your name, face. You are sure she’s bullshitting. If she wasn’t, she’d ask you what’s in the backpack, what’s in your pockets. Could summon security guards. But maybe, since it’s late, past eleven p.m., she doesn’t want to get involved. Might be she’d have to report you to the police, file an actual complaint, show up at a court hearing. Might be, it isn’t worth it for her. If you have stolen cash, cash isn’t traceable. A wristwatch, could be yours. There’d have to be a search of the hospital room by room to determine if the watch was missing from that room, plus isolated bills. Fuck, she’s thinking, just fuck, it isn’t worth it to burn this white boy’s privileged ass.

So the nurse glares at you, disgusted, in a snotty voice saying she will have to escort you to your mother’s room.

So you say okay, affable and unguilty. And the two of you take the elevator one flight down and she escorts you to your mother’s room (with the fucking autumn leaves posted outside the door), which is as dim-lit at this hour as a wake. And there’s your mother in her bed, IV fluids dripping into her battered arms. An attendant is checking her vital functions, heart, blood pressure, oxygen intake, so she’s awake, if slightly dazed, but a smile lights up her tired face when she sees you—Jacey! You didn’t go home, you’re here …

First time since the infusion room, your Mom has smiled at you.