I get up and there are three missed calls on my phone, all from this morning. They’re from a number that isn’t saved, and not from a mobile, so I can’t text to ask who it is, which I would prefer. I have to call instead. I’m lying on the floor, the puppet still on my hand, when I press “call back.”

“Hello, Crimson Orchard, how may I help you?” says a woman’s voice.

“Oh,” I say.

I sit up; it’s a bit of a struggle since my phone is plugged into the wall. I take the puppet off my hand. I lay her behind my back, as though the person on the other end of the line might somehow be able to see her through the phone.

“Hello?” the woman says.

“Hello, sorry.” I shuffle around on my bum until the charger wire isn’t stretched across my neck. “I think my mum’s doctor called me this morning. My mum’s a resident.”

“Okay. What’s the name of the doctor looking after your mother?”

“Dr. Kerr,” I say.

“Let me just pop you on hold while I see if he’s available,” the woman says, and then her voice is replaced with a cover of a pop song from a couple of years ago.

I put my phone on speaker and then leave it on top of the socket box. I lie down. The concrete is very cold. And then I roll across the floor like I’m a sausage until I’m in the middle of the room, and then I roll back. I roll again, at the bridge of the song, and stop when I’m on my back. I hold my arm up in the air until it’s balanced and I don’t have to use any energy to keep it there. Usually, when I have to wait for things, I look at my phone but my phone is on the other side of the room and I’m comfortable here, so I can’t. It’s weirdly freeing. I look at the veins on my hand; I wonder how much blood there is left in my system now—probably not much, although the veins are still green like plant shoots. I knock my head against the concrete a few times until I begin to feel a slight pain in the back of it that dulls the headache I already have. I imagine what I would look like to anyone who came in and saw me here and laugh to myself.

“Hello, Lydia?” comes a voice through my phone.

I scramble across the room. “Hello,” I say, holding the phone up to my ear and trying to turn speakerphone off.

“Hi, Lydia, it’s Dr. Kerr here. I tried to call a few times this morning. Is this still the best number to reach you on?”

“Yes, sorry. I was—”