The sun is so bright it easily streams in through the curtains early Saturday morning. Ariel descends the stairs wearing a black t-shirt, and a pair of pink boxer shorts. Her bare feet boast of neon green nail polish. Her hair is pulled into a chaotic topknot. She quietly rounds the corner into the kitchen. Leanne stands in front of the sink in her mule style slippers. She's not yet dressed for the day either. She wears a two piece cotton pajama ensemble in navy blue. The button down top has her initials monogramed on the front. Ariel leans against the doorway with her arms folded across her chest. She watches quietly as Leanne lifts a glass to the open cabinet above her head. Ariel remains silent even as she notices a fine tremor in Leanne's left hand as she lifts the glass toward the shelf.
"What would you like me to make you for breakfast?" She queries as she closes the cabinet doors.
"Can I just eat cereal?"
Leanne turns in her direction, and offers a gentle smirk. "Yes. Will you add anything that you want to the list for the grocery store when you're finished?"
"Sure. Where are you going?" Ariel's face puckers.
"I'm going to start the laundry," she insists.
Ariel furrows her brow, "Are you okay?"
Leanne stands less than three feet from her as Ariel un-shelves the box of cereal.
"Why wouldn't I be?"
Ariel shrugs, "I don't know. You just look pale."
"I don't have any make up on yet."
Ariel nods, "Sure." She lets her off the hook.
"Do you have any laundry?"
"I already put my basket in the laundry room last night."
Several days later Leanne is mid-shift when Jesse nudges her as she sets a broken finger. When she's finished she nudges off her glasses, and moves towards the hall. He watches her closely as she tosses her blue nitrile gloves into the bin. She folds her arms across her chest.
"What's going on with you?" Jesse opens the conversation.
"Nothing," her brow arches and her face contorts with a look of disgust.
"You're diaphoretic," he calls her out as he wipes beads of sweat from her forehead.
"I bet it has to be eighty degrees in here," she growls as staff walk past them in both directions.
"You're always cold. You're not even wearing a long-sleeved shirt today."
"Because I knew you would be making my blood boil," she quips.
"Whatever," he trudges off in the other direction.
Later in the hall he finds Ariel wearing her candy striper uniform carrying an armful of outdated magazines.
"How is your shift going, sunshine?" He smirks at her.
"Fine," she answers flatly.
He stops, and looks at her, "What's wrong?"
She shrugs, "I don't know. My mom is acting weird."
"Did you do something to get under her skin?" He automatically assumes.
"Not any more than usual," she insists with a grimace.
"Do you have specific concern?"
"Her hand was shaking the other day. It's probably nothing, right?" Her voice offers a slight hint of urgency as she speaks.
"Do you want me to do a low-key investigation?"
"I cannot condone that, but I wouldn't reject it either."
He nod and taps her nose with his index finger, "Whatever my god-daughter wants she gets." Jesse continues down the hall in the opposite direction.
Days later Ethan finds Leanne on the roof after her shift. Her scrubs are creased, wrinkled, and stained from a long shift. He approaches quietly. As he nears he realizes that she is holding something in the palm of her hand. He clears his throat in an attempt to offer her a moment of privacy. Her elbows rest against the ledge. She doesn't shift as he approaches. Her brow is wrinkled as she stares out into oblivion.
"Shouldn't you be headed home?" He queries.
"It's Saturday morning. My daughter is still sleeping. There is no rush."
"I guess I'm just trying to figure out what you're doing up here."
She turns around to face him, "I could ask you the same."
"I guess for me sometimes I need to come up here to greet the sun in hopes that it might wash away some of the grit of the work we do. Last night was a particularly challenging night."
"Yeah. Sometimes it catches up to me the things I can't change."
He nods, and realizes what she's holding in her hand. He furrows his brow trying to connect the dots. Ethan's brow furrows, "Leanne, can I ask you a personal question?"
Her hands turn palm up, "I find that I've never been able to stop you."
"Do you ever let anyone see all of you?"
She winks, "Very rarely. That isn't the question you really wanted the answer to, is it?"
His cheeks flush for a moment, "No. I am just trying to figure out why you're holding an AA chip."
She holds up the chip so he can get a better look. It is a 5 year chip. She rolls it between her fingers.
"Are you asking why? Or are you asking who it belongs to?"
He shrugs, "Both, I guess."
"In the past five years, or so I have learned more hard truths about myself than I ever desired to know. In an ironic turn of events when my family was abruptly ripped from me I had no idea how to cope. I am pretty good at working. I threw myself into that. Even that wasn't enough to get me through the night, though. I would come home, and no matter how physically exhausted I was I couldn't sleep. Nothing I tried worked. So I started to drink a glass of wine before bed. Now, I know what you're thinking, my family died because of a drunk driver. Grief of course does not follow any sort of logical path. I just kept self-medicating, because the medication they offered me sure as hell didn't work."
"What happened to stop you?"
"One night I woke up and thought I saw my daughter standing at the foot of my bed. That's when I knew that what I was doing wasn't a solution. The only way to get through the pain was to walk through it."
"I had no idea that you were in recovery."
She exhales, "No one does. I have never told anyone. I never missed a day of work. I started going to therapy, and I was so entrenched in my shame that I never even brought it up to him."
"So why are you telling me?"
She shrugs, "Because you're standing there."
He nods, "How many times have you come up to this roof, and not found anyone standing here, when you needed them to be?"
"More times than I can count."