We've been moved. Not moved in the warm fuzzy sense; a new room. Actually it's the room we were in for a total of 4 hours before being shuffled down a different hallway about a month ago. To charge, it's a matter of paperwork and logistics: who needs more monitoring, who is most critical and needs to be closer to the desk. To me I'm packing up my life, one reusable shopping bag at a time, carrying them all down the hallway to another wing, then placing things delicately on my windowsill, desk and institutional rolling food tray in a certain arrangement that feels the most like home. I have this down to a routine now; I'm moving furniture and testing for door squeaks within the first minutes of switching. I try to tell myself that 2113 must be our lucky number, THIS is the last time we'll switch rooms, THIS is the room we'll go home from and never look back. Look at the view! This parking lot will surely be far more interesting than the last. Oh fantastic! The new thermal on my bench/bed is a solid pink color and not that ugly blended outdated one. This is our 8th room. I've memorized this speech or a variation of it. I try to keep positive, and this gives me something to do today. A task. A glorious slot of time where I have a list of things that need doing to completion. A purpose. There are perks to changing rooms; our last room was originally one large room that was reno'd and divided into two. This meant we were number 2125-1, our neighbor 2125-2.  These are the only rooms that follow this numbering. Countless times I was woken up by neurology or hematology at all hours, men or women talking to me about Avery. "How's Avery doing?" they say. I got to the point where they would walk in and I'd say, "this is 2125-1, not 2, this is Dylan" to save the introduction prattle and forced greetings. I almost felt I knew Avery and could probably have given report. I'd know if he was having a good or bad week depending on the traffic flow. The one time I wanted to perform an experiment. To test their process so-to-speak, and I let her talk. I was fairly certain she was in the wrong room, I wasn't expecting any news. She approaches cautiously and asks how I am (man, I hate conversation that starts this way!), I say "as well as I can be" with a saccharine smile.  She tells me she works with Sandy, and that she's delivering some news on arrangements that were made. Coincidently, Sandy is also my social worker so I can keep up my charade of pretending this visit might be intended for me.  She tells me of a room they've set up, with a counsellor that I was to go to at 1:00 with my support person. She asks if I've had anymore troubling thoughts. She asks where my support person was, "oh, they left yesterday" I say. Shock is written on her face "left? As in you're here alone now?".  "Yes....." Ok, I'm in too deep. I've got to come clean. "It's just that...... Well, we thought your mother was here." "Nope, just me." "...And what about Brad?" "Who?" "Your husb..... Oh," she looks at her piece of paper and her cheeks flush with
embarrassment. I feel a twinge of guilt for having baited her this far but pretend I'm clueless. She asks my last name. She apologizes repeatedly and I tell her it happens all the time. She apologizes for interrupting my day and I wonder how the neighbor would feel to know that I now know she's going for suicide counseling just because our rooms are oddly numbered. It hits me that I now carry the weight of knowing she's on watch. I mean, I've always smiled at her in passing but now I have moral obligation to check on her. I make the mental note not to start our next conversation with "how are you".  Our new location is better. We're right next to the desk. Lots of bustling and juicy gossip, hot off the press. It's a welcome change from the service elevator hallway that was across from us before. It had loud, clanking metal doors which were opened and closed every 3 mins, 24/7. Beep! (the sound of the scanned personnel card), creeeeeeak, pause, ca-lunk lunk. One day I counted 72 times. Also, everything in a hospital has casters, usually an odd number of working ones. These things were usually what were being moved in and out of the access hallway, along with screaming kids heading to X-ray or ultrasound being wheeled in their cages... I mean, cribs. Diseases don't stop at 9pm. Yep, we're living the dream now: sunset in our window, a bathroom door which doesn't squeak, room layout which actually makes sense, and white noise primarily composed of laughter and gossip. Things are going our way.