I should go upstairs, make myself tea, and practice the techniques Helen drilled into me until muscle memory takes over and I stop having to think so damn hard about every single step. But my thumb hovers over the phone’s voice assistant, and before I can talk myself out of it, I’m asking Siri for directions to the nearest free clinic.
The automated voice tells me there’s one four blocks west. I can do four blocks. I’ve done harder things than that in the past seven weeks.
I make the trek. The clinic isn’t much to speak of—or so I imagine, based on the sounds filtering through the propped-open door when I finally locate it. Wailing babies, the flapping of magazines, a television playing Jerry Springer at an inhumane volume. When I approach the reception desk, a woman with a kind voice as
