Free The Tides by Melanie Tem

who was sixty-three and had been at The Tides for nineteen years.
     
    'Are you aware of what's been going on around here?'
     
    Trick question, Rebecca thought, and made herself grin. 'I hope so.'
     
    'Are you aware of what's been going on between Beatrice Quinn and Dexter McCord?'
     
    'What specifically do you mean? I know they're close friends.' Maxine and Larry hooted.
     
    'Are you aware that they have been regularly engaging in sexual activity?'
     
    'How do you know that?'
     
    'We see them. My kids see them.'
     
    'We see them.' Shirley echoed. 'All the time.'
     
    'Do you mean to say that they're engaging in this — sexual activity — in public areas?'
     
    'No. In their rooms. You walk in and there they are. It's embarrassing.'
     
    'I think,' Diane declared, 'something should be done about it. And now is an opportune time, since she is in the hospital. I think we ought not to readmit her.'
     
    Shirley exclaimed, 'Oh, come on!' and Rebecca, taken aback, stared wordlessly at the nurse.
     
    'If it were my grandmother in a place where they were supposed to be taking care of her,' Diane went on grimly,
     
    ' I certainly would not want her taken advantage of like that.'
     
    'What makes you think Beatrice is being taken advantage of?' Rebecca managed.
     
    Colleen spoke up indignantly. 'What makes you think it's any of our business? We shouldn't even be talking about it.'
     
    'Beatrice Quinn is not rational. She's not capable of making decisions in her own best interest. She's not what I would call a consenting adult.'
     
    'How confused do you have to be,' Rebecca demanded, trying unsuccessfully to keep her voice calm, 'before you don't know what feels good? She can say no. Dexter doesn't strike me as a rapist.' Larry and Maxine guffawed.
     
    'So you're not going to do anything to stop it.'
     
    'No. If anything, maybe we need to step up our in services on respecting people's privacy before Beatrice comes back.'
     
    'Well.' Diane drew herself up to her full height to deliver her final shot. 'How do we even know his hands are clean?' She turned and left the room.
     
    'That's it!' Maxine was on her feet amid the general laughter, shaking her finger at the group. 'I'm going to get another cup of coffee, and when I get back I don't want to hear another word about work. You hear me? I'm sick of it.' She leaned across the table and pointed into Rebecca's face, smiling to pretend she was kidding but raising her voice to show she was not. 'That includes you, too, boss lady. You hear me? I got more in my life than this place, and if you don't you ought to.'
     
    When Abby got back to the floor, lights were on all up and down the hall, bells going off in various beeps and dings, all of them purposely annoying so you'd answer them in a hurry. By 6:30 almost everybody wanted to go to bed. Abby sent the aide who had been watching the floor on to supper and stood by the nurses' station for a minute, fighting back the nervousness that was a constant part of this job because there was always too much to do, trying to decide where to start. It was hard to think, and her body felt strange - heavy, crowded. Maybe she was getting sick. She thought she saw movement in the long hall, about halfway between the nurses' station and the exit, outside Marshall's room, a darkening and then lightening of the fluorescent ripples off the waxed floor, as if someone had passed through. But the hallway was empty.
     
    Abby rubbed her eyes, pressed her knuckles against the buzz of tension in her chest. She was antsy, didn't want to be here. But she couldn't think of anywhere else she wanted to be, either.
     
    The most natural thing for her to do, the thing that she had to think about least, was to answer Alex's light. She went into his room. 'Yes, Alex, what is it?'
     
    'You look tired,' he said at once, scanning her face. His eyes were green and restless, eerie in the stillness of the rest of his body.
     
    'I am tired.' She reached across