Her eyes were red and puffy as she explained. I stared into them, a rare demonstration of intimacy on her part allowing me the tears welling up in her eyes and rolling down her nose. In that second she became a young child, no longer the tired woman dressed in suicide-watch-blue hospital scrubs watching shitty movies in the common room until late at night. Eyes fixed on the television screen and her knees bent up to her chin. An old soul with old secrets she kept to herself.

"I could never do that to anyone," the old child said.