Ice Cream Amnesty

@alena

The hospital garden smells of wet lilac and first-cut grass, and the low May sun is already warm on the bench where Alena has just sat down, still in her night-shift scrubs, hair escaping its clip. She stretches her white shoes out in front of her — then her eyes catch a figure in slippers, half-hidden behind the hedge, breath held, freezer bag crinkling. “Going somewhere?” she says, and pats the bench beside her, her smile slow and entirely too pleased with itself.