I almost got back off the shuttle immediately because I figured they’d mixed me up with somebody else from the medical campus nearby. But the driver already pulled away from the curb before I even sat down.
Nobody else on the shuttle seemed confused.
The woman who said I was earlier than usual kept crocheting like we’d known each other forever. Across from her an older guy with a hearing aid nodded at me and asked if “the insurance office finally fixed the bathroom situation upstairs.”
I told him I worked at an insurance office but didn’t know what bathroom he meant.
He laughed softly like I was joking.
The shuttle never went downtown.
Instead it looped behind the hospital complex and stopped at a low brick building I honestly thought was another outpatient clinic. Everybody stood up automatically when we parked. The driver even grabbed my tote bag from beside me before I could say anything.
I kept trying to explain there had to be some mistake, but every answer I got sounded weirdly patient.
“Schedules update sometimes.”
“Your daughter already approved transportation changes.”
Stuff like that.
Inside the lobby there were puzzles set up on folding tables and one of those fake electric fireplaces even though it was June outside. A receptionist waved when I walked in and said, “Good, you made it before group started.”
I finally asked her directly what place this was.
She blinked once like she wasn’t sure how to answer, then lowered her voice and asked if my daughter had explained the memory support transition yet.
I said what daughter.
That’s when her smile disappeared a little.
She turned her monitor slightly away from me but not before I saw my own photo attached to a profile on the screen.
Under my name it said:
TRANSPORT STATUS: cooperative today.