Part 4
At the hand-wash sink, Tessa caught up with him.
“You forgot your notebook,” Tessa said.
Ray looked at the damp black cover in Tessa’s hand. For one frightening second, he did not recognize it. Then the softened corners, Elise’s phone number on the inside flap, and the familiar pattern of his cramped handwriting returned together.
“The unit pages get copied,” he said. “The rest comes home.”
“I’ll do it Monday.” Tessa held the notebook out. “Come back when it isn’t a workday.”
Ray dried his hands slowly. “That depends on what’s good for Mosi.”
“Elise and I can figure that out.”
Ray took the notebook. “Then figure it out.”
The team tried two short visits over the next month. After each one, Mosi waited at the south panel and was slower to rejoin his group, so they paused further contact and kept his routine predictable. Ray accepted the decision. That was harder than leaving had been.
For three more months he worked in a quiet Rainwood office, dictating details the old files had missed: which female became anxious when ladders were moved, how Mosi signaled a tired left shoulder, why figs should be scattered instead of handed out in pairs. When concentration made even that work unreliable, he took medical leave. At home, June labeled cabinets and put a whiteboard beside the door. Ray stopped erasing it after it helped him find his own dentist appointment.
Two and a half years after his last day on the unit, Elise and the animal-care team approved a private early-morning visit based on Mosi’s stable routine and welfare. Ray’s clinician saw no medical barrier to a brief accompanied outing, provided June came and they kept it short.
In the car, June asked Ray twice whether he still wanted to go. The first time he said yes. The second time, he could not remember where they were going.
She did not supply the answer immediately. She let him look at the old work cap on his knees and at the Rainwood patch he had sewn back on three times.
“The center,” Ray said at last.
At Rainwood, he recognized the gorilla building by smell before he recognized Dana. Damp straw, produce, disinfectant, wet concrete. The corridor seemed narrower than he remembered. He kept one hand on June’s arm and did not pretend he was steady.
Tessa met them at the protected-contact panel. The ring of animal-area keys rested at her hip without looking borrowed.
“We can stop whenever you want,” Tessa said.
Ray searched for Tessa’s name and failed. Shame rose fast, followed by the old impulse to cover it with authority.
“Tell me again,” he said instead.
“Tessa.”
“Tessa,” Ray repeated. “Right.”
Mosi entered from the far side of the dayroom with a length of willow in one hand. Age had thickened his silver saddle, but he still carried the branch by its narrow end. He stopped several feet from the mesh, and no one called to him.
Ray could not find Mosi’s name. He knew the slope of the silver back, the pale mark below the wrist, the patient set of the mouth. He knew that the willow would be stripped from the top down and that the thicker end would be saved until last. The name remained somewhere he could not reach.
Mosi came closer, lowered himself beside the mesh, and placed two fingers against the steel. Ray stepped forward and set his palm against the other side.
The steel was cool beneath his hand. Mosi made the low, rolling sound, and Ray felt the vibration before he understood it.
“There you are,” Ray said.
They remained that way until Ray’s legs began to tremble. June moved closer, but Ray lowered his hand on his own.
Mosi stayed beside the mesh when Ray stepped back. At the next station, Tessa waited with the bowl at her hip, giving him time to choose.
Ray turned toward the corridor with June. At the junction, he stopped. The left hall and the right looked equally familiar.
“Which way?” he asked.
June held out her hand. Ray took it.
Behind them, Tessa called the door number, another keeper confirmed it, and the morning continued.