Runaway

or was forbidden to do so, as in some game, and continued on his way, bumping the cart down a ramp to a lower cellar.
    He would be an inmate, not an employee. It must be the sort of place where people were put to work, if they could work. The idea being that it would be good for them, and maybe it was.
    Finally came a responsible-looking person, a woman of about Nancy’s own age in a dark suit—not wearing the white apron that enfolded most of the rest of them—and Nancy told everything again. That she had received a letter, her name having been given by an inmate—by a resident, as they wanted you to say—as the person to be contacted.
    She had been right in thinking that the people in the kitchen were not hired help.
    “But they seem to like working here,” the Matron said. “They take a pride.” Smiling a warning left and right, she led Nancy into her office, which was a room off the kitchen. It became clear as they were talking that she had to deal with all sorts of interruptions, making decisions about kitchen work and settling complaints whenever somebody bundled into a white apron came peering around the door. She must also have to handle the files, the bills or notices that were stuck in a rather unbusinesslike way on hooks around the walls. As well as dealing with visitors like Nancy.
    “We went through what old records we had and got out the names that were given as relatives—”
    “I am not a relative,” said Nancy.
    “Or whatever, and we wrote letters like the one you received, just to get some guidelines on the way they might want these cases handled. I must say we haven’t had many responses. It was good of you to drive all this way.”
    Nancy asked what was meant by
these cases.
    The Matron said that people had been here for years who perhaps didn’t belong here.
    “You must understand that I am new here,” she said, “but I will tell you what I know.”
    According to her the place had been a catchall, literally, for those who were genuinely mentally ill, or senile, or those who would never develop normally, one way or another, or people whose families could not or would not cope with them. There had always been, and still was, a wide range. The serious problems were all in the north wing, under security.
    Originally this had been a private hospital, owned and run by a doctor. After he died, the family—the doctor’s family—took it over, and it turned out that they had their own ways of doing things. It had been partly turned into a charity hospital and there were some unusual arrangements made to get subsidies for charity patients who were not proper charity cases at all. Some of those still on the books had actually passed away and some did not have the proper claim or records to be here. Many of those, of course, worked for their keep and this may have been—it was—usually good for their morale, but it was nevertheless all irregular and against the law.
    And now, the thing was that there had been a thorough investigation and the whole place was being closed down. The building was antiquated anyway. Its capacity was too small, this was not the way things were done now. The serious cases were going to a big facility in Flint or Lansing—it wasn’t quite definite yet—and some could go into sheltered housing, group homes, as the new trend was, and then there were some who could manage if they were placed with relatives.
    Tessa was considered to be one of these. It seemed that she had needed some electrical treatments when she came in, but for a long time now she had been on just the mildest medication.
    “Shock treatments?” Nancy said.
    “Perhaps shock
therapy
,” the Matron said, as if that made some special difference. “You say you are not a relative. That means you don’t intend to take her.”
    “I have a husband—” said Nancy. “I have a husband who is—he would be in a place like this, I guess, but I am looking after him at home.”
    “Oh. Really,” the Matron said, with a sigh that was not disbelieving, but not sympathetic either. “And a problem is that apparently she is not even a citizen. She herself does not think she is—so I suppose you are not interested now in seeing her?”
    “Yes,” said Nancy. “Yes, I am. That’s what I came for.”
    “Oh. Well. She is just around the corner, in the bakery. She’s been baking here for years. I think there was a baker hired at first, but when he left they never hired anybody else, they didn’t