He turned when I walked in and came toward me with his hand out and a smile calibrated to a frequency somewhere between professional and reassuring.
“Mrs. Richter,” he said. “I’m Dr. Fischer. Your children asked me to assess your mental well-being.”
I looked at my son, who did not look up from his hands. I looked at Lena, who moved to Dr. Fischer’s side and reached for my wrist with her fingers, a gesture designed to look like affection.
“At your age,” she said, her voice arranged into something that was meant to sound like tenderness, “episodes of confusion are completely normal.”
I looked at the folder on my table. It was thick, already labeled, already tabbed, the product of preparation that had taken more than an afternoon. I thought about how long this had been planned, how many conversations had happened in rooms I was not in, how many logistics had been arranged before this moment. And I noticed, in the particular way you notice things when shock has been replaced by clarity, that no one in the room had asked me a single question. No one had said hello. No one had checked whether I’d eaten or slept or needed anything. I was not a person to be concerned about in this room. I was a problem to be processed.
