“Can you take the morning delivery?” Tessa asked.
Eli put his notebook on the clinic table. “Which one?”
“The pharmacy order. Leah can receive it here, but the driver won’t come past the tram depot without an extra charge.”
“I can collect it.”
Tessa opened the appointment book. “Kellan said he might be free to help with the heavier box. Ask him before you promise the driver a time.”
The irritation from the yard returned without warning. It came with a kitchen that was not this one: a chipped blue plate, a coat hanging on the back of a chair, a voice saying a promise had been broken. Eli knew the room and the anger with a certainty that lasted only a second.
“You said you’d stop making promises for me,” he snapped.
Tessa looked up. “I didn’t make one.”
“You told him I’d be there.”
“I said ask him whether he’s free.”
The clinic table came back into focus. Leah stood by the cabinet holding a folded receiving sheet. Sera had stopped at the door with her map under one arm. Neither had spoken.
Eli’s hand was clenched around the notebook. The blue plate was gone. He could still feel the anger, but it no longer fit the room.
Tessa closed the appointment book. “What do you think I said?”
“That you’d promised Kellan I would collect the order.”
“I said he might be free. I asked you to check before promising the driver.”
Leah held out the receiving sheet. “That’s what I heard.”
Eli looked from one to the other. The words Tessa had spoken were ordinary. The accusation he had heard belonged to another conversation, in another room. The feeling had arrived so quickly that he had treated it as his own before he recognized the image.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You didn’t say that.”
Tessa did not open the book again. “What happened?”
“I saw a fragment that wasn’t mine. I think it came with the new ability. I heard your question through it.”
“Are you seeing it now?”
“No.”
“Can you tell me where you are?”
“The clinic. The supply table. Leah’s holding the receiving sheet, and Sera is by the door.”
Sera moved the map to her other arm. “I’m here.”
Eli loosened his grip on the notebook. He had written the timing of the earlier irritation, but he had not expected it to return after the test was over. He had certainly not expected it to put words in Tessa’s mouth.
“I need a minute,” he said.
“Take it,” Tessa replied. “Leah and I will handle the driver.”
He stepped outside. The evening air was cooler than the clinic. Across the street, a tram stopped and released a handful of passengers. A boy carried a paper bag against his chest while his father checked the crossing. Eli named the things he could see, as he had after the first intrusion from Darius’s imprint: the red tram sign, the cracked paving stone, the light above the sewing shop.
The anger did not disappear at once. It had a shape and a history that did not belong to him. He remembered the blue plate, the coat, and the sense of being accused of failing someone. He did not know the full argument, and he had no right to turn the fragment into a story about Garin and Rowan.
Inside, a chair scraped. The sound made him turn too quickly. Tessa came out alone and stopped beside the door.
“Do you want me to stay?” she asked.
“Yes.”
She waited while a tram passed. Then she said, “The explanation matters. It doesn’t make it acceptable to speak to me as if I said something I didn’t.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“If that happens while we’re moving a patient, an apology afterward won’t keep someone from following the wrong instruction.”
He pictured the yard, the crate settling onto the backup support, and the warning he had nearly delayed. “I should tell everyone before the next job.”
“You should tell the people whose safety depends on recognizing it. You don’t have to describe the private memory.”
He leaned against the wall. “Kellan already knows I have a new ability. Sera saw the irritation. If I tell them I can lose track of what someone said, they may decide they don’t want to work with me.”
“They may. I didn’t choose to be part of that memory, and I was affected anyway.”
He had no answer that would make the risk disappear. He had wanted the new ability because a few seconds of stability could save someone. He had not expected the same ability to make an ordinary question sound like an accusation.
“What should I write?” he asked.
“What helps you recognize the episode and what helps us respond. Not a transcript of someone else’s argument.”
They went back inside after Leah finished the call. She had arranged for the driver to hold the order until the following morning. Kellan would confirm whether he could carry the second box. The delivery plan had changed by ten minutes, not by the promise Eli had imagined.
A knock came at the side door. A delivery driver stood there holding a small parcel addressed to the clinic. Leah opened the door only far enough to see the label; the parcel was for the neighboring shop.
“I’ll take it around,” Eli said.
Tessa looked at him. “Do you feel ready to do that?”
He almost answered with irritation again. This time he caught the feeling and checked what she had actually asked. “Yes. I can walk next door with a parcel.”
The driver handed it over. Eli carried it to the shop, where the owner signed and asked whether the clinic had room for another volunteer on Saturday. Eli did not promise a shift. He wrote the owner’s number and told her Leah handled the schedule.
On the way back he saw the same red tram sign and cracked paving stone he had named while trying to orient himself. They were still there, but noticing them did not prove that the next fragment would announce itself. He went inside and gave Leah the number. She thanked him, called the owner, and arranged a short introduction rather than adding a stranger directly to the patient schedule.
Sera set her map on the table. “Do you want me here?”
Eli looked at Tessa. She gave him no signal either way.
“Yes,” he said. “You saw the test. You should know what happened afterward.”
He described the sequence: the anchoring practice, the brief irritation after releasing the raised crate, the feeling fading, and the later fragment in the clinic. He did not describe the kitchen or the words of the argument. He told Sera that he had mistaken Tessa’s question for a different one.
“Can you tell when it’s starting?” Sera asked.
“I noticed irritation in the yard. I didn’t know it would return as an image.”
“And you thought it was over before we came inside.”
“Yes.”
“Then a warning right after use isn’t enough.”
“No.”
She drew a short line on a scrap of paper, marking the end of the test and the later conversation. “We know the order. We don’t have a dependable interval.”
Tessa added the time Leah had called the driver. Eli estimated when the fragment appeared. They did not pretend the estimate was exact; the useful fact was that the episode had occurred after he believed he was clear.
“What would you want us to do if you stop responding?” Sera asked.
“Call my name. Ask me where I am and what I heard.”
“And if you answer with the wrong thing?”
“Stop the task. Don’t follow my instruction until I’m oriented.”
Tessa wrote the response on a card. “That applies to shared work. If you need medical assessment, we’ll decide based on what happens.”
Eli took out his notebook. On a fresh page he wrote the time, the active ability, the delay, and the effect on his speech. He did not write the private scene. Beneath the entry he added: Tessa asked about the delivery. I accused her of making a promise she hadn’t made.
He showed her the line. She read it and handed the notebook back.
“Are you comfortable with Kellan seeing it?” he asked.
“I don’t need to control your account of what happened to you. I don’t want the family’s argument written down or shared.”
“It isn’t.”
Kellan called before Eli could reach him. He could help with the pharmacy order but needed to take Theo to an appointment afterward. Eli told him about the episode, including that it had occurred after practice and affected what he thought Tessa had said.
There was a pause. “Are you clear now?” Kellan asked.
“Yes.”
“Then tomorrow we use the cart and keep the boxes on the ground. If you stop answering, I take the load. We don’t test the new ability during the delivery.”
“You still want to work with me?”
“I want the pharmacy order delivered. I also want to know if the person holding the other end might stop hearing me. You told me. We’ll see how it goes.”
Kellan called back a few minutes later. “One more thing. If you tell me you’re clear tomorrow and then go quiet with a box in your hands, I’m setting my end down. Don’t try to save the load by holding yours.”
“All right.”
“I’ll say your name first. If you don’t answer, the box goes down.”
Eli imagined a bottle breaking inside the package and the clinic losing supplies. Kellan was giving him a plan that did not depend on him finding the right words while disoriented. “Make sure the box has a clear place to land,” he said.
“That’s already on my list.”
Sera took the phone when Eli handed it over and discussed the cart route with Kellan. She had noticed a temporary barrier near the depot that might make the ordinary pavement too narrow. Kellan would check it before the driver arrived; if it remained in place, they would use the route around the public square. The call ended with a time and a second route rather than a reassurance that everything would be fine.
After the call, Eli sat at the table while Tessa finished the appointment book. He wanted to repair the conversation immediately, to make her say she understood and move on. She was still working. He waited.
When she closed the book, he said, “I accused you in front of Leah and Sera. I’ll apologize to them too.”
“You can. Don’t make them responsible for reassuring you.”
“I won’t.”
He found Leah in the shop upstairs, counting thread with Mrs. Ortega. He apologized for interrupting the delivery plan and told her he had mistaken what Tessa said. Leah accepted the apology, then handed him a roll of tape to carry downstairs.
“Try the cart empty tomorrow,” she said. “The handle still pulls left.”
Sera was marking the warehouse route on a fresh sheet. Eli apologized to her as well. She asked whether the new ability had been active when the fragment appeared.
“No. The test had ended.”
“That’s the part I want to remember.” She wrote after release beside the time on her scrap. “If we test again, someone else handles the weight until you’re clear.”
That night Eli opened the notebook at home. The entry was brief: time, ability, symptoms, mistaken speech, and the response the team had agreed to try. He added a line for anything that happened later, then left it blank. The fragment remained in his memory, but the page did not reproduce a family argument he had never been invited to hear.
He set an alarm for the pharmacy pickup and another for Kellan’s appointment deadline. He put the delivery address beside the front door, under his keys, with the backup route Sera had suggested. In the morning he would check the barrier before calling the driver, so the team would not discover the obstruction while balancing a box. In the morning he would move ordinary boxes with ordinary hands. The new ability could wait until the people around him had a plan for what happened if he could not tell one room from another.