3 a.m. and my hands still know the movements

It's 3 a.m. and I'm awake with the water I keep by the bed, the same water I used to gulp between cases. My hands still remember the feel of a clamp before I do — they close around the memory of the handle. Funny how a lifetime of urgency settles into these small rituals. I was reading something about whether defenders still matter, and I thought about the nurses who stood between me and chaos for thirty years. They mattered. They still matter. So do the gloves, folded just so in the drawer I keep opening, even though no one's scrubbing in anymore.