Standard Greeting

"The most terrifying thing isn't discovering you were wrong. It's realising you might not be able to tell the difference."

The social worker arrived mid-morning, the pale winter light filtering through the blinds casting thin stripes across the hospital bed. Her name was Karen Walsh. She was softer around the edges than the medical staff, with a cardigan over her blouse and reading glasses pushed up into greying hair. She carried a folder like everyone else, but she held it loosely, casually, as if the paperwork were incidental to the real reason she was here.

"Claire? I'm Karen. Mind if I sit down?"

She didn't wait for an answer, just settled into the chair Dr Price had vacated hours earlier and arranged herself with the ease of someone who spent most of her days sitting beside hospital beds. No clipboard poised, no pen in hand. Just her attention, focused and warm.

I didn't trust it.

The warmth was a technique, just like Dr Price's careful questions had been a technique. They all had their methods—the doctors with their clinical assessments, the nurses with their vital signs, and the social workers with their conversational approach designed to make you forget you were being evaluated. Karen Walsh might look like someone's grandmother, but she was here to gather information. To determine whether I had the support systems in place to justify releasing me. To decide what happened next.

"How are you feeling?" she asked. "And I don't mean physically—the doctors have that covered. I mean how are you really doing? After everything."

The question was an invitation to confide, to let my guard down, to reveal the messy truths I'd been carefully packaging for professional consumption. I considered my answer, weighing how much vulnerability would seem authentic without being alarming.

"I'm tired," I said. "Embarrassed. A bit scared about what happens now."

Karen nodded as if these were exactly the right things to feel. "That's understandable. What you went through last night—that takes a toll. It's a lot to process."

"I'm still processing," I admitted. This, at least, was true.

"I wanted to talk to you about a few practical things," Karen said, shifting slightly in her chair. "What happens when you leave here, who's going to be around to support you, that sort of thing. But first, I need to catch you up on some of what we've been doing on our end."

Something in her tone made me pay closer attention. A slight hesitation, a careful choosing of words.

"We've been trying to reach your husband," she continued. "Paul, is it? Dr Harris gave us his details from your records."

Paul. Even the name felt dangerous now, loaded with everything that had happened, everything that had led me here. I kept my expression neutral, waiting.

"We weren't able to speak with him directly," Karen said. "But we did reach his voicemail, and we've left a message explaining the situation. Hopefully he'll call back soon."

Voicemail.

Dr Price had mentioned this earlier—had said it almost in passing, while I was still foggy from the assessment, still managing my performance. I'd registered the word without fully processing it, had filed it away as something to think about later. But now, with Karen watching me expectantly, the implications began to unfold.

Voicemail meant his phone was working. Voicemail meant it was receiving calls, recording messages, functioning exactly as a phone should function. But that couldn't be right. I'd called that number a hundred times last night—more—and every single time I'd heard the same thing.

The number you have called cannot be connected.

Not voicemail. Not Paul's cheerful greeting. Not even silence. Just that flat, automated voice telling me over and over that he was gone, unreachable, erased from the network entirely.

"Claire?" Karen was watching me with gentle concern. "Are you all right?"

"Yes, I—" I stopped, tried to gather myself. "I'm just surprised. His phone wasn't working last night. When I tried to call him."

"What do you mean, wasn't working?"

"It was disconnected. The message said—it said the number couldn't be connected. I tried calling so many times, and it kept saying the same thing. The number you have called cannot be connected."

The words came out faster than I intended, carrying an edge of something that sounded too much like desperation. I saw Karen register it—saw her expression shift almost imperceptibly, adding this data point to whatever picture she was building of my mental state.

"That's strange," she said carefully. "When I called this morning, it rang through to his voicemail. Standard greeting. 'Hi, you've reached Paul Smith, leave a message.' Are you sure the calls weren't connecting?"

Was I sure?

The question opened up a chasm beneath me. I'd been so certain last night—absolutely, unshakably certain that his phone was disconnected, that he'd cut the line, that he'd removed himself from my reach in the most absolute way possible. I'd built an entire narrative around that certainty. He was gone. He'd erased himself. He'd left me with nothing but an automated voice confirming my abandonment.

But what if that certainty had been a lie?

I tried to reconstruct the night, to separate memory from interpretation. I'd been exhausted—more exhausted than I'd ever been, running on no sleep and mounting panic. I'd been taking pills—Temazepam first, then the Seroquel, chemical interference piling up in my bloodstream. I'd been spiralling, calling over and over, unable to stop, unable to accept that he wasn't going to answer.

Was it possible that I'd heard what I expected to hear? That my damaged brain had translated voicemail into disconnection, had transformed he's not answering into he doesn't exist?

"I don't know," I said. The admission cost something. "I was—I wasn't well last night. I was very confused. I might have—I might have heard it wrong."

Karen nodded slowly, her expression sympathetic. "That's very common, when we're under extreme stress. Our brains can play tricks on us. Interpret things in ways that match what we're feeling rather than what's actually happening."

Or I was psychotic, I thought but didn't say. Or I was hallucinating. Or I've lost the ability to tell the difference between reality and whatever nightmare my mind constructs when I'm not paying attention.

"Would it help to try again?" Karen asked. "To call him yourself, hear what the phone does?"

The suggestion sent a spike of something through me—fear, maybe, or hope, or some toxic combination of the two. If I called and heard the disconnection message again, then last night had been real, Paul had truly cut me off, and I hadn't imagined the worst moment of an already terrible night. But if I called and heard his voicemail—his voice, cheerful and casual, promising to get back to me—then what? Then I'd been wrong. Then I couldn't trust my own perceptions. Then everything I thought I knew about last night was suspect.

I didn't know which answer I was more afraid of.

"Yes," I heard myself say. "I'd like to try."

Karen reached into the bag at her feet and withdrew a plastic container—the kind hospitals used to store patients' personal effects. My belongings. My phone would be in there, along with whatever else I'd had on me when the ambulance arrived.

"We collected your things when you came in," she said, placing the container on the bed beside me. "I should let you know—we're not supposed to give patients their phones during observation, normally. But given the circumstances, I thought it might help to let you see for yourself. Dr Price approved it."

I pulled the container toward me with hands that weren't quite steady. The lid came off to reveal a sad little collection—my watch, my house keys, a hair elastic, and there at the bottom, my phone. The screen was cracked, a web of fractures spreading from one corner where it had hit the mirror or the wall or the floor, I couldn't remember anymore. But when I pressed the button, it lit up.

7% battery.

And notifications. Missed calls, messages, alerts that had accumulated while I lay unconscious. I didn't look at them. Couldn't afford to look at them, not with Karen watching.

"Take your time," Karen said.

I navigated to Paul's contact. His name sat there on the screen, the same as always, the number beneath it unchanged. My thumb hovered over the call button.

The number you have called cannot be connected.

I could hear it already—that flat, automated voice, the message burned into my memory from hours of repetition. I would call and I would hear it and I would know that last night had been real, that I hadn't imagined the worst of it, that my husband had truly made himself unreachable.

I pressed call.

The phone began to ring.

Not the clicks and dead air of a disconnected number. Not the immediate redirect to an automated message. Actual ringing—the sound of a signal travelling through networks and towers and all the invisible infrastructure that was supposed to connect one person to another.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

And then—

"Hi, you've reached Paul Smith. I can't take your call right now, but leave a message and I'll get back to you."

His voice.

I'd forgotten what it sounded like—or not forgotten exactly, but the memory had been overwritten by hours of that other voice, the automated one, until Paul's actual voice had become something distant and unreal. But here it was, cheerful and casual, recorded months or years ago when leaving a voicemail greeting was just a thing you did, a small administrative task that didn't mean anything.

Leave a message and I'll get back to you.

The beep sounded. The phone waited for me to speak.

I couldn't.

I ended the call and sat there staring at the screen, at Paul's name, at the evidence that his phone was working, had been working, was accepting calls and recording messages and doing all the things it had refused to do last night.

"It went to voicemail," I said. My voice sounded strange to me—flat, distant, like someone else was speaking through my mouth.

"Just like when I called," Karen said gently. "That's good, isn't it? It means the phone is working."

Good. Was it good? I didn't know what it was. I didn't know what anything was anymore.

"Last night," I said, "it didn't ring. It didn't go to voicemail. Every time I called, it just—it said the number couldn't be connected. Over and over. Dozens of times. Maybe more. I know what I heard."

But did I? The certainty I'd felt was crumbling, undermined by the simple fact of a phone that worked. Maybe I'd been dialling wrong. Maybe I'd been calling a different number somehow, my fingers too clumsy with exhaustion and medication to find the right keys. Maybe—

Maybe I'd lost my mind.

The possibility sat there, cold and precise, refusing to be dismissed. If I could hear a disconnection message that wasn't there, what else could I hear? What else could I see, feel, believe that had no basis in reality? The entire night existed in my memory as a series of increasingly desperate attempts to reach someone who couldn't be reached. But what if he could have been reached the whole time? What if I'd been calling and calling into a void of my own creation, building a narrative of abandonment out of a simple case of a man who wasn't answering his phone?

"It's possible his battery died," Karen offered. "If his phone was off, or out of charge, it might have given you that message. And then when he charged it again—"

"Yes," I said quickly, seizing on the explanation. "Yes, that must be it. The battery died. That's why it said—" I stopped, aware that I was sounding too eager, too desperate to believe. "That must be what happened."

Karen nodded, but I could see the way she was looking at me—with that particular blend of compassion and concern that meant she was adding this to her assessment. Patient reports auditory misperception. Patient uncertain of own perceptions. Patient demonstrating possible dissociative symptoms.

"Would you like me to try leaving another message?" she asked. "In case he didn't get the first one?"

"No." The word came out sharper than I intended. "I mean—thank you, but no. I'll try to reach him myself. Later. When I've had time to think about what to say."

"Of course." Karen settled back in her chair, showing no signs of leaving. "Now, I wanted to talk to you about what happens when you're discharged. Dr Price mentioned you'll be here at least overnight for observation, possibly a bit longer depending on how things go. But we need to start thinking about what support you'll have when you go home."

Home. The word conjured images I wasn't ready to face—the empty house, Paul's absence saturating every room, the studio with its shattered mirror and blood-stained floor. I pushed them aside, forced myself to focus on what Karen was saying.

"What kind of support?"

"Well, ideally we'd like to know you won't be alone for the first few days. Someone who can stay with you, or at least check in regularly. Someone you can call if you're struggling." Karen's tone was matter-of-fact, practical, but I heard the subtext. Someone to watch you. Someone to make sure you don't do this again.

"My mother lives here in Broken Hill," I said. "She's been looking after my children."

"Yes, Dawn." Karen glanced at her folder. "I actually spoke with her earlier this morning, when you first came in. We needed to contact your next of kin, and since we couldn't reach your husband—"

"You spoke to my mother?"

The panic spiked before I could control it. Dawn knew. Dawn had been called, had been told—what? That her daughter was in the hospital after an overdose? That Claire had done it again, had fallen apart again, had proven every fear Dawn had been carrying for eight years?

"I had to," Karen said gently. "It's standard procedure. We need to notify someone when a patient is admitted in circumstances like yours, and since Paul wasn't answering—"

"What did you tell her?"

"Just that you'd been brought in, that you were stable, that she could call the ward for updates." Karen paused, reading something in my expression. "She was very worried, Claire. She wanted to come straight in, but I suggested she wait until you were awake and we'd had a chance to assess you. I thought you might want some say in when you see her."

Some say. A small mercy, but a mercy nonetheless. At least I hadn't woken up to find Dawn sitting beside my bed, her face arranged in that expression I knew so well—worry and fear and something that looked too much like vindication. I knew this would happen. I've been waiting for this to happen.

"Thank you," I said. "For giving me time."

"Of course. But she will want to see you, and we will need to talk about whether she can provide some of that support I mentioned. Is that something you'd be comfortable with? Staying with her for a few days, or having her stay with you?"

The thought of Dawn in my house—going through my things, seeing the state of the studio, all the evidence of my unravelling—made my stomach turn. But the alternative was worse. The alternative was being told I couldn't go home at all, that I needed more intensive support, that the psychiatric unit was the only safe option.

"I'm sure we can work something out," I said carefully. "Mum and I—we're not always easy with each other. But she'd want to help. She'd insist on it."

Karen nodded, making a note. "That's good. We'll also want to set up some follow-up appointments for you. Mental health support, someone to monitor how you're doing, make sure you have access to help if you need it."

"Of course."

"And we'll need to talk about medication. The Temazepam you were taking—that's something we'll want to review with your GP. It's not ideal for long-term use, and given what happened..."

"I understand."

The conversation continued—practical matters, logistical concerns, the bureaucratic framework that would surround my release. Karen asked about my GP, about whether I'd ever seen a psychologist or counsellor, about what services I was aware of in Broken Hill. I answered on autopilot, giving her the information she needed while my mind circled back to the phone call, to Paul's voice on the voicemail, to the question of what was real and what I might have imagined.

Finally, Karen began to gather her things.

"I think that's everything for now," she said, reaching for the plastic container that still sat on the bed. "I'll need to take your phone back to the nurses' station. Like I said, we don't normally let patients keep their personal devices during observation—"

"Wait."

The word came out before I could stop it. Karen paused, her hand hovering over the container.

"I need to call my mother," I said. "You said she's worried. And my children are with her—they don't know anything's wrong. I need to talk to her before she comes in here. I need to—" I searched for the right framing, the words that would make this sound reasonable rather than desperate. "I need to make sure she doesn't tell them. Mack and Rose. They're too young to understand this. I don't want them to be scared."

Karen hesitated. I could see her weighing the request against protocol, against whatever guidelines governed situations like this.

"Please," I added. "Just one phone call. Five minutes. You can—" I gestured toward the curtain. "You can wait right there. I just need a bit of privacy. She'll be upset, and I don't want to break down in front of—"

I let the sentence trail off, let my voice catch slightly. The performance of a mother worried about her children, a daughter concerned about her mother's distress. Both true, in their way. Just not the whole truth.

Karen sighed.

"Five minutes," she said. "I'll be just outside the curtain. If you need anything, just call out."

"Thank you. Really."

She stood, leaving my phone on the bed, and moved toward the curtain. Paused with her hand on the fabric.

"Claire—I know this is hard. All of it. But you have people who care about you. Try to remember that."

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

The curtain swished closed behind her.

I was alone.