She's gone just a couple of minutes, and when she gets back, she heads straight in to check on Edith. When she comes back out a bit later, she says "She's definitely coming out of it. She'll be out in a couple of minutes, so if you'd like to have a seat?"

I find myself a chair, and Denise takes a spot at one end of the couch. We make a little chit-chat, and a bit later Edith comes in. She isn't real steady, but she's moving under her own power, which is definitely a step up from when I saw her last. She's wearing this huge terry cloth bathrobe that looks like it sells for more than I make in tips in a week. Definitely not something you'd find in a suburban mall department store. Edith waves me and Denise both off when we start to get up to help her; her voice is pretty soft when she tells us she's okay. She really doesn't look all that okay, but she's definitely way ahead of where she was when we got her into the apartment; so I figure she'll BE okay, and that's what matters.

Edith gets herself parked at the other end of the couch from Denise and takes a deep breath before she tells me "Thanks for watching out for me, and getting me home safe, Jim. I don't know what that asshole put in my drink, but whatever it was, it was NOT fun. I could see and hear and feel and everything else; but no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't seem to say or do anything. It was like the wires from my brain to the rest of me were cut, or something. I was hoping and praying that you would realize something was wrong, and you did."

"Uh, not to embarrass you or anything, but when I saw some of the stuff he was doing to you… well, you've always seemed like a pretty classy lady, and I just couldn't figure you putting up with anything like that. Some people, they talk to me like I'm something they're going to have to clean off their shoe; but you treat me like what I am: somebody doing an honest job the best I can. Once I realized you weren't… right, I wasn't going to let anything else happen to you."