Joelle visits Gately, abiding
She describes the newest male resident’s weird limbo-injury posture, and the way Johnette Foltz has to cut up this Dave guy’s supper and drop it into his open mouth bit by bit like a bird with a chick. Lifting her face to the ceiling makes the linen veil conform to the features of the face below, mouth open wide in imitation of a chick.
Context
Joelle doing House gossip for the intubated Gately: when she mimes the new resident being fed like a chick the veil doesn't conceal the performance — it conforms to it, transmitting the open mouth through the linen. The veil as a surface the hidden face still writes on, which is exactly the two-way traffic U.H.I.D. doctrine never quite admits.