First seen, misread: the limping "addicted patient" at the Office door

texture · 14 Nov YDAU, evening

• When: evening of 14 Nov YDAU — Ennet House group-intake night, minutes before her interview of the disguised Marathe
• What: Pat's first on-page appearance in the Marathe thread is anonymous: "The visible door of the locked Office opened and an addicted patient emerged with a person in authority holding a clipboard" — and it is the limping, listing woman Marathe files as the patient. Only at the interview does the narration correct the misread: the "addicted patient" who limped out is the House's Executive Director. For one waiting-room beat, seen through a stranger's professional eye, the director is indistinguishable from the addicts she runs the House for — the staff/patient line her whole portrait keeps blurring, here enacted before she says a word.