In the rearview mirror Red seemed to be intentionally looking away from Dune as they wound their way back into the city center. Don’t take it personally, Dune thought, that was the angle of her head when she got sick. Turning towards or away was one of the simplest expressions of being alive. Deer turned towards predators, babies turned towards the breast, flowers turned towards the sun. Dune wondered again: what was it that could snatch so much essence out of a person that they were less motivated to survive than a flower?

Pulling up in front of her house, she had no idea what to do with this listless, quiet woman. Dune got out of the car. She’d arranged Red directly behind her, on plastic bags she’d found on the street, hoping to protect her car seats from the ways the woman had soiled herself. Red stood up easily, pliant when pulled. Dune led her up the porch stairs, pulling her legs one at a time up each stair, amazed at how absent any sentience was in this body. She opened the door and brought the woman inside.

Red smelled worse in the enclosed space of the house. Dune took her into the big bathroom, pulled and cut her clothes off and threw them into a garbage bag. She stood Red in the tub and washed her, gently, feeling inappropriate and old as she pressed a warm cloth all over the woman’s body until the smells were gone, replaced with sandalwood soap.

Dune went and got one of Mama Vivian’s adult diapers and one of Kama’s full-length muumuus. After she’d dressed Red and set her up at the kitchen table, she sat down across from her.

Immediately restless, she tried to give Red some water, but quickly saw that this woman wasn’t responding like Kama—her mother’s swallowing instinct had still worked. Red, the water just poured down her chin. She might have been standing on her own too long. Dune was scared she would drown the woman, defeating the whole purpose of giving this stranger some dignity and company for her death.

Dune finally just sat with Red, whose face hadn’t changed at any point in the process. After a few minutes, Red began softly whispering her mantra again, her life words, “Juan. Home, dance, kiss.”

Dune had initially been very excited about these words of the sick, but she’d been having a hard time figuring out any patterns in the words. Some people only had one word, all of their existence reduced to one word. But was it the last word they were speaking, or just words they’d spoken often? Or something more poetic, more essential? Was it random, or was it the thing that pushed them into this place? Was it words about the sickness? Was it a way out?

Dune wondered what her own words would be.