It’s not always that the landlord doesn’t respond to the tenants’ requests; sometimes the tenants don’t know they can ask. Or they don’t know how to. Or they don’t think it’s so bad, not having hall lights. At least they have electricity in their apartments. Heat. A lock on the door. Their very own toilet. And you can’t take on everything yourself, although in the beginning I tried. You only end up on the phone all day long. You don’t get your own work done. At some point, you have to make a decision: Do I want to run for office, or do I want to take care of these patients?

Rose is in her slip when she answers the door, her nylons rolled to her knees, one blue plastic slipper on. “Oh,” she says, and starts waving her hands excitedly. “You see, it’s my nurse!”

“Good morning!” I come in, close the door.

She starts to cry a little.

“How you doing, Rose?” I pat her shoulder.

“I have no milk,” she says.

I sit at the foot of her iron bed: carefully made, covered with a formerly white chenille bedspread missing half its tufts. “You don’t have any milk, huh?” I rummage in my bag for her chart.

“No. And no orange juice!” She sits beside me. Her thin hair is up in a bun, about three thousand bobby pins at work back there, and a black hair net over it. Still, strands of gray slip and fall, and these she tucks behind her ears.

“Did your home health aide come yesterday? Was Tiffany here?”

“No. She didn’t come.”

“Oh, Rose. You’re supposed to call the agency when that happens—they’ll send someone else. Remember? The number is on your refrigerator.”

“Oh. Yes. I forgot. I forgot!”

“Okay, it’s all right.” I look at my watch. I can call the home health aide and listen to a lot of bullshit, or I can call my agency and listen to a lot of bullshit, or I can take care of this problem myself and save a whole lot of time.

I put my bag down on the floor, zip it closed again. “Here’s what we’ll do, Rose. We need to work together, okay? I’m going to run to the little convenience store, the one right on the corner. I’ll get you some milk and some orange juice. Do you have bread?”

“Um hum, I have bread. Do you want some?”

That’s how most of these patients are. They’ll give you anything.

“No, thank you. I’m just seeing what you need. How about fruit? Do you have any fruit?”

She looks longingly into my face and begins to sing “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling.”