After I’ve returned some phone calls, Chip and I head out. The sky is clear, a deep blue. Hard to think it’s the same sky that poured down so much water last night. “Your doctor wanted to know how you were doing,” I say, as we drive down Main Street. “I said fine, considering. Is that the right answer?”

“That’s the right answer.”

His doctor also wanted to know if I was really all right doing this, of course, having Chip stay with me. And I told him that I understood how unusual it was, but I was fine. How about another nurse seeing him, and you just being … his friend, the doctor asked. No, I said. It’s fine.

Chip suddenly sits up straighter, points out the window. “See that florist?”

“Yes.”

“Stop there, will you?”

I start to tell him I don’t have time, but he says, “I’ll be really fast,” and so I pull into a parking place. “Wait right there,” he says. After a few minutes, he emerges with a small bouquet of roses. A vibrant yellow. “Roses for Rose,” he says.

I imagine those flowers by her bedside, offering glorious relief to all that surrounds them. I see her reaching out to touch each half-open blossom. “That’s nice of you, Chip.”

He turns up the air conditioner. “Do you mind? It’s hot as hell out there already.”

“I know it.”

“It’s summer.”

“Sure is.”

It’s not idle conversation. He’s asking me. Diann told me that last time she drove him, he asked if a stoplight were a semaphore. “I told him yes,” she said. “Should I have done that?” I said it probably didn’t matter. “But what would you have said?” she asked. And I told her I would have told him it was a stoplight. She sighed, looked away from me. “I can’t do this,” she said. I told her she was doing fine, and I noticed how beautiful the shape of her face was from that angle. Heartlike.

• • •

“Oh, flowers,” Rose says, after Chip presents them to her with a flourish. “Where did you find these?” She’s still in her nightgown and robe; we must have awakened her.

“Just a shop on the way,” Chip tells her. “Do you like them?”

“Yes. They need a vase. Flowers have to have water, or they’ll die.”

“Do you have one, Rose?” I ask.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, I’ll tell you what, we’ll just use a jar. How’s that?”

“Not so good.” She frowns, shuffles over to her kitchenette. She pulls a tall glass out of the cupboard, hands it to me. “Here. This is better. You cut the stems, I don’t like to use scissors. It’s bad for a diabetic to get cut.”

“Where are your scissors?”

“I don’t know.”

I sigh, take a quick look at Chip, who shrugs, then smiles at me.