Under the empty-eyed gaze of the gross and terrible Trump, horror Rose has kept at bay slams into her. Like a Greek tragedy, her every action inevitable and disastrous, foreknowledge no defense. Oedipus is going to sleep with his mother. He is going to kill his father. It will not end well. She is doomed and there isn’t a doggone thing she can do about it.

Bugger that.

She is saving a friend’s life when no one else will. Chuck is not demented. He’d yelled “Help!” and “Chocolate!” One could fight through a drug haze if the need was great enough. No one could fight through dementia. Too much structural damage. Rose doesn’t know if that is true or not, but it soothes her.

Not doomed. Not predestined.

She has two choices: She can abandon Chuck and eventually rejoin him when her luck runs out, or she can do this.

“Let’s do this,” she says.

Inhaling to make herself bigger, she leads Eddie into the truncated hallway connecting the reception area with the lockdown unit. Eddie, in his scary mask and spike-studded boots, she plants beside the ficus tree in the dogleg of the short hall where he can’t be seen from the reception area or the nurses’ desk in lockdown.

Rose slips up to the sliding glass door, Harris Teeter tote in hand.

Karen is on duty.

Karen is alone.

So far, so good.

Rose takes the placards from the bag, then raps lightly on the glass to get the nurse’s attention.

Karen’s eyes flash from boredom to shock. “You!” Her lips form the word. As she reaches toward the phone to call security, Rose smacks the first placard against the glass. It reads:

YOU STUPID BITCH

The nurse’s face hardens into a mask of fury. Blurred fury. About her eyes and features there is the fogginess of drugs not yet cleared from her system.

Rose drops the card and presses the second sign to the glass.

NOT ONCE BUT TWICE!! HA HA HA

Karen’s face turns dark red. She flies up out of her chair as if it is an ejector seat. Rose can hardly believe it. This is working. She doesn’t dare breathe as she lets the sign fall and puts the third in its place.

SHIT FOR BRAINS

Karen storms from behind the desk, rage in her every movement. Stalking toward the door, she appears huge, murderous. Rose is surprised that the big woman does not paw the ground and snort steam like the bulls in cartoons. Involuntarily, Rose flinches back as Karen whacks her plastic ID against the security door’s reader.

The door swooshes open.

To activate Eddie’s part in the scheme, Rose was to yell “Now!” But the nurse is preceded by such a wave of hatred, Rose manages only an “Eek!”