Wisdom—or animal instinct—keeps Rose from responding either in words or looks. Instead, she stares passively at nothing while the nurse helps her out of the chair and shepherds her down to the second door on the left. The room has leaf-green walls. An old rocking chair sits beneath the single wire-reinforced window. A coverlet, printed with roses, covers the bed. It is accented by a flounced throw pillow. Rose recognizes these things. They are her things. This is her room.

Shanika shuffles Rose into the bathroom and efficiently eases her onto a stool in the shower.

“A shower will make you feel a lot better. It always does me. Of course, I’m a bath girl at heart. I like nothing better than a good long soak in a hot tub.” While she talks, the nurse strips off Rose’s gown. It is pink with puffed sleeves and has tiny flowers machine-embroidered on the yoke.

“Good girl!” Shanika exclaims. “You didn’t wriggle out of your panties.”

Rose keeps her face impassive as Shanika lifts her an inch off the stool and, with a practiced move, slips her undergarment off.

Diapers. They are soiled.

“You see,” Shanika says. “Because you didn’t take them off, you are all clean and dry. Diapers are our friend.”

The nurse steps on a lever to raise the wastebasket lid. The offending article is dropped inside.

With great gentleness, telling Rose what she is going to do before she does it, Shanika shampoos Rose’s hair, then washes her body.

The water feels so good, Rose is too grateful to suffer any but the slightest embarrassment. Shanika makes her feel cared for, as if she is a human being who actually exists. Rose is tempted to say, “Thank you,” but she doesn’t. Drugged orange juice, toxic red capsules, and capture are now part of her limited stock of memories.

In bed, in the same nightgown and a clean diaper, Rose realizes the simple act of moving from bath to bed has completely robbed her of physical reserves. When Shanika is gone, and the hall lights are dimmed, she forces herself to get up. Retrieving the day’s capsules from the pocket of her robe, she looks around the room, then hides them behind a box of latex gloves in the drawer of the bed stand. Exhausted, she creeps back between the sheets.

“Do you want to see her?” Wanda is speaking in the hall on the other side of the half-open door to Rose’s room.

“Not necessary.” Another woman, the one who wishes she had died of pneumonia.

“I think we’ve gotten her stabilized,” Wanda says reassuringly.

“Good. Her family is afraid she may not last much longer.”

“Are they?” Wanda asks.

“Yes, very afraid. Absolutely terrified that she may not even make it through the week.”