Rose doesn’t see it. The screen is a scramble of boxes. Karen will be headed back by now. “Where?” she whispers desperately.

“There. There. There,” Marion insists.

The advice is not helpful. Past, future, fear: Rose breathes it out, breathes in the stillness of the moment.

Screen. Upper right. There it is: LOG OUT. Rose clicks on it.

“Jesus! How hard was that?” Marion hisses as Rose leaps from the chair.

“Good night, sleep tight—”

Rose hears the cheery chant from down the hall. “Got to go,” she tells the tissue box.

“Where are you going? What are you going to do?” Marion demands.

“It’s a surprise,” Rose says, afraid Marion will abandon her if she figures out what she is going to attempt.

Chuck is the last remaining resident yet to be put to bed. In the short time since Rose last saw him, he has visibly diminished. No single dramatic event; he is just less corporeal, less substantial. Life force has leached from skin, hair, eyes, and muscles. He looks like an oak tree rotting back into the earth with the speed of time-lapse photography.

“Hi, Chuck,” Rose says, laying her hand gently on his shoulder. A smile starts at the corners of his mouth. Opening his eyes, he sees the wig and the heavily made-up face. The smile fades.

“Where is this?” he asks piteously.

Rose’s throat tightens with tears.

“What are you doing?” Marion asks irritably.

Rose ignores her.

“This is where you’re going to sleep tonight,” she tells Chuck. “Are you ready to go to bed?”

“Where is my good wife?” Chuck asks.

“You’ll see her soon,” Rose says, hoping he will, if not in dreams, then in his next incarnation.

Chuck makes no reply but allows Rose to guide him to his feet. As they go to his room, Karen meets them in the hall. “Night, Mr. Boster,” Karen says. “I didn’t catch your name,” she says to Rose.

Name. Rose’s mind goes blank. But for her own, and that of the nurse, no female names are available to her.

“Alice!” Marion shouts in her ear. “Mary, Peg, Carol, Kathy, Patty!”

“Alice Mary,” Rose blurts out, then laughs. “I mean Mary Alice. Touch of dyslexia there. Come on, Chuck.” She leads her unsuspecting accomplice farther down the hall. Whether Karen is satisfied, suspicious, still standing in the hall, or striding off to dial 911, Rose has no way of knowing.

Chuck wakes up a little at the sight of his room. He wanders away from Rose.

“Can you see the nurse?” Rose whispers to Marion.

“No. What—wait. She’s sitting down at the computer. She’s—damn it! She set something in front of the lens.”

“Wait,” Rose says to Marion. To Chuck, she says, “Be back in a sec.” She darts from the room and down the short hallway. At the entrance to the room with the nurses’ station, she slows and begins sneezing.