CARETAKERS

“Hey, Val,” said my sister Gloria, “you ever wonder why there aren’t any female serial killers?”

We were watching yet another documentary on the Prime Crime Network. We’d been watching a lot of those in the month since she had moved in. Along with two suitcases, one stuffed with products especially formulated for curly brown hair, and a trash bag containing two sets of expensive, high-thread-count bed linens, my little sister had also brought her fascination with the lurid and sensational disguised as an interest in current events—the inverse of expensive sheets in a trash bag, you might say.

“What about Aileen What’s-Her-Name?” I said.

“One. And they executed her pretty fast. So fast you can’t remember her last name.”

“I can remember it,” I said. “I just can’t pronounce it. And it wasn’t that fast—at least ten years after they caught her. They executed Bundy pretty quickly, too, didn’t they? In Florida. Her, too, now that I think of it.”

Gloria gave a surprised laugh. “I had no idea you were such an expert on serial killers.”

“We’ve watched enough TV shows about them,” I said as I went into the kitchen for more iced tea. “I could probably make one on my iPad.” An exaggeration but not much; the shows were so formulaic that sometimes I wasn’t sure which ones were repeats. But I didn’t really mind indulging Gloria. She was fifteen years younger, so I was used to making allowances, and as vices went, true-crime TV was pretty minor. More to the point, Gloria had been visiting Mom in the care home every day without fail. I’d expected the frequency to drop after the first two weeks but she was still spending every afternoon playing cards with Mom or reading to her or just hanging (unquote). I had to give her credit for that, even though I was fairly sure she felt this made her exempt from having to look for paid employment.

When I returned, Gloria was busy with my iPad. “Don’t tell me there’s an app for serial killers?” I said, a little nervous.

“I Googled them and you’re right—Aileen Wuornos and Ted Bundy both died in the Florida State Prison. Over twenty years apart—he got the chair, she got lethal injection. But still.” She looked up at me. “Think it’s something about Florida?”

“Dunno but I really wish you hadn’t done that on my iPad,” I said, relieving her of it. “Google can’t keep anything to themselves. Now I’ll probably get a flood of gory crime scene photo spam.”

I could practically see her ears prick up, like a terrier’s. “You can get that stuff?”

“No.” I moved the iPad out of her reach. “I forbid it. Make do with the crime porn on cable.”

“Party pooper.”

“I get that a lot.” I chuckled. On TV, credits were scrolling upward too fast to read over a sepia photograph of a stiff-looking man, probably a serial killer. Abruptly, it changed to a different set of credits rolling even more quickly against a red background. At the bottom of the screen was the legend, NEXT: Deadlier Than the Male—Killer Ladies.

I grimaced at my sister, who brandished the remote control, grinning like a mad thing, or maybe a killer lady. “Come on, isn’t one of the movie channels showing Red Dawn?” I pumped my fist. “Wolverines?”

Gloria rolled her eyes. “How about something we haven’t seen a bajillion times already?”

“How much is a bajillion?” I asked.

“Like the exact size or the universe or how many times you’ve seen Red Dawn, nobody knows.” She nodded at the iPad on my lap. “Not worried about crime scene spam anymore?”

My face grew warm. “I was surfing on automatic pilot,” I said, which was either half-true or half a lie, depending.

“Yeah, you’re not really interested in any of that gory stuff.”

“The least you could do is microwave us some popcorn,” I said. “There’s at least one bag left in the cupboard.”

She cringed in pretend horror. “This stuff doesn’t kill your appetite?”

“If I pick up some pointers, I might kill you.”

As usual, the ad break was long enough that Gloria was back with a big bowl of movie-style buttered before the end of the opening credits. According to the listings, this was a Killer Ladies marathon, back-to-back episodes into the wee hours. After a teleshopping break from 4 to 6 a.m., early risers could breakfast with Deadly Duos—Killer Couples.

Killer Ladies followed the usual formula but ratcheted up the melodrama. The Ladies in question were all abnormal, evil, twisted, unnatural, cold, devious, and unrepentant, while most of their victims were warm, easygoing, trusting, generous, open, honest, well-liked, down-to-earth, and the best friend anyone could ever ask for. Except for a few misfits who were uneducated, foolish, immature, troubled, reckless, self-destructive, or habitually unlucky, and the occasional ex-con with a long criminal record (no one ever had a short criminal record).

Between bursts of urgent narration and detectives who spoke only in monotone, there were some nuggets of real information, much of it new to me. Of course, I hadn’t known a lot to begin with—the only other notorious Killer Lady I could think of besides Aileen Wuornos was Lizzie Borden. Killer Ladies were a hell of a lot more interesting than their male counterparts. Unlike men, who seemed mainly to gratify themselves by asserting power, Killer Ladies were all about getting away with it. They planned carefully, sizing up their victims and their situations, and waited for the right time.

They were also masters—or mistresses—of camouflage, with the unwitting help of a society that even in these parlous times still sees women as nurturers, not murderers. When not killing someone, many of the Killer Ladies were nurses, therapists, babysitters, assistants, even teachers (remembering some I’d had, I could believe it).

Eventually I dozed off and woke to see a repeat of the first episode we’d watched. Gloria was absolutely unrouseable, so I threw one of Mom’s hand-crocheted afghans over her. Then the devil got into me—I tucked a pillow under her arm with a note saying, This is the pillow I didn’t smother you with. Good morning! before I staggered off to bed.

The note I found on my own pillow when I woke later said, Still alive? (One answer only) [__]Yes (we need more cereal) [__]No (we don’t)

The expression on Gloria’s face as I sat down to breakfast made me wince. “Oh, no, not another bench warrant for parking tickets.”

“No, of course not. I took care of that. You took care of that,” she added quickly. “I didn’t sleep very well.”

“I tried to wake you so you could sleep in a real bed. You didn’t stay up all night, did you?” Staying up all night and then sleeping all day was something Gloria was prone to when life handed her lemons without water, sugar, or glasses; I’d warned her that wouldn’t fly with me.

“No. All those Killer Ladies gave me bad dreams.”

For a moment I thought she was kidding, but she had the slightly haunted look of a person who had found something very unpleasant in her own head and hadn’t quite stopped seeing it yet. “Jeez, Glow-bug, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left that note.”

“Oh, no, that was funny,” Gloria said with a small laugh. “Did you find mine?”

“Yeah. Yours is funnier, because it’s true.”

“I’ll remember you said that.” She looked down at the bowl in front of her. “You can have this,” she said, pushing it toward me. “I’m not hungry. All night, I kept dreaming about Angels of Death. You know, the sneaky ones.”

“They were all sneaky,” I said through a yawn. “Women are better at staying under the radar, remember?”

“Yeah, but the ones who took care of people, like nurses and aides, they were the sneakiest.” Pause. “I can’t stop thinking about Mom. How much do you know about that place she’s in?”

I shook my head. “Trash TV’s got you jumping at shadows. Better swear off the crime channels for a while.”

“Come on, Val, didn’t all that stuff about Angels of Death creep you out?”

“You’re the crime buff,” I said evenly. “I want my MTV. Or, failing that, wolverines.”

“You didn’t last night,” she said with a short, humorless laugh.

“Touché. But enough is enough. Tonight is box-set DVD night. One of those bizarro things where even the cast didn’t know what was happening—Lost Heroes of Alcatraz or 4400 Events in 24 Hours. What do you say?”

My bad mash-ups didn’t rate even an eye roll so I checked out the morning news on the iPad while I ate her cereal. Maybe getting her own iPad would put her in a better frame of mind, I thought. She’d love the games. Not to mention the camera—although I’d have to make her promise in writing not to upload any sneaky candids to the web.

“Val?” she said after a bit. “Even if I am jumping at shadows, humor me for a minute. How did you find that home?”

The only way to kill shadows was to turn on all the lights, I thought resignedly. That was what big sisters were for, although I’d never imagined I’d still be doing it at fifty-three. “It’s a nice place, isn’t it?” She nodded. “Doesn’t have that institutional smell, residents aren’t wandering around confused or tied to their beds, lying in their own—”

“Val.” She gave me the Eyebrow. “You’re not answering the question.”

“Okay, okay. I didn’t find it—Mom did. She and Dad had an insurance plan through Stillman Saw and Steel—”

“But Stillman went under twenty years ago!”

“Lemme finish, will ya? Stillman went under, but the insurance company didn’t. Mom and Dad maintained the policy and Mom kept it up after Dad died. She knew she didn’t want us to have to go through what she did with Grandma, which was the same thing Grandma had been through with her mother. You were only a baby when Grandma died, so you missed it. But I didn’t.”

Gloria looked skeptical. “I have friends whose parents spent a fortune on policies that never paid them a nickel.”

“Mom showed me everything some years back. Obviously it’s all aboveboard and legit—otherwise, she wouldn’t be able to afford that place.” I decided not to mention that although Mom had seemed perfectly all right to me at the time, she had already felt herself starting to slip. “The policy pays about half the cost, her pension and the proceeds from the sale of her house cover the rest.”

“And when the money from the house is gone?”

“We step up, little sister. What else?”

Her eyes got huge. “But I’m broke. I don’t even have anything I can sell.”

“Well, if you don’t win the lottery, you’ll have to go to Plan B and get a job,” I said cheerfully. Gloria looked so dismayed, I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to laugh or smack her one. “But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. If we come to it.”

“What do you mean by that?”

This was something I’d hoped to avoid until such time as it became moot. “Mom made a living will. She’s DNR—Do Not Resuscitate. No defibrillator, no tubes, no ventilator, no extraordinary measures. Her body, minus useful organs or parts, goes to the local med school. Her decision,” I added in response to Gloria’s half-horrified, half-grossed-out expression. “You know Mom—waste not, someone else would be glad to have that liver.”

Gloria gave a short laugh in spite of herself. “Okay, but Mom’s liver? She’s eighty-four. Do they take anything from people that old?”

I shrugged. “No idea. If they don’t, that’s more for the med students.”

“It doesn’t sound very respectful.”

“On the contrary, Glow-bug—they actually hold memorial services twice a year for all the people who willed their remains to the school. They invite the families and they read out the names of all the deceased, thanking them for their contribution to the future of medicine.”

She looked a little less grossed-out, but no happier. “What happens after, uh, you know, when they … when they’re done?”

“They offer cremation. Although Mom said she’d prefer compost. There’s an organization that plants trees and flowering bushes—”

“Stop it!”

“I’m sorry, Sis, maybe I shouldn’t have told you about that part. But it is what Mom wants.”

“Yeah, but she’s got Alzheimer’s.”

“She was clear as a bell when she set this up.”

We went back and forth. Gloria just couldn’t seem to get her mind around our mother’s rather alternative approach to death. A Viking funeral would probably have been easier for her to accept. From the various things she said, I wasn’t sure whether she felt guilty for being the ever-absent daughter or hurt that no one had thought it necessary to consult her. Maybe it was a little of both.

Or a lot of both. The age difference had always made it hard for me to see things from her perspective. I’d thought it would get easier as we got older, but it hadn’t, probably because Gloria was still where she’d been at twenty-five, trying to decide what she wanted to be when she grew up.

“Sorry, Glow-bug,” I said finally, collecting the breakfast things. “This debate is called on account of my job.”

“I don’t know how you do it,” she said, watching me rinse the bowls and put them in the dishwasher.

“Do what—make a living?”

“Stay awake looking at spreadsheets.”

“It helps to see all the little numbers with dollar signs,” I told her. “I’m sure you can find something to keep your eyes open.” But probably not Plan B yet, I thought as I shut myself in my office and woke the computer.

Doing other people’s taxes isn’t the most exciting work I’ve ever done, but it’s virtually recession-proof and less physically demanding than cleaning toilets. It’s not even really that hard once you know how—although knowing how can be tricky. Every third change in regulations, I added another hard drive to back up my backups. There wasn’t as much paper as there used to be, which was a relief. But I couldn’t bring myself to rely completely on cloud storage—there’s tempting Fate and then there’s teasing it so unmercifully that Fate has to make an example of you. I stuck with CD-ROMs—not enough room on USB drives for sticky notes. One of my younger colleagues had a system using stickers with symbols—a clever idea but I thought I was a little too old for such an extreme administrative make-over. Especially after my recent lifestyle makeover.

In the ten years since Lee and I had come to our senses and called it quits, I’d discovered that living alone agreed with me. But that was over now. At first, Gloria had made vague noises about looking for a place of her own when she got back on her feet—whatever that meant—but I didn’t kid myself. My sister was here for the duration. Even a boyfriend was unlikely to change things. The kind of men Gloria attracted invariably wanted to move in with her rather than vice versa, usually because they needed to.

I heard the car pull out of the driveway just as I stopped for lunch; the usual time Gloria headed out to see Mom. Mom’s appetite was poor these days, but Gloria could usually get a few extra bites into her. It was one of the reasons the staff was so fond of her.

“I wish everyone’s family was like her,” a young nurse named Jill Franklyn had confided on my last visit. “She doesn’t treat the staff like servants and she isn’t texting or talking on the phone the whole time she’s here. And even if most people had the time to come every day, they probably wouldn’t.”

I couldn’t help feeling slightly defensive. Two visits a week was my self-imposed minimum, although I tried to make it three more often than not. I didn’t always succeed, something I was usually too tired to feel guilty about. Which was what I felt guilty about instead. Meanwhile, Mom kept saying that I should think less about twice-weekly visits and more about a week or two in the Caribbean.

Tempting, but the web meant that my work could follow me and probably would. The last time I’d gone away, a five-day stay in a forest lodge had become half a day when I got a panicky text from a client whose house had burned to the ground just before he’d been called in for an audit. Well, I’ve since heard mosquitoes in the Maine woods grow to the size of eagles and sometimes carry off small children.

Of course, a mosquito with a seven-foot wing span might pale next to work that had been piling up for two weeks. Or not. There was only one way to find out.

Funny how I’d started thinking about taking time off again now that Gloria was here. So she didn’t have a job and probably wouldn’t get one except at gunpoint—she had lightened my load from the start. If she kept it up, I might even be able to revive my all-but-dormant social life—call friends, go shopping. Eat out. See a new movie in a theater. Just thinking about it gave me a lift.

Gloria was still out at five, so I spent another hour at my desk finishing work I’d have otherwise left for the next morning. When she hadn’t come back by six, however, I started getting nervous. For all her faults, my sister was an excellent driver, but that didn’t make her immune to bad drivers or, worse, bad intentions. Was there a fee to trace a LoJack, I wondered, or did the car have to be reported stolen first? Or could I do it myself? I vaguely remembered registering the navigation software; was there a Find My Car app, like Find My iPad?

Fortunately, I heard her pull into the driveway before I tried something stupid. “Anybody home?” Gloria called, coming in through the kitchen. “If you’re a burglar, clear out.”

“No burglars, just me,” I called back.

She bustled in, curls bouncing with happy excitement, and held up a bag from Wok On the Wild Side. “You’ll never guess what I did.”

“You’re right,” I said, making room on the coffee table. “So you’d better just tell me.”

“I got a job.”

My jaw dropped; all hope of taking even a long weekend out of town evaporated as my social life rolled over and went back to sleep. “You … got … a job?”

She was busy taking little white cartons out of the bag and putting them on the table. “What, you didn’t think that was possible?”

“No, it’s just—I didn’t know you were looking for a job.”

“Relax, big sister,” she laughed. “It’s not a real job.”

I blinked at her. “You got an imaginary job?”

“What? No, of course not. I am now an official volunteer aide at Mom’s home!”

“Official—seriously?” I wasn’t sure I’d heard her right. “Are you qualified?”

“As a matter of fact, big sister, I am.”

This was probably the most startling thing she’d said in the last two minutes. Or maybe ever—qualified was not a word I associated with my sister. “How?” I asked weakly.

“Did you actually forget that I was a lifeguard almost every summer when I was in high school?” she said with a superior smile. I’d already been living away from home then, so I hadn’t forgotten as much as I’d barely known in the first place. Mostly what I remembered was how Gloria practically lived in a swimsuit from May till September. And how even when I’d still looked good in one myself, I’d never looked that good. “After graduation, I taught swimming at the Y and for the Red Cross,” she was saying, “and I’ve been lifeguarding and teaching swim classes on and off for years.”

I still didn’t get it. “The people at the care home go swimming a lot?”

She rolled her eyes. “I know CPR, you idiot.”

Heat rushed into my face; I felt like two idiots.

Gloria laughed again. “Guess you won’t faint after all. For a minute there, I wasn’t too sure.” She went into the kitchen for some plates while I sat on the couch feeling like a bad person as well as an idiot.

“I can also teach water aerobics,” she said chattily, plopping a dish on my lap. “Well, actually, I’d have to update my aqua-aerobics certificate, but I’ve kept my CPR current. It’s such a pain in the ass if a pool needs someone but can’t hire you because your CPR’s out-of-date.” She served me from three different cartons and then held up a pair of chopsticks. “Want me to break these apart for you? Or would you like a fork?”

“I’m still qualified for sticks, thank you,” I said. She handed them over, grinning; I wasn’t quite there yet. “So … what? You got up this morning and decided to be an official volunteer? Or one of the nurses heard you talking about your summers as a lifeguard and said, ‘Hey, you must know CPR, want to volunteer?’”

Her grin turned faintly sly as she served me and then herself. “Actually, I did the paperwork a couple of weeks ago.”

Another surprise. “You never mentioned it to me,” I said.

“There was no reason to, till now. I mean, if I ended up not volunteering, there’d be nothing to talk about anyway. Besides, do you tell me every single thought that crosses your mind?” Now her bright smile was so innocent that I actually wasn’t sure whether that had been a jab or not. “Of course not,” she went on. “Who would?”

I ate in silence, musing on the concept of my sister the qualified volunteer with the mad CPR skillz. I had none myself, which now that I thought of it was rather shortsighted. Even if none of my clients had ever had a heart attack after seeing what they owed the government, it wasn’t impossible; many of them were already in heart-attack country. Meanwhile Gloria rattled on about recognizing the signs of a stroke, the right way to perform the Heimlich maneuver, and how CPR classes were good for meeting handsome firemen.

At last, the Gloria I knew and loved, I thought, relieved. “You know, I don’t think you’ll be meeting many handsome firemen at the home,” I said when she paused for breath.

“Unless it burns down. Kidding!” she added, then sobered almost as quickly. “That’s what I’m there to prevent.”

I was baffled again. “Only you can prevent nursing home fires?”

“I’ll make sure no Angel of Death tries anything.”

I waited for her to laugh; she didn’t. “You’re serious.”

“As a heart attack, sister.” She impaled a shrimp that had been eluding her and popped it into her mouth.

Another reason to be glad she was qualified, I thought, feeling surreal. “I didn’t realize you’d be there twenty-four hours a day.”

She gave me the Eyebrow. “What are you talking about?”

“Most Angels of Death do their thing when everyone’s asleep,” I said. “Remember? Or did you sleep through that part of the Killer Ladies marathon?”

“No, I remember. Obviously I can’t be there 24/7, but I’ll make it obvious I’m watching closely. Every day as soon as I come in, I’ll make the rounds, talk to everybody, see how they’re doing. Make sure they’re getting the right meds in the right amounts—”

“Don’t the doctors and nurses do that?” I asked.

“I’ll only double-check if something doesn’t seem right,” Gloria replied. “Volunteers don’t give meds. We’re not even supposed to have our own stuff when we’re on duty. Like, not even an aspirin.”

I barely heard her; something else occurred to me. “Doesn’t being an official volunteer mean less time to visit with Mom?”

“She’ll still know that I’m around.”

This was going to be interesting, I thought, and probably not in a good way.

A fat lot I knew—it already was.

In the days that followed, my mother improved visibly. She was happier and more alert for longer; even her appetite was better. I was glad, but at the same time I knew from talking with her doctor that it wasn’t permanent and the inevitable deterioration could be gradual or sudden. Not to mention cruel.

“Thanks to TV and movies, a lot of people think of dementia patients as daffy old folks who smile at things that aren’t there and don’t know what day it is,” Dr. Li had told me, her normally friendly face a bit troubled. “People with dementia become frightened and angry and they lash out in unexpected and uncharacteristic ways. People who have never raised a hand in anger suddenly punch a nurse—or a relative. Or they bite—and unlike the old days, most still have enough teeth to draw blood. Or they get amorous and grabby. I treated a nun once, former professor of classical studies who spoke six languages. Swore like a biker in all of them and had a passion for—well, never mind.”

There was a lot more that was even harder to listen to, but I came away feeling—well, not exactly prepared, because I didn’t think I’d ever be truly prepared for certain behaviors no matter how realistic I tried to be, but maybe just a little less unprepared. So far, my mother was very much like herself, even when she couldn’t remember why she wasn’t in the old house or how old I was. And there had been fewer of those with Gloria around.

Mom’s good streak held for about a month and a half. Every visit, she’d tell me to go on vacation; before long, I was looking at travel websites with real intent and work be damned. There was a nagging concern in the back of my mind, however, as to how a change like my absence would affect Mom’s stability.

I decided to talk it over with her before I did anything, or didn’t. She’d probably just tell me to fly to Jamaica for lunch—Jamaica was her latest idea of a dream destination—but what the hell, I thought as I arrived on my usual Thursday afternoon. My mother was outside on the patio, enjoying the lovely weather, an aide told me, and would I mind bringing her a glass of cranberry juice, thanks.

I found her parked at one of the umbrella tables in her wheelchair, away from the handful of other residents also outside. The lovely weather was lost on her. She sat glaring at a book of sudoku puzzles and holding a thick mechanical pencil in one fist like a dagger. The wheelchair meant that she was having dizzy spells, no doubt because she had swimmer’s ear again. It could be chronic for people who needed two hearing aids. As I got closer, I saw that she was only wearing one today. Hence the sudoku, which she did only when she wanted to be alone.

“Well, you took your sweet time,” she said as I sat down next to her and put the cranberry juice on the table. “I asked for that hours ago.”

“Mom, it’s me, Valerie,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound like my heart was sinking.

“Oh, for chrissakes, I know who you are.” My mother looked as if she couldn’t believe how stupid I was. “You said you’d bring me some cranberry juice and I’ve been waiting forever. S’matter, they make you pick the cranberries yourself?”

“I’m sorry you had to wait, Mom,” I said gently, “but I just got here. This is Thursday. My last visit was Sunday.”

She started to say something, then stopped. She set the pencil on the table and looked around—at the patio, at the umbrella overhead, at the aide and the elderly man in a bright blue sweat suit coming slowly up the path from the garden in front of us, at me, at herself—searching for what Dr. Li referred to as mental true north, some single thing that hasn’t suddenly changed like the rest of the traitor world. Her face went from bewildered to fearful to suspicious, until finally she sat back heavily, covering her eyes with one hand.

“It’s okay, Mom,” I said, putting an arm around her. She was little more than skin and bones now, but in three days she seemed to have diminished even more.

“There you are!” Gloria materialized on Mom’s other side. “Why didn’t you tell me you were here?” Her too-bright smile vanished as Mom looked her over with a critical frown, tsk-ing at a food stain on her navy blue smock. “What’s wrong? What did you say to her?”

“Nothing, I’ve only been here two minutes.

Gloria was about to answer when Mom put both hands up. “Don’t fight,” she said. “I can’t stand when women fight. The hectoring–hector, hector, hector! Like crows arguing with seagulls. Is today Thursday?”

The fast change of subject was not, in fact, unusual; my mother thought segues were for politicians and game-show hosts. “All day,” I said.

She pushed the book and pencil away. “I don’t like writing outdoors. I told them that but they always forget. Maybe Alzheimer’s is catching. Take me inside.”

I moved to obey but Gloria beat me to it in a rush that seemed oddly desperate. “That’s what I’m here for,” she told me, as if it explained something, or everything.

My mother wanted a nap, so Gloria and I helped her into bed, fluffed her pillows, and promised not to hector-hector-hector even if she couldn’t hear us. I settled into the chair by her bed, intending to dip into one of the novels on my iPad. But as soon as Mom fell asleep, Gloria insisted that I go back outside with her.

“Is this going to take long?” I said.

“It’s important.”

I followed Gloria away from the now empty patio, down the walk to a bench under a large maple tree. “Make it fast,” I said. “I’d like to be back before Mom wakes up.”

“Not so loud.” She leaned forward and spoke in a half whisper. “As an aide, I see and hear a lot more than when I was a visitor. I think there’s something funny going on. And I don’t mean funny ha-ha.”

At last, the Gloria I knew and loved. “Why? Did something in particular happen?” When she didn’t answer right away, I added, “Or did someone just give you a dirty look?”

She drew back, looking stony as she folded her arms. “I should have known you wouldn’t take me seriously. You never have.”

“That’s not true,” I said promptly, but I could hear the lie in my own voice.

“You think it’s just my imagination, because I’m the little sister. Baby sister. I’ll never be more than a child to you. You have no idea what it was like, growing up with you three adults. Dad, Mom, and Mom, Jr. You all knew better about everything. When you weren’t all tolerating me—ho-hum, another Christmas, we have to do Santa again; you all acted like you didn’t want me to grow up. Like Mom trying to make me sit on Santa’s lap when I was eight.”

“Just for the photo,” I said, which was true. “I know, I was there. She wanted me to sit on his other knee but the guy said he’d quit if I tried it.” Also true; the bastard.

Gloria almost smiled at the memory, then caught herself. “You’re doing it again—trying to pacify me. Just listen to me for once, will you? Something’s not right here.”

“I’m only asking why you think that,” I said, trying to sound utterly reasonable and not at all like I might be smarting (a very tiny bit) from certain (very minor) points she’d scored. “It’s a fair question. If it was the other way round, you’d ask me the same thing. Especially if this was the first you’d heard about anything being the slightest bit wrong even though I’d been coming here every day for weeks.”

“I told you, this isn’t like just visiting,” she said. “You don’t know, you haven’t done both.” A movement behind Gloria caught my eye, an aide looking around the patio. She picked up my mother’s forgotten sudoku book and dropped it in the large front pocket of her smock, then paused when she noticed us. I smiled and waved. Gloria twisted around to look; when she turned back to me, she was pissed off again.

“Fine. Don’t believe me. I’ll prove it. Then you can’t say I’m jumping at shadows.” She got up and walked off. Unbidden, the memory came to me of her doing the same thing as a toddler during what Mom called one of her bossy episodes. I suppressed a smile, just in case she looked back, but she didn’t. She hadn’t back then, either.

Things were strained between us after that. My tries at initiating a conversation fell flat; if she answered at all, it was usually just a wordless grunt that let me know she hadn’t gone deaf. She thawed a bit by Monday, occasionally even speaking to me first. Encouraged, I suggested we go shopping and see a movie, in an actual movie theater, my treat, including popcorn dripping with artery-hardening butter-flavored goop. She declined politely, saying her feet hurt. Considering she always went straight into the tub as soon as she came home, they probably hurt all the way up to her hips.

Maybe finding a bath all ready and waiting when she got home would soften her up even more, I thought. The first time surprised the hell out of her; she sounded awkward when she thanked me, and spent the whole evening watching movies with me in the living room, even making a bowl of popcorn without being asked. She wasn’t quite as surprised the second time; the third time, she asked me what I wanted.

“What do you think I want?” I said, holding half a pastrami on pumpernickel; I’d splurged at the deli counter that morning, a treat for the extra work I had to put in on a new account. “I want us to be friends again. I want us to be sisters again. You’re acting like I owe you money and I slept with your boyfriend.”

She stared down at me, expressionless. “You just don’t take anything seriously, do you?”

“Oh, for chrissakes.” I sighed. “I’m trying to break the ice between us before it turns into permafrost.” Her mouth curled briefly and I felt a surge of irritation. “I’m sorry—still not serious enough?”

“Don’t bother running any more baths,” she told me. “I keep a swimsuit at the home so I can use the Jacuzzi. Sometimes Mom and I go in together.”

I bit back a smart remark about being a lifeguard in a whirlpool and then felt ashamed for even thinking it. Maybe I had been making her feel small all her life and never realized it.

“I was just trying to do something nice for you,” I said. “I’ve seen how much work you do—”

“How kind of you to notice,” she said stiffly. “But, being a grown-up, I can run my own baths.” She actually turned on her heel and walked out.

“Fine,” I said at her back, my sympathy evaporating. If my sister wanted to be taken seriously—as a grown-up, no less—she could damned well act like one instead of a thirteen-year-old girl with her period.

Oh, no, you didn’t, said my brain.

My face burned, even though I was alone. Okay, maybe Gloria did have her period. Back in the day, I hadn’t exactly been a ray of sunshine during Shark Week. Now I was coping with the onset of menopause and doing fairly well thanks to hormones, but every day wasn’t a picnic and neither was I.

My thoughts chased each other round and round. Had I really been horrible to Gloria all her life? Or were we just doomed to be permanently out of step no matter what? We were from different generations, after all; we practically spoke a different language. Still, if I had acted like that after she had run a bath for me, my conscience would have tortured me for years. Of course, that was me-the-older-sister. Could I see things as if I were the younger sister? Etc., etc., and so on, and so forth. When I finally remembered to eat the sandwich I’d been looking forward to all day, it sat in my stomach like a hockey puck.

My indigestion subsided later when I heard her go out again instead of putting her sore feet up. Gloria wasn’t letting the problems between us affect her relationship with my car.

Gloria continued volunteering with a wholeheartedness she’d never shown for paid employment, or at least none that hadn’t involved wearing a bathing suit. I did wonder occasionally if her apparent dedication might really be an unhealthy obsession with finding evidence that didn’t exist to prove something that wasn’t true.

Except that when I saw her during my visits, she didn’t look obsessed. She looked cheerfully busy, the way people do when they’re happy in their work. Maybe in trying to prove something to me, Gloria had found herself, discovered that caregiving was lifeguarding in street clothes—unlikely but not impossible. Her being too embarrassed to say so wasn’t impossible, either, and even less unlikely.

Unless she still believed that something wasn’t right and she was playing a role more Method than anything Brando had ever done while she watched and waited for something to happen. I really couldn’t tell. While she wasn’t openly hostile, she was still distant and had little to say beyond updates on Mom.

Maybe I was jumping at shadows now. After a lifetime as the grasshopper in a family of ants, Gloria was now up close and personal with the reality of Mom’s decline. Coming to terms with that would shake anyone up. I wished like anything she’d talk about it with me, but if she really felt that I’d always patronized her, I could hardly be surprised that she was keeping her distance. Nor could I blame her.

Eventually, she warmed up enough that we occasionally saw a movie or went out to eat together, but the wall between us remained. Much as I wanted to, I didn’t push her. Partly because I was afraid she’d get angry and shut me out again. But I’d also developed this rather weird, superstitious idea that looking too closely at her newfound self-discipline would somehow jinx it. She’d stop volunteering or even visiting more than once a month, if that. Eventually, despite rules I’d laid down, she’d drift into sleeping all day and staying up all night. I’d seen it happen before. Regardless of what had inspired her sense of purpose, I didn’t want her to lose it. Even if it meant we’d never say anything deeper than It’s gonna rain or Guess what’s on TV? Hint: wolverines! to each other for the rest of our lives.

Gloria held still for Red Dawn and even made popcorn. But she never suggested any more true-crime programs. That was fine with me, although I wasn’t sure what it meant, if it meant anything at all.

A month and a half after Gloria’s initial blowup, Mr. Santos and his daughter Lola sought me out to tell me my sister was a hero. Mr. Santos was a wiry little man in his late seventies who shared my mother’s fondness for puzzles and card games. I knew Lola to nod to, but she and her father had made Gloria’s acquaintance in a big way.

“I’ve never seen anything like that in real life,” Lola Santos said, looking at me through wide, dark eyes, as if my being Gloria’s older sister was an accomplishment in itself. “I was in the bathroom for maybe two minutes. Gloria had brought him some juice—”

“And if she hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here right now.” Mr. Santos thumped his chest twice with one bony fist before his daughter caught his hand.

“Don’t, Popi, you’re still bruised!”

“Good. The bruises remind me of the heroine with the curly brown hair and the dimple in her cheek who saved my life.” He shook his index finger at me. “She’s a wonderful girl, your sister. I don’t know what we’d do without her. She’s our heroine. She’s my personal heroine.”

“And mine,” Lola added.

I had no idea what to say to that, so I just smiled and thanked them for telling me. I tried to talk to Gloria about it at home later, but she wasn’t very forthcoming; when she started to look annoyed, I let it go. The next day I rearranged my work schedule and went back to see if I could find out anything else, but I might as well not have bothered. I couldn’t get any more out of Mr. Santos than what he had already told me. My mother alternately claimed to have been taking a nap or sitting in the garden. The few other residents I spoke to had nothing new or useful to add. Even the usually chatty Jill Franklyn was reticent on the subject; after praising Gloria’s mad CPR skillz and her ability to stay calm in a crisis, she made a very pointed comment about patient privacy and the confidentiality of medical records. I took the hint and spent the rest of the time with Mom, who was slightly confused by my consecutive visits.

I went back to three visits a week, on the grounds that it made Mom happy and not because I was still trying to find out more about Gloria’s big heroic moment. Because that would have been pointless, considering that I’d gotten a full account from Mr. Santos and Lola themselves. Happy ending, smiles all round—what more could there possibly be to the story? If I were jumping at shadows now, they were shadows I couldn’t even name. Maybe all the she’s a heroine business was getting on my nerves; weeks after the fact, it had yet to die down.

Jealous much? said that still small voice in my brain.

I was pretty sure I hadn’t become that neurotic. Practically certain. But if I were—I wasn’t, but if I were—I told myself, there was still only one way to kill the shadows. Mom would benefit from the extra visits and so would I—no one knew how much longer she’d be herself. If good things sometimes got done for stupid reasons, it didn’t make them any less good. Did it?

“Weren’t you here yesterday?” my mother asked as I sat down next to her at the umbrella table. To my surprise, she seemed vaguely annoyed.

“No, I came on Thursday and today’s Saturday. What’s the matter, you sick of me hanging around?”

“I don’t understand why you won’t take advantage of Gloria’s being here,” she said, “and go away, even just for a long weekend. Instead, you come here more. What’s the matter with you? Don’t you have a life?”

“No,” I said honestly.

“What about your friends?”

“They don’t have lives, either. It’s rough out there. I was thinking about moving in with you.”

My mother gave a grim laugh. “You better win the lottery first. They don’t let you split expenses.” She looked around. “Where’s that thing? You know, with all the books inside and the screen. I coulda sworn I had it. See if I left it in my room, will ya? Since you’re here anyway.”

My mother’s door was open; inside, an aide stood with her back to me, doing something on the tray table next to the bed. On her left was a cart, both shelves crowded with water pitchers.

“Oh, hi,” I said cheerfully, and she jumped. The pitcher she’d been holding sprang out of her hands, spilling water over the bed before it fell to the floor. “Oh, damn, I’m so sorry!” I rushed to help.

“Don’t, it’s okay, I can take care of this, it’s fine—” The aide sounded almost desperate as she tried to wave me away, grab the pitcher, and pick up several small white pills all at once. “It’s only water, not plutonium, I can manage, really, I can.”

“I’m sure, but let me help anyway,” I said guiltily as I got down on my knees. The pitcher had come apart and the lid had gone under the bed. I used it to sweep up several small white pills.

“I was just taking something for a headache,” the aide said, grabbing up the pills and dumping them into the front pocket of her smock, ignoring the minor dust bunnies attached. “I have cluster headaches, they’re murder.”

“How awful.” I had no idea what cluster headaches were, but judging by how stricken she looked, she wasn’t exaggerating much. Her olive complexion had gone almost ashy. I made another sweep with the pitcher lid in case I’d missed any pills before I got to my feet. “I really am sorry, I didn’t meant to sneak up on you. I should change the bed—”

“No, absolutely not, you don’t come here to do the housekeeping, I’ll take care of it.” She spoke so quickly she was almost babbling. “I’ll take care of this, you don’t have to worry, please don’t take any time away from your visit, but if—” she cut off suddenly. Her color had improved slightly but now she looked like she was going to cry.

“What’s wrong? Is it your headache?” I asked.

I was about to suggest she sit down and drink some water when she said, “It’s nothing. Please, just go on with your visit, I’ll be all right.”

“Look, you won’t even let me help you change the bed, so anything I can do to make up for scaring the bejeebus out of you, just tell me.”

She looked down, embarrassed. “It’s kind of stupid.”

“Kind of stupid—that’s definitely in my wheelhouse,” I said. That got me a smile.

“Okay, it’s that—I just—” All at once, she was stripping the bed. “No, I can’t. I was going to ask if you’d mind not mentioning this to your mother, but forget it.” She dropped a bundle of wet linens on the floor and started to pull off the padded mattress cover. “It’s only because I feel like such an idiot. But I have no business asking you someth—”

“It’s done,” I said, holding up one hand. “I can’t think of a good reason why I’d have to mention it anyway.”

“But—”

“Forget it. I’m not talkin’ and you can’t make me.”

She gave a small, nervous laugh.

“I really only came in here to get her e-reader—” I spotted it on the nightstand and pointed. The aide handed it to me somehow looking grateful, sheepish, and relieved all at once. Her name tag said she was Lily R. “Thanks. What’s the R for?”

She stared, baffled.

“Lily R.” I nodded at her name tag. “R for …?”

“Romano,” she said, and rolled her eyes. “You must think I’m a real clown.”

“Hardly.” As I went back outside to my mother, I couldn’t help feeling a bit guilty for leaving Lily R-for-Romano to remake the bed by herself. Then Mom asked me to read to her and I put it out of my mind. I might never have given it another thought if I hadn’t found a pill in the sole of one of my very expensive athletic shoes.

I wore them not because I was particularly sporty but because walking in them felt so good. Plus, they came in bright, jazzy colors, which I had a new fondness for in my old age. And what the hell—if I ever decided to defy my old age and run a marathon, I was ready.

Running a marathon was probably the only thing that could have been farther from my mind than Lily R. when I felt something stuck to the sole of my shoe. Pausing at the kitchen door, I took it off before I scarred the tile flooring for life. A tiny rock—I used an ice pick to flip it out the open door, then checked the other shoe, just in case. The pill was about the same size as the rock but wedged in more deeply. Maybe that was why it was still intact, I thought, carefully working it free. Although I had no idea why I was bothering—I was hardly going to give it to Lily Romano next time I saw her. Hey, girlfriend, found this on the bottom of my shoe, thought you’d want it back anyway. Now who’s kind of stupid?

I put it in an empty ring box on my bureau. As Mom always said, waste not; in a cluster-headache emergency, I’d be glad I’d saved it. Stranger things had happened; were happening now.

A week later, Jill Franklyn called in the middle of the afternoon, apologizing so much I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. The I heard her say something about death being harder for some people, especially the first death.

“The first death?” I interrupted. “Are you talking about my mother?”

“Oh, no, no, no, your mother is fine!” she said quickly. “It’s your sister—”

“My sister?” Suddenly the pit of my stomach was filling with ice water. “Something happened to Gloria?”

“No, no, no, she’s fine,” Jill Franklyn said. “Well, not fine, exactly—”

“Is she still alive?” I demanded.

“Yes, of course she’s still alive.” Bewilderment crept into her apologetic tone. “But—well—you need to come and get her, she shouldn’t drive home.”

I said I was on my way and hung up without telling her that would be a bit longer than either of us would have liked, because I’d have to take a cab, and although this wasn’t the middle of nowhere or darkest suburbia, it wasn’t Manhattan, either. I got there in half an hour, which was actually sooner than I’d expected.

Jill Franklyn was waiting for me at the reception desk, looking a bit flustered. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she told me, smiling, but I could hear the admonition in her voice. The receptionist pretended not to eavesdrop by studying something intently on her desk.

“Sorry, I had to get a cab.” I tried to look contrite or at least sheepish. “I’m not sure I understand what’s going on. You said my mother’s all right—”

“Yes, just fine.” Jill Franklyn nodded vigorously as she ushered me through the entry gate and down the corridor leading directly to my mother’s room. “Gloria’s with her right now.”

I found the two of them sitting side by side on Mom’s bed. Mom had her arm around my sister, who had obviously been crying. Lily Romano was there as well, looking concerned and fidgeting. She left as soon as I came in, nodding a silent hello as she rushed past. I frowned, wishing she’d stay, but I had no chance to ask and no good reason to do so.

“What kept you?” my mother was saying, a bit impatient.

“There’s only one car between us,” I said, “and Gloria has it. I don’t usually need it. What’s up, Glow-bug?”

Gloria looked up at me and I thought she was furious at my using her childhood nickname so publicly. Then she got up, flung her arms around me, and sobbed.

By the time we got to the car, she had quieted down and stayed quiet all the way home, for which I was grateful. Rush hour had started and I didn’t want to fight the traffic to the soundtrack of Gloria’s heartbroken sobs. A dozen years ago, never driving in rush hour again had been one more good reason to leave the local tax-preparation firm in favor of a home business; now I decided that it had been the best reason.

We made it home alive; in lieu of kissing the ground in thanksgiving, I put a pizza in the oven and joined Gloria in the living room. I found her wedged into the far corner of the sofa, hugging her knees to her chest as if to make herself as small as possible. A joke about never having a white-knuckle ride on the couch crossed my mind, but for once I actually thought before speaking.

“I don’t know what happened today,” I said after a bit. “Jill Franklyn didn’t have a chance to tell me and I thought I’d better just get you home rather than hang around.”

She flicked a glance at me but neither spoke nor moved. I waited a little longer, then went into the kitchen to check on the pizza. I was taking it out of the oven when I heard Gloria say, “I couldn’t save her.”

I turned to see her sitting at the table. I cut the pizza into eight slices, grabbed a couple of plates, and put the platter on a heat pad within easy reach before taking the chair on her right.

“They gave me coffee with, like, six sugars.” She frowned at the plate in front of her as if she were seeing something other than a Currier-and-Ives style winter scene in blue and white. We’d grown up with these dishes; in thirty or more years, we’d only lost two. “They said it was good for shock. I didn’t think I was in shock but I guess I was.” She raised her face to me. “I never, ever, ever imagined what it would be like to do CPR on someone and not … not w—” She swallowed hard. “Not have it work.”

“Oh, sis, I’m so sorry.” I got up and put my arms around her. She sat passively for a little while; then I felt her slowly move to hug me back. “I can’t even imagine.”

“It’s not how it should’ve happened. Mrs. Boudreau should be playing bridge with her son and her friends right now. Watching a movie tonight. Getting up for breakfast tomorrow morning and then … just … having a few more years to be happy. Like Mr. Santos and the others.”

The last three words clunked in my ear, but I was too busy trying to remember the dead woman. Still keeping hold of both her hands, I sat down again after a bit and said, “I’m sorry, Gloria, but I can’t place her. The lady who died. Mrs. Boudreau?”

My sister nodded sadly. “She only moved in a couple of weeks ago; I don’t think you ever even saw her.” She took a shuddery breath. “I promised her son I’d look after her. I promised her I’d take care of her. And then her son had to watch while I broke that promise.”

“You’re a good person, sis.” My thoughts shifted around like puzzle pieces trying to fit themselves together. “You did take care of her, as best you could. But no matter how well you do it, CPR isn’t a get-out-of-death-free card.”

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I wanted to kick myself. Gloria frowned and I waited for her to tear me a new one for making stupid jokes again. Instead she said, “You don’t understand. Mrs. Boudreau really shouldn’t be dead. She wasn’t even long-term. She was only there till the end of the month,” she added in response to my questioning look. “Then she was gonna live with her son and his family. They’re adding another room to their house for her. It isn’t ready yet. And now they’ll just have an extra room with nobody in it.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to say that no extra space in any home ever went unused under any circumstances, but then I didn’t. Having grown up in a decidedly uncrowded house, Gloria’s experience was limited, and it was beside the point anyway.

Little by little, I got the story out of her; it was pretty much Mr. Santos all over again, with a slightly different cast and an unhappy ending that even a portable defibrillator couldn’t change. “The defib’s the last of the last resorts,” Gloria said as she started on a slice of pizza. That had to be a good sign, I thought. “It’s too easy to screw it up even if you’re trained. I’m trained to defib, but I’ve never done it.” She paused, head tilted to one side. “Jesus, I just heard myself. ‘I’m trained to defib but I’ve never done it.’ Like it’s routine. Until I started volunteering, I’d never done any CPR for real. Not even once.”

I was trying to think of something to say when she dropped the slice of pizza she’d been holding and put a hand to her mouth. “And I never even thought anyone would actually die. Mr. Santos and his daughter were calling me a heroine, the head nurse put a letter in my file, I got my name in the newsletter as this month’s MVV—Most Valuable Volunteer. I didn’t think, What if somebody dies? because nobody did. So I didn’t think for one second that Mrs. Boudreau might die. I just waited for the nurses to say she had a pulse.”

I frowned. Had Gloria performed CPR on someone else besides Mr. Santos? “Gloria, how many times—”

She didn’t hear me. “Even after they shocked her, I was still waiting for someone to say she was back.” She put her hand to mouth again. “Omigod, deep down I’m still waiting for Jill to call and say someone at the hospital decided to give it one last try and brought Mrs. Boudreau back after all.”

And I was waiting for her to burst into tears again or even get sick all over the table. Instead, Gloria finished the slice and reached for another. Good to see she was recovering from the experience, I thought. My own appetite was history.

The head nurse who called the next morning to check on Gloria was new. Celeste Akintola had that friendly but no-nonsense voice all RNs above a certain level of experience seem to have. Jill Franklyn didn’t have it, and I couldn’t imagine that she ever would. I shook the thought away and focused on getting acquainted with the new head nurse. More specifically, on trying to find out how often Gloria had used her mad CPR skillz, but without sounding like I was prying. Or like I had to.

Celeste Akintola made friendly but no-nonsense noises about patient confidentiality, adding that she expected all staff, including volunteers, to respect the privacy of the residents. I gave up, handed the phone to Gloria, and stood by, blatantly eavesdropping; all I heard was yes and okay. After hanging up, Gloria said she had strict orders to take a full two weeks off before she even considered coming back. Even then, it would be for no more than three days a week, at least to begin with. My sister didn’t mind going along with that, which was a relief. Also a little amazing—or perhaps not. She was subdued, obviously deep in thought.

If I were honest, I had to do some thinking of my own about taking Gloria seriously. As the older, supposedly wiser sister, I’d never saved a life or seen a person die right in front of me. Gloria had saved one person and had another die practically in her arms just in the space of a few weeks. Life and death—it didn’t get any more serious than that.

I wanted to tell her as much, but I couldn’t figure out how to begin. Whatever I said came out trite, if not weaselish. Gloria by contrast had a new eloquence. Or maybe it was only new to me.

“I was scared of what you’d say,” she told me later. “I was doing so good, you know? Everybody needed me—me, personally. Me specifically. And then this happened. I needed you to come and be Mom, Jr., so much, but at the same time I was thinking how pathetic it was to be such a mess at thirty-eight. Then you came in and just—” She shrugged. “All you cared about was me. And I realized there’s only one person in the whole world who’ll always show up, no matter how pathetic I am. You didn’t go all smarter or older or wiser on my ass and you didn’t act like it was all a big joke.” She paused. “Although the get-out-of-death-free-card thing was kinda cool.”

“Some people make jokes when they’re nervous,” I said.

“Yeah, I get that now,” she said. “See? I’m growing up.”

But, I hoped, not so much that she’d ever realize how utterly and completely she’d pwned her big sister.

It was a nice two weeks. I took some time off and let Gloria introduce me to the quirky world of hard-core flea-market shopping, including lessons in haggling for the reserved soul. She even got me to admit it was fun, which it was, although I didn’t see myself doing it without her. She said she felt the same way about Red Dawn.

I visited Mom alone and quickly learned to come in the mornings, when she was sharper, upbeat, and much more like her old self. After midday, her energy flagged and she had a hard time concentrating, whether she’d had a nap after lunch or not. Jill Franklyn said this was called sundowning. Her sympathetic expression wasn’t perfunctory, but there was something professional about it, almost rehearsed. Maybe it was all the training she’d had in how to discuss these things with the family.

Or maybe, I thought, suddenly ashamed, it was repetition. How many times had she explained this to anxious relatives? I really had to work on giving credit where credit was due, I thought, or I’d end up yelling Get off my lawn! at everyone under sixty.

After her two-week break, Gloria was ready to go back to work—or “work”—and I was happy to let her, despite being tempted to drop hints about looking for a paying job. Then I thought of Mom; having Gloria around again would probably be good for her, even if it wasn’t as often as before.

After the first week, however, Gloria announced she’d be going every day again. “Akintola said I can only volunteer three days a week,” she said when I questioned her. “So, fine. The rest of the time, I’ll just visit Mom.” She smiled like she’d just cut the Gordian knot with blunt-end scissors.

“I’m not trying to go all older, wiser, or smarter on your ass,” I said, wincing, “but I’m pretty sure that violates the spirit of the order.”

“She doesn’t want me to volunteer, I won’t volunteer,” Gloria said stubbornly. “Four days out of seven, I’ll sit around like a lady of leisure.”

“I don’t think you should go seven days in a row—”

Gloria huffed impatiently. “Have you seen Mom lately?”

My heart sank. “I know what you—”

“You always go in the morning, right? Who told you about sundowning—was it Jill?” I tried to say something but she talked over me. “It’s code for Mom gets worse as the day goes on. They use sundowning with the families because the word makes them think of things like pretty sunsets after a nice day—as if the person started out good in the morning. But they don’t. They’re better in the morning—that’s not the same as good.”

I stared at her, slightly awestruck, then tried to cover it by saying the first thing that came into my head. “I thought you weren’t volunteering today.”

She frowned. “I’m not.”

“So if Mr. Santos has another heart attack—or someone else has a coronary—you’d stand back and let the pros handle it?”

“Are you insane?” she demanded. “You think I’d just watch someone die just because it’s my day off?”

“No, only if they were DNR. Like Mom.”

She looked so stricken, I wanted to bite my tongue off and let her throw it away. “When you don’t know for sure, you assume they want to live until you know otherwise for sure,” she said in a stiff little voice, and I could have sworn she was trying to do Celeste Akintola’s no-nonsense voice.

“And if it is otherwise?” I asked, trying not to sound argumentative.

She didn’t answer.

“You know you can get into big trouble for doing CPR when you’re not supposed to? Not just you, but the doctors and nurses and everyone else who works there, including all the other volunteers.” I wasn’t sure exactly how true that was, but it wasn’t a complete lie. “You could even get arrested for assault, and I don’t think the family has to wait till you’re out of jail to sue you.”

Gloria gave me the most severe Eyebrow I’d ever seen. “The box set of Law & Order doesn’t come with a law degree. I do what I know is right.”

“I just asked what if you knew for sure—”

“Like Mom?” she said, almost spitting the word. “Go ahead, say it: Mom. What’s the matter, can’t say who you really mean? Why? Things get too cold-blooded for you all of a sudden? Or are you really afraid Mom would sue me? Press charges? Both?” Gloria gave a single, short laugh. “Have I asked you for bail money? Lately?” she added. “No, I haven’t. Case closed.”

“So, what—you always guessed right?” I frowned. “Just how many times was that?”

She hesitated. “Counting Mr. Santos and Mrs. Boudreau? Five.”

My jaw dropped. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I was mad at you.”

“Then why didn’t Mom—no, scratch that. Why didn’t anybody tell me?”

“Maybe they thought you knew.” She shrugged. “I mean, they kept calling me a heroine.”

I wanted a desk to pound my head on. “Don’t you think I’d have said something if I had known?”

“I was mad at you,” she said again. “Remember?”

“Yeah. I also remember why: I asked you why you thought there was something wrong at the home.” I gave her a sideways look. “Does this mean you’ve changed your mind about that?”

She shifted her weight from one foot to the other and huffed. “Do you really have to make a big deal out of it?”

“Hey, it was your idea,” I called after her as she left.

If Gloria had changed her mind, so had I, although I didn’t realize it right away. It crept up on me in chilly slow motion. My visits went from three a week to daily. I thought it was intimations of mortality—specifically, my mother’s—brought on by the revelation of how many times Gloria had used her mad CPR skillz. No, I corrected myself: how many times Gloria had performed CPR in an emergency situation. Taking her seriously meant swearing off funny terms for matters of life and death.

I was even ready to confess that I had a case of the jitters—not eager but willing—except that she didn’t ask. Baffling—surely she was wondering why I’d rearranged my schedule so drastically … wasn’t she? I waited, but she didn’t try to talk to me during visits or at home, where I was now working through evening hours we had previously spent together.

After a week, I couldn’t stand it anymore and called in one of my temps. Gloria raised her eyebrows—it wasn’t the first half of April—but didn’t ask. In fact, she didn’t say a word on the drive in.

“Are you picking me up or should I get a ride with Lily?” she asked as I pulled into an empty space in the visitor’s lot.

I made an exasperated noise. “You’re gaslighting me, aren’t you?”

“What is that?” Gloria looked genuinely baffled.

“Okay, not a fan of old movies. You’re trying to drive me crazy,” I said.

“And what happened to make you think that?” she asked politely. The strong urge I had to smack her must have been obvious. “Come on, seriously,” she added. “You’re the one who’s gotten all weird, working all night so you can be here every day—”

“And you’ve never asked me why. Aren’t you even a little bit curious?”

“Well, yeah,” she said, like she’d never heard a stupider question. “But I figured I’d just be wasting my breath. You don’t tell me a goddam thing till you feel like it. If you ever do.”

I felt my face getting hot again.

“What’s the matter?” she said, a little impatient now. “It’s true, isn’t it?”

I gave up. “Okay, okay. I’m nervous about Mom. Finding out how many times you’d done CPR kinda …” I shrugged. “It kinda freaked me out, I guess.”

“Really.” My sister gave me the skeptical Eyebrow. “When? After you considered the legal ramifications of my possibly keeping Mom alive?”

“I never did CPR on anyone—I don’t even know how—so it took a while for the reality to sink in, that Mom could … you know. Die.” I barely managed not to choke on the word.

My sister let out a long breath, staring through the windshield at nothing in particular. Then: “If it makes you feel any better, Mom isn’t too likely to have a coronary anytime real soon. Her heart’s in pretty good shape. To be honest, I worried more about her falling—the dizzy spells. Fortunately, she doesn’t fight using the wheelchair as much as she did, so it’s less of a worry than it was. But if you want to keep coming every day, I’m not gonna stop you,” she added with a sudden smile. “Because it really seems to help her stay clear.”

“What about the sundowning?”

“That’s what I mean.” Gloria’s smile grew even brighter. “Some days, I can barely tell it’s happening.”

“New medication?” I asked.

“Nope, same stuff, same dose. Some of the other residents take a lot more and don’t do as well.”

“Maybe it’s because she’s eating better?” I said.

Gloria shrugged. “It doesn’t hurt. Now, are we going in, or do you want to sit here and, as Mom says when she thinks no one’s listening, fret like a motherfucker all day?”

She was right—Mom was better. But Dr. Li had warned me that these periods of near recovery, when patients somehow seemed to shake off the fog that had been rolling in, weren’t signs of genuine improvement, only the erratic nature of the disease showing itself—one of dementia’s special cruelties.

But it didn’t make Mom any less lucid. She started telling me to go on vacation again and was annoyed when I refused, occasionally getting so agitated with me that I had to leave so she’d calm down.

“You want to know the truth,” Lily Romano said as she walked me out one afternoon, “she’s kinda scared that you’re coming every day. She’s afraid maybe it means that she’s dying and the doctor won’t tell her.”

“Really?” I was shocked. “I’d never have thought of that. Gloria never said anything.”

Lily Romano shrugged. “She doesn’t know. Residents don’t always tell their families everything. Sometimes it’s easier for them to confide in someone they aren’t so close to, especially when—”

“When …?” I prodded after a moment.

She winced. “When it’s something where they think their family will, like, just say they’re being silly or paranoid.”

When the family doesn’t take them seriously, I thought, wincing a little myself. “So does my mother confide in you a lot?” She looked so uncomfortable, I went on quickly, “Forget I asked, it’s not important. How’re your headaches?”

She looked blank for a moment. “Oh, yeah, fine—I haven’t had any in a while.”

I might have mentioned finding the pill in my shoe just for the hell of it, but we were nearly at the entry gate and she was making gotta-get-back-to-work noises. I made a mental note to talk to Gloria later about Mom’s possible anxieties. Then the day got busy; Gloria was getting a lift home with another aide, so I did the grocery shopping, and somewhere between the deli counter and the perennial choice between paper or plastic, a gust of tedium blew all the mental notes off the front of my mental refrigerator.

Only much later, after several hours into another night at the computer, did it come back to me. My work ethic said it could wait; my procrastinator said it was a golden opportunity. For once, I went with the latter.

I opened the door to find Gloria standing there with one hand raised, about to knock. “I’m sorry, I know I’m not supposed to interrupt you—”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I think I’m off tonight. What’s up?”

“I’ve got a dilemma,” she said, her face troubled, “and I need some advice.”

“I’ll get the Shiraz, you save me a seat on the couch.”

“You’ll probably think it’s silly,” she said as I poured wine into her glass.

“Apparently that’s going around. Never mind,” I added when she looked bewildered. “Just tell me. We’ll decide if it’s silly later.”

She hesitated, gazing at me with uncertainty. Then she took a deep breath. “Okay, there are certain things that everybody at Brightside has to do—certain rules, I mean, that everybody has to obey, no matter what, or get terminated. Even the nurses. Even the janitorial staff. Even the gardening service people.”

I nodded.

“Those are the strictest rules, and if you see an infraction”—she made a face at the word—“you’re supposed to report it. Which is, like”—she rolled her eyes—“who wants to be a snitch? I mean, if I ever saw someone hurt a resident, I’d yell at the top of my lungs. But—”

“Did you see something?” I asked gently.

She nodded. “It was one of those things you can actually get away with if you’re careful. And probably everyone there’s done it at least once, but they’ll fire you on the spot for it, even if nothing bad happens.”

I shook my head. “What is this incredibly evil thing?”

“Having any unauthorized medication on you during your shift.” She frowned. “I thought I told you that. We can’t even have aspirin in our pants pocket.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because it’s a hazard to the residents.”

“Only if they get into your pants pockets,” I said, laughing a little.

“They don’t care.” Gloria was shaking her head. “Zero tolerance. The only way to be absolutely certain a resident doesn’t take anything they’re not supposed to is if there isn’t anything.”

“That’s even stricter than a hospital, isn’t it?” I said, thinking out loud.

“Beats me. And it doesn’t matter anyway—it’s their policy.”

“So you saw someone—” I cut off, already knowing who it would be.

“Lily Romano,” she said with a mournful sigh. “I caught her so red-handed, I couldn’t even pretend that I didn’t see anything. She was doing the rounds with water pitchers—”

I put up a hand. “Been there, sis.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked, unsure again and about to get angry.

“I caught Lily Romano with pills,” I said sadly. I gave her a quick rundown of our encounter in Mom’s room, adding, “I can’t remember if you told me about the no-drugs rule. If you did, I forgot it that day.”

“Did she beg you not to tell?” Gloria asked, still unhappy.

“Yes, but not about that.” I told her the rest.

“That’s weird. Why would she ask you to keep quiet about her having to change the bed but not about the pills?”

I thought for a moment. “Because she realized that I didn’t know the rule and she didn’t want to tip me off. Making me think I was just saving her some embarrassment was pretty clever. Really clever.”

“She kind of took a chance, though,” Gloria said.

I shook my head. “I didn’t even tell you, did I?”

Gloria sighed again. “She made me go with her to her locker and watch her put the pills in her purse, all the time begging me not to tell and promising she’d never do it again. I feel bad for her—cluster headaches really are murder—”

“Yeah, that’s what she told me,” I said. “But when I asked her this afternoon, she said she hadn’t had any lately.” I fetched the pill from my room. “It got stuck in my shoe,” I explained, holding it out to her on a fingertip. “Is it the same as what you saw?”

“I didn’t actually see the pills, just the bottle,” she said, picking it up between thumb and forefinger. “This isn’t a headache pill. It’s methylphenidate.”

I frowned. “Is that meth as in meth?” I asked, uneasy now.

“Methylphenidate as in Ritalin,” she said. “You know, ADHD? No, you don’t. Pardon me for saying so, Val, but you’re too old. You grew up before they started trying to cure childhood. At least half the kids I went to school with were on Ritalin or Adderall or whatever.”

I was aghast. “Did Mom and Dad—”

“Oh, hell, no.” Gloria laughed. “But plenty of kids supplemented their allowance by selling anything they didn’t need to kids without prescriptions. They’d buy it to lose weight or study all night before a test, and I heard that a sixth-grader was supplying a couple of teachers.” She frowned. “You’d never take this for a headache. It would give you one.”

“Okay, pointing out the obvious now: Lily Romano isn’t a schoolkid. So why would she take it?” I asked.

“Adult ADHD, I guess?”

“Never mind, I think we’d better go back to the home right now and talk to whoever’s on duty.”

Gloria caught my arm as I stood up. “Okay, but what do we tell them?”

“We’ll start with what we know and let them figure it out.”

Gloria was as surprised as I was to find Jill Franklyn in charge of the graveyard shift. I supposed it figured: unremarkable but competent enough that no one would lose any sleep. Jill Franklyn was a hell of a lot more surprised to see us. We were heading down the main corridor in the residential area toward the nurses’ station when a door on the left opened suddenly but very quietly and she stepped into the dim, shadowy hallway. She had her back to us but I knew that thin silhouette and ballerinaesque posture. She paused with her back to us. Gloria and I stopped dead in our tracks and looked at each other. I shrugged, then cleared my throat.

Jill Franklyn whirled and snapped on her flashlight, blinding both of us. “Omigod!” The word came out in a screechy whisper. The light went off again, leaving me and Gloria no less blind as Jill came toward us, her shoes making tiny squeak-squeak-squeak sounds. “What are you two doing here at this hour? It must be after midnight. Are you out of your minds?”

“Which question should we answer first?” I gave a nervous laugh and Jill Franklyn shushed me. She herded us down the hall toward the nurses’ station, I thought, but before we reached it, she shoved us through a door on the right, hurriedly and with a strength I’d never imagined she had in those skinny ballerina arms. Gloria seemed equally taken aback; she was rubbing her upper arm.

“Sorry about that,” Jill Franklyn said, not sounding very apologetic. “If anyone else sees you, they’ll call Akintola and we’ll all be in trouble. What are you doing here?”

I blinked rapidly, trying to clear my vision, and saw we were in Celeste Akintola’s office. Jill Franklyn surprised me by sitting down behind her desk and motioned for us to take the chairs on the other side. Gloria and I traded looks as we sat down; she gave me a you-first nod.

Jill Franklyn sat straight up in the high-backed chair, listening to me with a troubled expression, nodding from time to time but saying nothing. I finished and turned to Gloria, who hesitated, waiting for some kind of response, but the nurse remained silent, not even looking at my sister.

Gloria spoke in a small, uncertain voice, occasionally pausing to look at me. Each time I made a small, keep-going gesture. She did, but any confidence she’d had had deserted her, and I had no idea why. Maybe she was having trouble with the whole snitching thing, I thought. Except this wasn’t just tattling to teacher—Lily Romano was carrying around more pills than she needed. A lot more.

When Gloria was done, I sat forward in my chair and said, “What would happen if someone gave that stuff to a patient here?”

Jill Franklyn finally lifted her gaze to meet mine. “It would depend on the patient,” she said, sounding calm and logical, like we were discussing the amount of caffeine in a cup of coffee. “And the dosage. And, of course, what other medications they might be on at the time. Someone taking vasopressin, for example, might be less drowsy. Depending on the dosage. It would probably have to be twenty or thirty milligrams, I think.

“Dementia patients respond best, though. Early dementia, I mean. Dexedrine’s a lot better than methylphenidate but you have to work with what you’ve got.” She sighed. “I don’t suppose either of you have access to Dexedrine? It’s practically impossible to get nowadays.”

Gloria and I looked at each other. “Did you hear anything we just told you?” I asked.

Jill Franklyn wrinkled her nose. “Yeah, Lily Romano’s screwed. And so am I, right?” She sat forward, putting her arms on the desk. “Or instead of being Girl Scouts, you could be part of advancing medicine and making life better for dementia patients everywhere.”

“How?” I asked, wondering why her eyes weren’t crazy.

“By going home and catching up on your sleep, and when you get up tomorrow, we’ll all just have business as usual. You”—she pointed at Gloria with one hand—“can volunteer as much as you want, whenever you want; I’ll get Akintola to sign off on it. I don’t see why she wouldn’t, considering you’re four for five. That was pretty nice, wasn’t it—getting to be a hero? Heroine, whatever. It was too bad about Mrs. Boudreau, but that’ll happen—every so often, one of them won’t come back for you, no matter how healthy they look. And you”—she pointed at me and frowned—“I can’t remember what you do, but I remember your mother’s always talking about how you never take a vacation. So take one. She won’t lose much ground while you’re away. Maybe none.”

“How many people are in on this?” I asked incredulously.

Jill Franklyn looked up for a moment. “Hard to say. Here, it’s just me and Lily.”

“Are you saying this is a—a conspiracy?” My sister practically squeaked on the last word.

“What conspiracy?” Jill Franklyn looked at us like we were crazy. “You’re on the Internet, does that mean you’re in a conspiracy?” She looked from me to Gloria and back again, then stood up abruptly. “I should have known you wouldn’t go for it.” She began edging toward the door. “You two Girl Scouts’re probably like most middle-aged women—not too physical. I know I don’t look like much, but I’ve got nurse muscles—I can lift almost any resident here unassisted. Or subdue them if they get violent. So I’ll just fold my tent now and you can call the—”

I never even saw Gloria move. One moment Jill Franklyn was opening the door; I felt something brush past me. A framed picture of Celeste Akintola’s children skidded off the top of the desk into my lap. I barely had time to register that Gloria was crouched on the desk before she sprang forward, landing on top of Jill Franklyn as they fell through the open door into the hallway.

The next minute or so was chaos. Jill Franklyn was on her belly, screaming in outrage and calling for help while Gloria sat on her back, holding her arm so that she couldn’t move without breaking it. I stood in the doorway, blinking down at them.

“I’m calling the police!” yelled a woman, presumably Deirdre, from the nurses’ station.

“Tell them to hurry,” Gloria yelled back. “No security guard?”

“Cost-cutting,” Jill Franklyn grunted. “See how safe your mother is? No on-site security guard—”

“Shut up,” Gloria said and twisted her arm slightly. “I’ll show you who’s middle-aged, bitch.”

Now, I would like to say that Gloria kept Jill Franklyn subdued until the police arrived, and after hearing what we had to tell them, they immediately sent a car to pick up Lily Romano and they were prosecuted and got long prison sentences and so on and so forth. But Deirdre—yes, it was Deirdre—only saw my sister assaulting another nurse and, after summoning more staff via the PA, did something about it. Deirdre was closer to my age but her nurse muscles were more well developed and more experienced. She knocked me flat on my ass when I tried to get in her way. I still might have had a chance, except, of course, we woke everyone up and they all came out to see what was going on.

Except that it wasn’t just a lot of half-asleep people opening their doors to see what all the noise was about—it was a lot of very disoriented elderly people who couldn’t see or hear properly, all bumping into each other, stepping on me, falling over Gloria and Jill Franklyn, and crying out in pain or panic or both. In all the confusion, Jill Franklyn managed to get away several minutes before the police arrived.

They arrested me and Gloria, of course.

We didn’t end up going to jail, but it was a very near thing. Fortunately, Celeste Akintola believed us.

There was little evidence—methylphenidate leaves the body relatively quickly. Metabolizes efficiently was how Celeste Akintola put it, I think. By the time she got a doctor to order blood tests, it was too late. I turned Lily Romano’s pill over to the police but I couldn’t prove it was hers; when I told the cop taking my statement how I had come by it, she just shook her head. Needless to say, both Lily and Jill were long gone. Celeste Akintola resigned.

I had to take a second mortgage on the house to cover our legal expenses, and yet I still felt funny about telling Gloria that she had to get a job. She started looking, which, in her case, meant uploading her somewhat padded résumé to a few job-hunters’ websites and checking her e-mail before she went to see Mom. There was no more volunteering, but she still went to see our mother every day.

Interestingly enough, the firm that owned the nursing home saw fit to give me a nice break on the bill—apparently, their legal department advised that, despite the lack of hard evidence, the disappearance of both alleged wrongdoers might be enough for civil proceedings. I signed all the papers happily, including the confidentiality agreement and the waiver of responsibility (theirs, of course). With a second mortgage to feed, I was short on resources.

The change in Mom was undeniable, though not as dramatic as I’d feared it would be. She complained about not having any energy, of feeling slow. A number of other residents seemed to feel something similar, including some whom I knew weren’t dementia patients.

I asked Gloria one night if there were any new heroes or heroines at the home, now that she was a civilian again. She said she hadn’t heard anything. “But then, I probably wouldn’t,” she added. “They replaced most of the staff and all the volunteers. I’m out of the loop.”

Gloria found a health club that needed an aqua-aerobics teacher, but still found a way to squeeze in a visit to Mom almost daily. Apparently aerobics in water was less exhausting than the dry-land variety. Or maybe exercise really was energizing—I didn’t remember being able to maintain such a high level of activity in my late thirties.

And even then, it was six months after the fact before I really began to wonder. Mom’s decline had come to another of its periodic plateaus, but she was still having slightly more good days than bad, or so I thought. Or so I wanted to think. And then I finally started thinking about Gloria and her energetic lifestyle.

It was a stupid idea, I decided, which was why it hadn’t occurred to me before. But still, a small voice in my mind insisted that it actually had occurred to me and I’d deliberately refused to consider it. So it had simmered on the back-most of back burners in the back-most area of my mind until I was ready to jump at shadows.

Which made me think of how Gloria had leaped up onto Celeste Akintola’s desk and from there across half the room to land on Jill Franklyn. With my own eyes, I’d seen her sitting on Jill Franklyn’s back with her arm in a bone-breaker hold. We had both suffered through everything that followed. How could I think that Gloria would go through all of that with me only to turn around and do the same thing?

Not the same, nagged that mental voice. Gloria’s messiah complex is strictly limited—just her and Mom, no one else, not even you. Not yet anyway.

The only way to kill shadows was to turn on all the lights. I got as far as opening the door to her room, but I couldn’t go any farther. I’m not sure what I was more afraid of—that I would find Ritalin or Adderall or even Dexedrine, or that I wouldn’t. If I did, I’d know what to do—I just didn’t know if I could.

But if I didn’t, no one would ever have to know … except me, of course. Because that’s what I would find instead. I decided I would rather wonder about my sister than know for sure about myself, and closed the door.

It’s been the same every night since for the past year and a half. Intellectually, I know I might as well stop, because I’m not going to do anything different. But on a gut level, I don’t dare. I’m afraid of what could happen if I don’t stand there and deliberately choose not to be a bad, sneaky, dangerous woman.