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Because some days, most days, people travel up and down the hallway without pattern. And Janie doesn’t want to run into anyone in case she goes blind. Tonight, the hallway is clear. Janie noted earlier that the Silva family came for a visit in the fourth room. She checks the record book and sees that they signed out. There are no other visitors recorded. It grows late. For Janie, it’s either get the work done, or get fired. She enters the east wing, grabs the hall bar, and nearly doubles over. 9:41 p.m.
    The noise of the battle is overpowering. She hides with old Mr. Reed in a foxhole on a beach that is littered with bodies and watered with blood. The scene is so familiar, Janie could recite the conversation—even the beat of the bullets—by heart. And it always ends the same way, with arms and legs scattered, bones crunching underfoot, and Mr. Reed’s body breaking into tiny bits, crumbling off his trunk like cheese being grated from a slab, or like a leper, unraveling.
    Janie tries walking normally down the hallway, gripping the handrail. She cannot concentrate enough to remember her count of doorways, the dream is so intense. She keeps walking, reaching, walking, until she hits the wall. She’s losing the feeling in her fingers and feet. Wants to make it stop. She backs up eight, ten, maybe twelve steps, and falls to the ground outside Mr. Reed’s door. Her head pounds now as she follows Mr. Reed into battle.
    She tries to find his door so she can close it. She tries, and she can’t feel anything. She doesn’t know if she’s touching something, or nothing. She is paralyzed. Numb. Desperate. On the bloody beach, Mr. Reed looks at her and beckons her to come with him. “Behind here. We’ll be safe behind here,” he says.
    “No!” she tries to scream, but no sound comes out. She can’t get his attention. Not behind there! She knows what will happen.

    Mr. Reed’s fingers drop off first.
    Then his nose and ears.
    He looks at Janie.
    Like always.
    Like she’s betrayed him.
    “Why didn’t you tell me,” he whispers.

    Janie can’t speak, can’t move. Again and again, she fights, her head feeling like it might explode any moment. Just die, old man! she wants to yell. I can’t do this one anymore! She knows it’s almost over.

    And then, there is more. Something new.
    Mr. Reed turns to her as his feet break free from his ankles and he stumbles on his stilty legs. His eyes are wide with terror, and the battle rages around them. “Come closer,” he says. Fingerless, he shrugs the gun into her arms. His arm breaks off his shoulder as he does it, and it crumbles to the beach like powder. And then he starts crying. “Help me. Help me, Janie.”

    Janie’s eyes widen. She sees the enemy, but she knows they can’t see her. She is safe. She looks at the pleading eyes of Mr. Reed.
    Lifts the gun.
    Points.
    And pulls the trigger.
    10:59 p.m.
    Janie is curled on a portable stretcher in the east hallway when the roaring gunfire in old Mr. Reed’s dream stops abruptly. She blinks, her vision clears slowly, and she sees two Heather Home aides staring down at her. She sits up halfway. Her head pounds.
    “Careful, Janie, honey,” soothes a voice. “You were having a seizure or something. Let’s wait for the doc, okay?”
    Janie cocks her head and listens for the faint sound of beeping. A moment later, she hears it.
    “Old Mr. Reed is dead,” she says, her voice rasping. She falls back on the stretcher and passes out.
    June 22, 2005
    The doctor says, “We need to do some tests. Do a CAT scan.”
    “No thank you,” Janie says. She is polite, but firm.
    The doctor looks at Janie’s mother. “Mrs. Hannagan?”
    Janie’s mother shrugs. She looks out the window. Her hands tremble as she fingers the zipper on her purse.
    The doctor sighs, exasperated. “Ma’am,” he tries again. “What if she has a seizure while she’s driving? Or crossing a street? Please think about it.”
    Mrs. Hannagan closes her