My dad calls the woman in the room across the way Nancy Reagan.

He says that’s who she looks like, but I don’t know.

My bed doesn’t face her way. I can only imagine her.

I see her window reflected onto mine.

Someone has hung three brightly colored pictures:

lilies, a butterfly, what looks like home.

Nancy Reagan does not speak. She writes “thank you” on her whiteboard.

She films a silent video for her grandchildren. 

One day she falls from her bed and cries and cries and cries.

It is the first time I hear her make a sound.

Her grandchildren are gone. No nurses come to lift her up. 

I would save her if I weren’t connected to wires and tubes,

if my legs were a little stronger, if I could scream.

Every day I move a little more, and her a little less.

We leave the hospital on the same day.

Her EMTs arrive the moment before mine.

She cries again. Her pictures are gone.

I ask my nurse where Nancy is headed. She doesn’t smile.

Home. Hospice. Home again.

The EMTs hoist me away. Nancy stays.