We talk about her husband in the care home, about how she found another resident's robe and shirt and shorts and socks in his drawer because he and this other resident have similar names. She talks about how he was being served meals in his room, how they put two heavy chairs in the tiny space and scuffed the edges of the black tv table she had bought. She talks about how two frames - one their picture as a couple married 60 years now, and the medal that was his mother's - were found under the bed. It means, she says, that they hadn't vacuumed there in a week. She says she talked to the social worker there and said all kinds of things and that the social worker took notes. He should not eat alone, she said to her, and I told the aid yesterday and today he’s still eating alone. It’s like they don’t listen, she tells me. They always say they’ll write it down, write it down, and nothing changes! And they washed his pants with his wallet in them! All the pictures of the kids, ruined! They washed the other wallet, and this one was new, and they washed this one too. They don’t think to check the pockets?

She’s tired from having voiced her exasperation to them earlier.

If I won the lotto, the sweepstakes, she says, I’d hire a nurse for the nights and use homecare for the day and he’d stay here. The nurse would be for nights because I can’t help him if he falls, she says. We talk about the nuns in the olden days when care was better. I make a joke about an imaginary file, six inches thick with notes. We hug goodbye because we can.

As I leave, she calls down from the balcony, aren’t the flowers nice? Yes! I say. Beautiful!