Best Place to Die Read Free

hall with its world-class chef, laundry service, bus trips to Broadway and the casinos. She hurried to the door, grabbing a pink fleece robe.
Serve them right if I die in this hell hole!
And her faithful navy pocketbook with the once brass-colored clasp worn down to the base metal.
Why couldn’t they just leave me where I was? Or if she really was that concerned she could have stayed with me. But no! Ada always has to have things her way.
She felt the knob, remembering fire drills past: if it’s warm don’t open it. Cool to the touch, she twisted. Even without her annoying and too-expensive hearing aids, and no thought of returning for them, she sensed pandemonium in the hall. ‘Why isn’t an alarm going?’ she shouted. ‘What’s wrong with this place?’
All Ada’s fault. Why did I ever agree to this move?
    She took shallow breaths as the smoke tickled her throat. It was impossible to see through the haze and falling water that dribbled down her glasses. Around her, other elderly and semi-infirm tenants emerged from their apartments. Scared faces in cracked doorways. ‘What’s happening?’
    â€˜Is there a fire?’
    â€˜I need help! Tell someone I need help!’
    Navigating by the red EXIT in the distance and keeping to the side of the wide carpeted hall, Rose held tight to the rail and tried to remember how far it was to the outside. All the while, thinking of Ada – all her fault.
I didn’t want to move!
Tears streamed, mingling with the sprinkler water that soaked her hair and dribbled down her back.
I just want my apartment back!
Knowing that could never happen. Not stopping, she shuffled forward on stiff knees and hips, taking careful sips of dirty air, trying not to cough and using her fury to quiet the fear.
    â€˜Ma’am,’ came a young man’s urgent voice, and then a firm hand on her shoulder.
    â€˜I’m fine,’ she said, not wanting to lose her momentum and only able to glimpse the outline of a dark-haired man in a parka holding the hand of a shorter woman, but something about him familiar.
    â€˜Please help her. Just get her out, please; she has dementia.’
    There was no arguing, as a woman’s shaky fingers were joined to hers. ‘Alice, stay with this woman . . . Rose, right?’
    â€˜Yes, Johnny,’ said the thin woman in a drenched white flannel nightgown dotted with flowers, her dyed hair – impossible to tell what color – plastered to her face. ‘I want to go home. Are we going home? I don’t like the water.’ She looked at Rose. ‘I can’t swim.’
    â€˜Please, help her,’ he pleaded.
    â€˜Yes,’ Rose said. She shifted her pocketbook to her wrist, tried not to think how heavy it was and gripped Alice’s hand. ‘You’re the nurse. But your name’s Kyle.’
    â€˜It is,’ he said quickly. ‘She thinks I’m someone else. Please, just help her out. I have to make sure everyone gets out. Just follow the red exits. It’s not much further, and please don’t let her out of your sight. She wanders.’ And then a siren from far off. ‘Thank God.’
    â€˜You can’t go back there,’ Rose said, feeling Alice’s hand trying to pull free, a part of her wondering . . . hoping, if maybe this were all still part of the dream.
    â€˜I have to check on others,’ Kyle said, and, squeezing both their hands, he was gone.
    â€˜Johnny!’ Alice tried to pull free and go after him. ‘Johnny! I want to go home! Johnny!’
    No dream
.
‘Come on, Alice, we have to get out of here.’
    â€˜I want to go home!’
    â€˜Alice.’ Rose felt the woman pulling away. The smoke was everywhere and if she let go . . . ‘No, You’re coming with me!’ She clenched the woman’s hand with her left, while trying to not lose her grip on the hallway railing with her right. ‘I’ll take