Thud, click-click. Thud, click-click.

Doors slid closed and locks chinked as my coworkers guided residents to bedrooms for the night. In the commons area of the Ember Grove Memory Care unit, an electric fireplace bathed the couches and armchairs in a lambent glow. A grandfather clock ticked, and raindrops sprinkled the rooftop in a steady, resigned cadence. However, the hushed stillness fell one step short of serenity, a glaring gap separating reality from this manufactured dream.

"Is something the matter, Claire? You are studying the clock again."

I jerked my attention to the speaker, one of two residents who remained with me in the commons area. She flashed me a bright smile, and the single white hair spiralling from her double chin twitched.

I forced myself to return the smile. "Nothing's wrong. I just have a bit of a headache and am wondering what happened to Jack. He was supposed to pick me up when my shift ended at eight, and it's nearly eight-thirty."

"Ah, your husband is late again." Gracie tapped her fingers on the armrest of the stiff floral chair and twisted her lips from side to side. Again, the chinhair wiggled, a jarring glint of white against ebony skin.

I chewed on my lip, debating whether I should bring the hair to her attention. Gracie still cycled through periods of lucidity and distress over her declining faculties, so perhaps she would appreciate the opportunity to address the errant hair. Then again, the knowledge could worry her needlessly.

Gracie broke the silence, voice soft and wistful. "Do you ever think it would be better for everyone to tell each other the truth?"

I blinked, taken aback by the relevancy and directness of her comment. "I'm... I'm not sure, Gracie."

She lifted a veiny arm to gesture across the room. "Take Robbie, for example. He truly believes that statue is his wife, and everyone just plays along without ever correcting him."

I glanced at the other resident in the commons, a scrawny man with patches of fine white hair fuzzing his head like a peach. He rocked back and forth on the carpet and cooed to a life-sized sculpture of the Virgin Mary.

Blowing out a sigh, I turned my gaze back to Gracie. "Even if we corrected him today, he wouldn't remember tomorrow. Why dash his hopes again and again?"

Gracie scratched the sagging skin of her forehead with a yellowed fingernail. "I don't know, it just sometimes seems so... so...."

"Dishonest?"

"Infantilizing. You know, I spent my entire adulthood as just Grace before I came here. Now Gracie is all I hear."

I raised my eyebrows. "I didn't realize that. I wonder if everyone will call me Clairey someday." I chuckled at the ludicrous thought, but my chuckle faded when the grandfather clock captured my focus once more. Eight-forty.

A cold premonition sliced through me in a series of disjointed images. A rainy day, a faulty ladder, a long fall.

A funeral.

I dragged my eyes back to my resident. "Would you prefer I call you Grace?"

Gracie — or Grace — stared at the wall ahead, gaze distant. "Mother?" She clutched the armrest and leaned forward. "Mommy, it's your Gracie. No, Mommy, don't go. Please don't leave me here all alone."

My headache swelled to an aching throb. I pushed up to standing and raised a hand to flag a nearby nurse. Nurse Robert scuttled toward us and murmured to Gracie as he looped a hand under her arm. "Come now, Gracie. Your mother is waiting in your bedroom."

Gracie frowned at him and shook her head, chin hair swaying with the swing of her chin, but she allowed Robert to help her to her feet.

"Two more nurses needed," Robert called down the corridor as he escorted Gracie out of the commons and toward the bedrooms.

Another two nurses swept toward the commons area, and I ambled to the office at the memory unit's entrance. A plexiglass wall separated me from the secretary, a thin woman with silver hair yanked back in a tight ponytail and wrinkles lining her furrowed brow and perpetual frown. She lifted her gaze to meet mine for only a moment before she resumed scribbling something onto a manila envelope.

I tapped the plexiglass and cleared my throat. "Excuse me, may I use that phone to call my husband? I'm not feeling very well, and he is nearly an hour late. I'd just like to check on him."

"I'm afraid this phone is for my use alone, Claire."

My fingernails bit my palms as a cold splash of panic doused my chest. I drew in a slow breath, shoving back my inexplicable overreaction, and managed a patient smile.

"I'm sure you can make this one exception. It would really mean a lot to me."

The secretary parted her lips with an audible tsk of exasperation, but before she could reply, Nurse Anna appeared at my side. The nurse gave my forearm a gentle squeeze and nodded at me, blonde ponytail bobbing. When her eyes flicked to the secretary, her voice dripped honey.

"Janine, why don't you give Jack a call for Claire to put her mind at ease? I'm sure he is terribly sorry he is running so late and will be here in a couple hours."

Janine scowled at Anna, her acrylic nails clicking against the desk. Anna beamed back at her. With a sigh and an eye roll, Janine picked up the phone and punched in a number.

After a brief pause, she said, "Hello, Jack? Yes, I'm here with Claire, and she is not feeling well and wonders when you'll be by to pick her up. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Alright, I'll tell her that. Thanks, Jack. Bye-bye."

As she replaced the phone, Janine's eyes met mine. "Jack is terribly sorry he is running so late and will be here in a couple hours."

The pounding in my head eased as I expelled a gust of air. "Thank you so much for calling him."

Anna patted my arm. "Claire, there is an unoccupied bedroom you can use until Jack arrives. A soft mattress will feel much better than those stiff armchairs, don't you agree?"

I tilted my head. "It won't be too much trouble for you to fetch me when Jack arrives?"

"None at all. Come along, and I'll show you the way."

Anna led me down the now empty corridor. The padded carpet muffled our footsteps so completely that the never-ending ticking of the commons room grandfather clock followed us all the way to the bedrooms.

Anna slid a key into the lock of a heavy oak door and swung out an arm to gesture me inside. A bed with wooden posts and a peach quilt covered most of the floor. I paced toward the bed and began to sink down onto the mattress when my eye caught a mirror above the oak dresser. A ragged gasp tore through me.

The woman in the mirror was not me.

Dark bags of skin hung beneath squinting, sunken eyes. Her brow and lips ruched like a pleated dress. I raised one trembling hand toward the horrific image, and a discolored arm of sagging flesh reached back toward me.

The panic I had suppressed earlier crashed over me and swallowed me whole. The hag in the mirror began to tremble.

"Anna," I rasped, swiveling toward her. In the corner of my eye, the mirror woman mimicked the movement. "Anna, don't leave. Something is terribly wrong. Help me, Anna!"

Her lips stretched in a smile that did not touch her eyes. "Shh, shh, just go to sleep. I'll see you in the morning, Clairey."

"No," I whispered, staring at the diminishing gap of the closing door. "No, no, no. This can't be. Jack is still —"

I choked off, mouth still hanging open, as an image invaded my mind. Jack's pale skin against the rich mahogany of a casket. 

Air locked in burning lungs, I whipped back toward the mirror. The hag gaped at me in open-mouthed horror, displaying a mouthful of chipped, browning teeth.

"Anna," I called once more in a final, strangled protest.

The sliver of hallway light vanished with a chilling refrain.

Thud, click-click.