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PUSH sign on it was too high and too hard. Lenore had been here before.
    The Shaker Heights Home had just one story to it. This level was broken into many sections and covered a lot of territory. Lenore came out of the hot tank and down the somewhat cooler hall toward this particular section’s receiving desk, with the tropical overhead fan rotating slowly over it. Inside the doughnut reception desk was a nurse Lenore hadn’t seen before, a dark-blue sweater caped over her shoulders and held with a metal clasp on which was embossed a profile of Lawrence Welk. People in wheelchairs were everywhere, lining all the walls. The noise was loud and incomprehensible, rising and falling, notched by nodes of laughter at nothing and cries of rage over who knew what.
    The nurse looked up as Lenore got close.
    “Hi, I’m Lenore Beadsman,” Lenore said, a little out of breath.
    The nurse stared at her for a second. “Well that’s not terribly amusing, is it,” she said.
    “Pardon me?” Lenore asked. The nurse gave her the fish-eye. “Oh,” Lenore said, “I think the thing is we’ve never met. Madge is usually here, where you are. I’m Lenore Beadsman, but I guess I’m here to see Lenore Beadsman, too. She’s my great-grandmother, and I—”
    “Well, you just,” the nurse looked at something on the big desk, “you just let me ring Mr. Bloemker, hold on.”
    “Is Gramma all right?” Lenore asked. “See I was just in—”
    “Well I’ll just let you speak to Mr. Bloemker, hello Mr. Bloemker? A Lenore Beadsman here to see you in B? He’ll be right out to see you. Please hang on.”
    “I guess I’d rather just go ahead and see Lenore. Is she OK?”
    The nurse looked at her. “Your hair is wet.”
    “I know.”
    “And uncombed.”
    “Yes, thank you, I know. See I was just in the shower when my landlady called up the stairs that I had a phone call from Mr. Bloemker.”
    “How did your landlady know?”
    “Pardon?”
    “That you had a phone call from Mr. Bloemker.”
    “Well it’s a neighbor’s phone, that I use, but she didn‘t—”
    “You don’t have a phone?”
    “What is this? No I don’t have a phone. Listen, I’m very sorry to keep asking, but is my Gramma all right or not? I mean Mr. Bloemker said to come right over. Should I call my family? Where’s Lenore?”
    The nurse was staring at a point over Lenore’s left shoulder; her face had resolved into some kind of hard material. “I’m afraid I’m in no position to say anything about ... ,” looking down, “... Lenore Beadsman, area F. But now, if you’ll just be so kind as to wait a moment, we can—”
    “Where’s the morning nurse who’s supposed to be here? Where’s Madge? Where’s Mr. Bloemker?”
    Mr. Bloemker appeared in the dim recesses of a corridor, beyond the reach of light from the reception area.
    “Ms. Beadsman!”
    “Mr. Bloemker!”
    “Shush,” said the nurse; Lenore’s shout had produced a ground-swell of sighs and moans and objectless shouts from the wheelchaired forms lining the perimeter of the circular reception station. A television went on in a lounge off the hall, and Lenore caught a glimpse of a brightly colored game show as she hurried down toward Mr. Bloemker.
    “Mr. Bloemker.”
    “Hello Ms. Beadsman, thank you so much for coming so quickly and so early. Were you to be at work soon?”
    “Is my great-grandmother all right? Why did you call?”
    “Why don’t we just nip over to my office.”
    “Well but I don’t understand why I can’t just ...” Lenore stopped. “Oh my Lord. She didn’t ... ?”
    “Oh dear me no, please come with me. I-careful, watch the ... good morning, Mrs. Feltner.” A woman careened past in a wheelchair.
    “Who’s that nurse at the desk?”
    “Just through this door, here.”
    “This isn’t the way to Gramma’s room.”
    “This way.”

/b/
    Well, now, just imagine how you’d feel if your great-grandmother-great it could really probably be argued in more than