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The first couple of months I came through the dark mahogany doors of Fair Acres, inset with etched glass, I was disgusted by the irony of the foyer, masquerading as a sedate, upscale hotel. Muted light from brass lamps fell on a silk-flower arrangement atop the cherry-wood sideboard. But the Ethan Allen attempt at elegance disappeared as soon as you passed the portal to the hallway. The understated lighting gave way to fluorescent overhead panels, the carpet to vinyl tile with foldup yellow signs warning of wet floors. During those early days, I would sail past the nurses' station, scanning to my right the be draggled but still ambulatory crew occupying the waterproof Queen Anne chairs in the common living room.

Though the furniture is arranged to form a circle (a vain attempt to foster fellowship), no one talks to anyone else. The only human voice comes from a portable radio belonging to a resident who keeps it tuned to Christian talk shows. To my left, a ring of wheelchairs circles the nurses' station like beleaguered pioneer wagons. These are occupied by residents who generally require closer supervision—the rockers, the weepers, those who must be kept from falling out of their chairs by Lap Buddies, padded cushions the staff are careful never to call "restraints." (Certain words, like patients, are forbidden here; everyone is a resident.) A few in that circle of wheelchairs simply prefer that location to the living room, probably because there's more action at the nurses' station. There phones ring, staffers banter or complain to one another, family members stop to make inquiries or requests.

Despite the action, however, the people parked around the nurses' station, like their ambulatory counterparts in the living-room area, appear completely oblivious of one another. Their faces are as expressionless as the Easter Island monoliths. Several doze. One woman cries out monotonously, "Help me, help me." The rest stare resolutely ahead in stony, almost regal, detachment.

Only when visitors cross the rotunda do they glance up at the alien outsiders bringing in their determined, facile cheer. Their look accuses: "Don't think you're doing us any favor. You're not getting off the hook that easy."

After the first few weeks of running this daily gantlet, I started speaking to some of the people I passed on the way to my mother's room. By then I had scoped out the ones I thought might respond. At first, however, none returned my greeting. A few looked up with a dazed frown, as if I had startled them from deep reverie. One or two, after a second's hesitation, gave me a single nod or at least met my gaze directly. I didn't blame the ones who ignored me. They had every right to their withdrawal.

Two-thirds of nursing-home residents have no regular visitors. Some never have any. People who have been abandoned develop a thick coat of defensive frost.

I eventually struck up an acquaintance with a woman I passed every day. At first she only looked up when I spoke to her. Then a few days later, she nodded. By the end of the week, she was returning my greeting. Now, as soon as she sees me, a certain expectancy suffuses her face and she lifts her hands to catch mine between them.

"Those hands is too cold," she tells me, shaking her head. "You need to warm up."

Stella weighs 80 pounds at most. Her lips sink over her toothless gums and her chin juts sharply like a bowsprit. Her left leg has been amputated at the knee, and her right foot, usually shod in a red flat, is positioned neatly on the wheelchair's single footrest. I have no idea how she lost the other leg. Maybe one day I'll feel I can ask. Something prompts me to compliment her frequently on her appearance, some special care she takes to straighten her sleeve or smooth her skirt over her lap. On special occasions like today—the Family Thanksgiving Dinner—she wears a string of red beads.

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November 13 2000, Vol. 44, No. 13