As We Are Now

Caroline "Caro" Spencer, a 76-year-old retired high-school math teacher, opens her journal by insisting she is "not mad, only old" and describing Twin Elms, the nursing home where she now lives, as "a concentration camp for the old" (9). She titles the journal The Book of the Dead, intending to sort through her memories and preserve her sanity as her mind fades. Her brother John, who is 80, placed her here after a heart attack left her unable to manage stairs in her own house. Living with John and his second wife, Ginny, a much younger woman, proved untenable because Caro and John share intellectual interests that exclude Ginny, whose resentment made the household unbearable. Though Caro does not blame John, she is troubled that he has not visited.

Twin Elms is a small, sinking red farmhouse marked only by two elm trees and a barn. Inside, a dim room holds beds with old men sitting silently on straight chairs. Harriet Hatfield, an enormous woman who runs the home, greets them. Ginny claims Harriet is a trained nurse, though her only experience was two years as an aide at a state hospital. Caro receives a small private room overlooking gentle hills and arranges her few possessions: family photographs, a Japanese bronze turtle, a Swedish glass vase, and the Oxford Book of English Verse.

During her first weeks, Caro studies the home with clinical detachment. Harriet and Rose, another caregiver, perform false compassion for visiting relatives while treating residents roughly. Doors must remain open, and the two women surveil everyone constantly. Harriet's lover, Ned, a wizened mechanic, is a constant presence. Caro befriends Standish Flint, a retired farmer in the only other private room. Extremely deaf, Standish communicates through signs, whispers, and ironic smiles. He resists by refusing food and hiding tranquilizers, which Caro helps flush. He tells her, "They won't get my head" (25). Their bond is one of mutual rebellion.

Caro reflects on her past, recalling a nearly 20-year love affair with Alex, a married Englishman she met at the National Gallery in London. Their relationship ended primarily because of the long separation during World War II. She frames the journal as an attempt to make "a final perfect equation" (24) of her life before death.

After four weeks, John and Ginny finally visit. Caro breaks down crying and begs them to take her away, a plea she immediately recognizes as a mistake. The visit lasts about 15 minutes. Standish comforts her afterward with blunt profanity, urging her to curse instead of cry. A letter arrives from Susie, a former student now in her 40s and working as a lawyer in Indiana. Caro drafts a reply but is never certain whether Harriet mailed it.

When Standish begs for a doctor and Harriet dismisses his pain, Caro erupts in rage, screaming and hurling a chair. Harriet, Rose, and Ned pin her down and confine her in a windowless room for days under heavy sedation. Upon release, Caro is consumed by guilt, recognizing anger as her lifelong undoing. She finds solace in George Herbert's poem "The Collar," a meditation on rebellion and surrender to God. Harriet compounds Caro's distress through gaslighting, insisting Caro has done or said things she cannot remember. Caro rereads her journal as her only proof of sanity and secretly stops taking tranquilizers.

Reverend Richard Thornhill visits Twin Elms. A man of about 40 with a warm voice and clear blue eyes, he is far from the sententious clergyman Caro expected. He closes Caro's door for a private conversation in which she describes her confinement and asks whether the home has ever been inspected. She tells him the most important thing he can do is believe her. His daughter, Lisa Thornhill, a high-school senior planning to attend Smith College, soon visits with flowers and books. Speaking outdoors, free from surveillance, Caro entrusts Lisa with a letter to Eva, her former housekeeper.

Richard acts on Caro's account, and state medical inspectors arrive without warning. They find dirty sheets, unemptied bedpans, and poor conditions. Standish is removed by ambulance to a hospital despite his pleas to be left to die in place. He dies in the ambulance among strangers before his family arrives. Harriet informs Caro that the home will not close and punishes her with ostracism. Caro enters a crisis of panic, nightmares, and guilt, tormenting herself over whether the inspection she prompted caused Standish's undignified death.

A reprieve arrives when Harriet leaves for Florida with Ned. Anna Close, a farmer's wife, comes as a temporary replacement. Quiet, efficient, and gentle, Anna cleans the house, places a rose on Caro's breakfast tray, and treats her with genuine care. A deep, mostly silent bond forms between them, communicated through touch and small gestures. Caro feels physically and spiritually nourished for the first time since arriving. Richard visits again during this period, bringing copybooks, a transistor radio, and flowers. Caro discovers music through the radio, finding in the Fauré Requiem and Mozart a pleasure resembling the satisfaction she once took in mathematics.

When Harriet's return approaches, Caro is thrown into panic. She asks Lisa to bring a large can of lighter fluid, the first concrete step in a plan forming in her mind. She writes Anna a love letter and offers her an Hermès blouse, linking her old love to her new one. Harriet returns, finds the letter in Caro's open copybook, and confronts her, calling her degrading names and threatening commitment to the state hospital. Caro walks out intending never to return, but Harriet and Ned pursue her and bring her back to confinement. The humiliation shatters Caro, and she begins to identify with those driven to violence by oppression.

Lisa brings Eva for a visit, but Eva is so shocked by Caro's deterioration that she breaks down. Lisa later takes Caro to see Anna at her farm, though the meeting is strained and awkward rather than the easy communion they shared at Twin Elms. Caro gives Anna the blouse and tells her she is declining. On the drive back, she feels something essential has broken inside her.

Caro begins secretly assembling materials: the lighter fluid, candles from an Advent wreath Lisa gave her, and matches. She plans to wait for a January blizzard, when fire engines would be unable to reach the remote location. The decision brings unexpected serenity. She feels free of attachment, gazes at bare trees with quiet pleasure, and listens to music with new intensity, recognizing that preparing for death requires letting go of the self rather than clinging to it.

Richard pays a final visit, telling Caro he wants to get her out. She begs him not to, insisting it is too late. She whispers a request for forgiveness, and Richard responds that asking forgiveness "places the soul in eternity" (130). Caro tells him she is "going to risk it . . . when the snow falls" (131). A long silence follows before they return to ordinary conversation. Richard calls her a great person and speaks of her courage.

After Richard leaves, Caro falls into a deep sleep. She goes to run a bath and returns to find Harriet reading the last copybook. Caro lunges, tears the copybook away, and locks herself in the bathroom. Through the window she sees heavy snow falling. Lying on the bathmat at peace, she writes her final entry and plans to place all her copybooks in the refrigerator to survive the fire, addressing a future reader: "To you who may one day read this, I give them as a testament. Please try to understand" (133).

A brief afterword states that the manuscript was found after a fire destroyed Twin Elms. A letter inside the cover requested Reverend Thornhill to have it published, and it has been released with the permission of Caro's brother, John.