Under her bed, seaweed sprouts from balls of yarn. It is almost always purple. Before I was even born, she drove a lawn mower into a swimming pool. When she gets to a knot in the skein, she cuts the knot out and ties the new yarn to her working yarn. My sister and I untangle the knots and roll the yarn into tidy balls. The crocheting keeps her busy, keeps her from picking at her face or scalp like she did during Covid when they were on lockdown. It makes her look competent.

Her bed is in the middle of the room. A prop, if this room were a stage. The pillowcase has some blood because she still picks at her scalp. Purple variegated strings of wavy fingers and arms reach out from under the bed, stretching upward like the bars of an acrylic cage. Done in multiples, they are made thick but left incomplete. In stitches of varying strength, the yarn stalks wind their way to the ceiling, spider across the surface and climb down the walls. Soon it could encase her.

She could strangle herself or someone with the lengths of unfinished blankets by her bed. But she has always been so passive. And she doesn’t have the strength anymore. When I visit, she lifts stray strands of my hair off my shirts. Like this, I am woven into the web.

By her rocking chair, she could trip on the fibrous piles that have overtaken a cord. A mass of potential, she says. Like staggering around in high heels near the erosion of a ravine. She has always liked taking risks.

The bathroom door is a sliding door fashioned to look like a barn door. I think it goes against her idea of an interior door. She is constantly pulling instead of sliding. In a nursing home memory care unit, the idea of a door is something to cling to. She pulls past messes of purple yarn and the discarded spaghetti piles get trapped in the door’s sliding path. Together, we weave the loose ends.