I looked toward the bedroom door.
“She talked to you?”
“Yes.”
“And neither of you told me?”
David gave me a tired smile.
“Now you know how it feels.”
That shut me up.
Then he said, “I told her you’d never agree until something scared you.”
“The fall.”
“Probably.”
I swallowed.
“I accepted the room.”
David closed his eyes.
For one second, I panicked.
Then he whispered, “Good.”
I stared at him.
“Good?”
“Yes.”
“You want to go?”
He opened his eyes again.
“No.”
That hurt.
He saw it.
“I don’t want to be sick either.”
I looked down.
“I don’t want to leave this house.”
His voice cracked.
“I don’t want someone else helping me shower. I don’t want to eat dinner at 5:30 with a room full of strangers. I don’t want you driving home without me.”
I started crying again.
“Then don’t go.”
“Linda.”
“I mean it.”
“That isn’t what I said.”
“How am I supposed to send you somewhere you don’t want to be?”
“Because I need more care than you can give.”
“I can do it.”
“No.”
“David—”
“No.”
His voice was stronger.
Still quiet.
But firm.
“I fell because I tried to get to the bathroom without you.”
“I know.”
“You can’t be everywhere.”
“I can be more careful.”
“You already are.”
“I can stop doing laundry when you’re awake.”
He stared at me.
I heard myself.
I heard how insane it sounded.
Stop doing laundry while he was awake.
Don’t shower unless he was asleep.
Don’t grocery shop unless Janet was there.
Don’t sleep too deeply.
Don’t leave.
Don’t live.
David said, “Do you remember our wedding vows?”
I laughed bitterly.
“Of course I do.”
“In sickness and in health.”
“Yes.”
“It says nothing about one spouse becoming a full medical staff.”
I almost smiled.
“You’re making jokes.”
“I’m making a point.”
“You always make a point.”
“That’s why you married me.”
“That’s not why.”
“No?”
“No.”
“Why then?”
I looked at him.
“Because you were impossible.”
He smiled.
“There she is.”
That broke me.
I leaned forward and put my forehead against his shoulder.
He smelled like soap and the medicated cream I rubbed into his hands twice a day.
“I feel like I’m abandoning you.”
He rested his cheek against my hair.
“You’d be abandoning me if you stopped coming.”
I pulled back.
“What?”
“If you put me there and disappear, that’s abandonment.”
He took a breath.
“If you put me there because I need help and then come see me every day and complain about the coffee, that’s marriage.”
I laughed through tears.
He continued.
“Bring me my shirts.”
“Which ones?”
“Not the blue plaid.”
“You like the blue plaid.”
“I hate the blue plaid.”
“You wore it for 20 years.”
“Under protest.”
I stared at him.
He smiled.
Then his face softened.
“Bring me the gray sweater.”
“Okay.”
“And my watch.”
I looked toward the nightstand.
“The reason I opened the drawer.”
“I figured.”
The letter was still in my hand.
I looked down at it.
“I haven’t finished.”
“You can.”
“Do you want me to read it here?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I was probably dramatic.”
I laughed.
“You wrote, ‘You waited too long.'”
He nodded.
“Sounds like me.”
I read the rest that afternoon while he slept.
The final page was the hardest.
“If this day comes, you may think I am losing my home.”
“Please remember that home was never the building.”
“It was you.”
“If I move somewhere else, bring yourself.”
“Not the version of you who hasn’t eaten.”
“Not the version who apologizes for being tired.”
“You.”
“Sit with me.”
“Watch old movies.”
“Tell me the nurses are flirting with me even if they’re not.”
“Go home afterward and sleep.”
“I promise I will still know where home is.”
At the bottom, he’d written:
“And if I complain, remind me I wrote this while I was still smarter than both of us.”
I laughed so loudly that David woke up.
“What?”
I held up the letter.
“You were insufferable seven years ago too.”
He smiled.
“Consistent.”
We told Janet that evening.
Or rather, I told her I had accepted the room.
She cried.
Then apologized for crying.
Then I cried because she was crying.
David finally said, “Apparently I’m the stable one.”
Janet sat beside him.
“Dad, are you scared?”
He nodded.
That mattered.
He didn’t pretend.
“Yes.”
“Do you still want to go?”
He thought carefully.
