“I want your mother to stop looking like she hasn’t slept.”
I threw a pillow at him.
Very gently.
Janet laughed.
Then he said, “And yes.”
The move happened four days later.
I packed his clothes.
The gray sweater.
Not the blue plaid.
His watch.
Three framed photographs.
His shaving kit, even though someone else would probably help him with it.
His favorite coffee mug.
The old detective novels he’d already read six times.
And the letter.
I tried to put that back in the nightstand.
David said, “No.”
“Why?”
“Take it.”
“It’s yours.”
“I wrote it to you.”
So I did.
The morning we left, I stood in our bedroom and cried.
Again.
I had cried a lot that week.
David was already dressed.
Janet had helped.
That alone made me feel strangely useless.
Then guilty for feeling useless.
Then angry at myself for being guilty.
David noticed.
“Linda.”
“What?”
“Come here.”
I walked over.
He reached for my hand.
“I’m not dying today.”
I looked at him.
“I know.”
“You’re acting like we’re heading to the gallows.”
“I know.”
“I’m 20 minutes away.”
“I know.”
“You’re going to be sick of me by Friday.”
“I know.”
He squeezed my hand.
“Good.”
Meadow Ridge was exactly as I remembered.
Clean.
Bright.
Painfully cheerful.
A nurse named Teresa introduced herself.
David looked at her name badge.
“Are you the stranger with strong arms and a degree?”
I nearly died.
Teresa blinked.
Then laughed.
“Depends who told you.”
“My wife.”
I said, “He wrote it.”
“Even worse,” she said.
I liked her immediately.
The first day was awful.
Not because anything terrible happened.
Because I left.
At 4:30, David had dinner scheduled.
At five, Teresa said they would help him get ready for bed later.
I stood beside his chair holding my purse.
“I can stay.”
David looked at me.
“No.”
“I don’t mind.”
“I do.”
“David.”
“Go home.”
My throat tightened.
He pointed at me.
“Read the letter.”
“I already did.”
“Read it again.”
I leaned down and kissed him.
He whispered, “Sleep.”
I nodded.
Then I walked out.
I made it to the parking lot before crying.
Then I went home.
The house was silent.
Terribly silent.
For almost two years, every sound had been organized around David.
The walker.
The medication timer.
His cough.
His voice calling my name.
Now there was nothing.
I walked into the kitchen.
Opened the refrigerator.
And realized I could make anything I wanted for dinner.
That thought made me cry too.
So I ate cereal.
At nine, I went to bed.
Then I woke up.
It was 7:15 in the morning.
I had slept ten hours.
Ten.
For the first time in almost two years.
I sat on the edge of the bed and felt guilty.
Then I looked at David’s letter on the nightstand.
“You waited too long.”
I showered.
Ate breakfast.
Actually ate it.
Then drove to Meadow Ridge.
David was in the garden.
Teresa had wheeled him outside because the weather was good.
He looked up when he saw me.
“You slept.”
It wasn’t a question.
“Ten hours.”
He smiled.
“Show-off.”
I sat beside him.
“How was your night?”
“Terrible.”
I panicked.
“What happened?”
“The man across the hall snores like a chainsaw.”
I stared at him.
“That’s it?”
“And oatmeal should not be that gray.”
I started laughing.
He did too.
That was the first day.
There were harder ones.
Days when David begged to come home.
Days when I almost said yes.
Days when his illness got worse, and the nurses had to help with things I used to do.
I hated that.
Then I learned something unexpected.
I also loved not being the nurse.
At home, every conversation eventually became about medication, pain, food, bowel movements, sleep, appointments.
At Meadow Ridge, other people handled much of that.
So sometimes I got to be his wife again.
I brought him terrible coffee from the place he liked.
We watched old movies.
He complained that every actor after 1980 mumbled.
I read to him when his hands shook too badly to hold a book.
Once, I spent an entire visit telling him about Carol’s daughter’s divorce.
Halfway through, he said, “I don’t even like Carol.”
“I know.”
“Why do I know this much?”
“Because you’re trapped.”
He laughed until he started coughing.
Three weeks after David moved in, I went to book club.
