Goodnight, Wherever You Are

They tell me I’m wrong. Every time I ask these incompetent “care givers”, they give me the same blank stare, the same hesitation in their answer. They’re afraid of something, though I can’t figure out what it is. I’m not violent — I never hit anybody like some of these other dotards.

At least. I’m pretty sure I never hit anybody. Yeah, I’m sure.

Why can’t anybody give me a straight answer in this place? You were in bed with me one minute, and the next minute I roll over and you’re not there. You couldn’t have gone far because the wheelchair is still in the room. You never made it far without that creaky old crow.

I remember. I remember when you used to dance. That sticks with me forever. You in our living room, accordion in your hands and feet flying a million miles an hour. That smile spread so wide across your face I thought your cheeks were gonna crack. You know, I couldn’t tell you the year, but it was in our old house. That house up off…well come on now…deer-something road. Deer-something road? Oh for Pete’s sake, I know the name of our road! We spent a lifetime living on that road.

These people here, the nursing staff. All they know is you drooling all over yourself and wheeled around in that damn chair. They don’t know the life you had. They don’t know the woman I love.

But they must know how much I love you. So why do they keep giving me that frightful look? You wouldn’t believe what one of them said to me. Told me you’d gone away.

Can you believe that?! Now how are they gonna tell me you’ve gone away when you were with me all day? When you can’t make it two feet without that cursed chair.

They all saw you. I know they did. We had breakfast together downstairs, we had lunch downstairs, we had dinner downstairs, all for them to see. Didn’t we? Did we eat lunch upstairs maybe? Maybe dinner. Well now…now what did we have for dinner? 

No. They’re wrong. They’re always wrong. I told you so the day we moved in.

I knew it the second we handed over our first deposit to that slug of a salesman, grinning his reaper’s grin. A man selling grave-lots to the old folks. Only you got to live in these grave-lots before you’re dead. Assisted living, what a goddamn load of crock. I’m sorry my sweet, I know it upsets you when I take the lords name, but you know how they rile me. 

Twenty or thirty years as a manager on the factory floor teaches you a thing or two about efficient execution. About doing a job. Nobody around here cares about doing a job anymore. They just want to make everything difficult for each other, always whispering, stabbing each other in the back, taking stuff out of my room when they think I’m not looking.

You would not believe what our grandson said to me. The stones on him. I don’t even know why I was talking with him. I asked these people, these care givers to do their job and they went running to him. They wake him up and put him on the phone. The nerve of these people. I didn’t need to talk to him.

But I’ll tell you…what he said to me, I just don’t know. He put the fear in me, love, more fear than what I got for you being gone. 

He says to me that my wife’s been dead four years now. He says to me I been living alone these last few years. He says I woke up dreaming, or he says my old memories are bleeding into my new ones. And he says it all so calmly. I can hear his love. He’s patient, he’s cool as a cucumber, and yet just below it all, it sounds like he’s said this before. We’ve talked about this before.

And for a second there, I can see it. My life without you. It’s a cold damn place with that old wheelchair in the corner, your clothes gathering dust, and the radio you used to tune to the classical station sitting silent. But he’s wrong, right? I know he’s wrong, but I know he’s right.

It’s all so confusing love. We’ve been together some fifty years and I can tell you the name of our dog we had in the old house. I can tell you about the time I watched the Chinese drop commies out the back of an airplane without parachutes at the end of the second world war. I can tell you about the day I told my mom and pop I was leaving school and that same day I drove up to Chattanooga and got myself a job.

But I can’t tell you what I had for dinner an hour ago. Or maybe it was a couple hours ago. Seems like everybody’s asleep now. I meant what we had for dinner, what we had, because you were there, just a slip of the tongue, that’s all.

Our grandson told me he could only tell me his reality. And in his reality you’ve been dead a while now. And the thing is, I want to believe him. But I know you were just in bed with me. My mind circles the drain more and more these days.

I’m exhausted — our grandson said we should sleep on it and start again in the morning. A new day, new beginnings. I do love him. But for the first time, I think I’m afraid of him. I’m afraid he knows more about this world than I do. And I know that’s the truth of it.

I’m gonna go back to bed now. And I’ll pray to God forgiveness. We haven’t talked in a while, but I know you’ll whisper in His ear for me. I’ll pray forgiveness for taking his name in vain, for running you off, for losing my mind. And I’ll pray you come home soon.

I miss you, love. Goodnight, wherever you are.