Then I washed my face.
Walked back into the kitchen.
And made dinner.
That night, I called Karen.
Before I could lose my nerve, I said,
“I think Dad needs to go somewhere that can take care of him.”
There was silence on the phone.
Then Karen said,
“Mom, I think you need someone to take care of you too.”
That sentence broke something open inside me.
I had expected her to argue.
I expected her to insist we try harder.
Instead, she understood what I was really saying.
I wasn’t asking permission to abandon my husband.
I was admitting that I couldn’t do it alone anymore.
Karen arrived the next morning carrying a folder.
Of course she did.
That was Karen.
When life became difficult, she researched it.
Inside were brochures for a skilled nursing facility about twenty minutes from our house.
I toured it two days later.
It was clean.
The staff seemed kind.
There was a garden.
A television room.
Organized activities.
Everything looked perfectly acceptable.
I hated all of it.
I sat in my car afterward and cried.
I felt as though I were breaking a promise.
Maybe not a promise David and I had spoken aloud on our wedding day.
But something deeper.
Something built over forty-four years.
The next day, I called the facility and told them we would take the room.
I still hadn’t told David.
I convinced myself I needed to prepare first.
Pack some clothes.
Gather familiar things.
Then I would find the right words.
One morning, while David was asleep, I opened his nightstand drawer looking for his watch.
It was an old Seiko his parents had given him for graduation in 1972.
The crystal was scratched.
The leather band had been replaced several times.
He wore it every single day.
I thought it would be one of the things he would want at the facility.
The watch was inside the drawer.
But behind it, wedged between the drawer and the back of the nightstand, was an envelope.
Cream-colored.
Old.
My name was written on the front.
Linda.
David’s handwriting.
Then I saw the line beneath it.
For Linda, if the day ever comes when she can’t take care of me anymore.
I stood there for a long time.
The day ever comes.
He had thought about this.
Not vaguely.
Not theoretically.
He had specifically imagined a future where I reached my limit.
