Buying this ample ranch house in the country, I dreamed I could rescue you, my husband, from the nursing home where I couldn’t visit you because of Covid, where you were starved, quarantined in your room with a man who could only blink. Who knew that apart from the stroke caused by open-heart surgery, you would be diagnosed with Lewy body dementia, which creates delusions, paranoia? Who could guess that all the knives and scissors would have to be hidden, that all the doors would require inside and outside locks so you can’t escape to beat up the old fellow across the street who you are convinced is an enemy? I pictured us sitting on the patio, side by side, my hand on yours as we looked out at our garden, of flowers mentioned by Shakespeare—columbine, chamomile, cowslip, daffodils, larkspur, poppy. How I roared at Stratford-upon-Avon when you, with your fat, bee-stung lip, slurred— Haply I think on thee, and then my state, (Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate, then you whistled a spluttering jumble of notes that made me open my bumbershoot. Now, sitting beside me on the patio, you jam my chair against the house, jarring my arm, trying to get closer. Who knew my dreams would be broken by you in the hallway, lunging your body against the front door, bellowing, “Let me in, Let me in.”
