On a Friday afternoon in early December, I parked in my garage, shouldered my backpack, closed the car door, and opened the door to the kitchen.  The lights were on, not only in the kitchen but all across the downstairs.  A five-pound bag of potatoes sat on the counter.  The front and back doors were unlocked.  I found a glass and an empty yogurt container by the couch.  Then I found David — my ex-husband, close friend, and neighbor — asleep upstairs.

Let’s pause here.  He was my ex-husband; I was his caregiver.  Most people assumed that I was his wife, and some of them wondered why I didn’t care for him at home.  Others knew that I was his ex-wife, and some of them wondered why I was caring for him at all.  Those people thought I must be too attached, or the divorce had been a mistake, or I was allowing him to exploit me. 

I chose to be his caregiver for many reasons.  I loved David.  Our daughter, Fiona, lived in New York City; she was my chief advisor, but she couldn’t be at our side.  My academic job allowed more flexibility than most jobs do

If you’re one of those people, if you’re mystified by my choice, rest assured that there are far greater, far more troubling mysteries here.

To resume: when I woke him, David reported that Fiona had come downstairs earlier in the day and had asked him to go to the grocery store and buy potatoes.  He’d gone to the grocery store, he explained, but he didn’t know what she planned to make.  She’s in Brooklyn, I said, and what about work? It’s Saturday, he replied. 

I said no, it’s Friday.  Both of us went from zero to terror. 

I emailed his supervisor to say that David had missed work because of illness.  I had no idea how true that was.  Then I called the nurse line at our local clinic and explained the situation: David is 65, he’s confused, he’s reporting conversations that couldn’t have happened.  The nurse told me that the most common cause of hallucinations in men David’s age is urinary tract infection and suggested taking him to the ER.  A UTI didn’t seem like an emergency, so I took him to urgent care.  The intake nurse listened and said we’d end up going to the emergency room then or later, so we might as well go then. 

David was the default driver in those days, but he rode in the passenger seat, ruminating about missing work.  I drove and tried to downshift from terror.  Your boss answered the email, I said, and he sent good wishes.  The ER will have the lab results tonight, so you’ll be able to start whatever antibiotic you need.  

In the ER, we waited, then followed someone in scrubs to an exam room, then answered the same questions over and over.  I texted Fiona.  David shivered. I didn’t know then that we should have had bags ready, packed with warm jackets and books and snacks and a folder of crucial medical and insurance information.  I thought he was shivering from fever, and I thought we were waiting for lab results and a prescription.  Until I needed a bathroom, I didn’t know that we were locked in. 

Around midnight, someone in scrubs unlocked the ER door.  We left with discharge paperwork, without answers: no UTI, no sign of any infection.