Two weeks later, David was in the apartment and his empty house was on the market.  That’s true, and it’s one way to frame the events.  Another: that was my sabbatical semester, and I spent the first month caring for David through that terrible weekend episode, getting him to medical care, moving him into assisted living, and getting his house ready to sell — emptying it, cleaning it, working with the realtor to get it on the market.  That’s another way to describe that stretch.  And another: like the trip to New York City, the setback in his house and the process of moving unlaced whatever held David together. 

The movers had instructed us to use colored masking tape to mark items, blue for anything going to the apartment, green for anything going to my house, and nothing for items to be donated or discarded.  We did that together, hour after hour.  Then I went home to sleep.  When I came back in the morning, I’d find that David had stayed up most of the night or all night.  Sometimes he spent the night making paper labels that said “rug,” “book,” “table,” and all the other nouns.  He used no colored tape; he carefully balanced the torn scrap of paper on every object.  He barely ate.  He worked endlessly and fruitlessly.  I would admire his work and then put colored masking tape next to the labels.  I tried hard not to think about the futility of his labor and about the way it broke my heart.  I hoped I could help to lace him up again after the move. That’s another true account of those two weeks.

David moved to the apartment in mid-February of 2020.  The movers checked with us about the placement of every piece of furniture, about every one of the fifteen small tables David had insisted he needed.  An unhappy mover pulled me aside.  There’s too much furniture in here, he said; we can’t create clear paths for him.  I assured him that I would take away one table at a time, but David couldn’t part with any more belongings that day.  At last the movers left, and our friend Kim arrived with ice cream and a hammer.  We hung paintings.  I set up two handsets for the landline, one in the bedroom and the other in the kitchen.  I taped my phone number to the handsets.  With almost everything in place, David and I went downstairs to eat dinner at the restaurant.  Back upstairs, I waited at the apartment until he was asleep and returned the next morning before he woke up.

As he had after the New York trip, David slept and slowly regained ground.  He’d been excited about the café and the activities, but now he was fearful and fretful.  Keys had given him fits for quite some time by then, but the doors in the building opened with the wave of an electronic fob.  After dozens of practice sessions, he gained some confidence that he could open the door on his own.  Then we explored the building together, little by little.  By the time he’d been there a week, he felt ready to get coffee and read the paper at the café.  I had my own set of keys, so I came in the mornings and afternoons to dispense his meds and keep him company for breakfast and dinner, and I stayed until he was asleep. 

The staff members were friendly and reassuring, and they checked in often during those early days.  All in all, the situation felt no more or less precarious than life in his house had felt; the risks were different.  Moving is profoundly difficult for people with dementia, and it was anybody’s guess whether David would need more assistance and oversight or would gradually regain more independence. 

Then, just two weeks after the move, COVID hit and the building went into lockdown.  We had some warning, but not much, that I wouldn’t be able to enter the building.