At last the administrator granted me “essential caregiver” status.  I wasn’t allowed to use my keys, and I could come and go only during hours when someone was at the front desk to check me in and out.  Like every facility in the country, this one was short-staffed – so check-in hours kept shifting, and sometimes no one answered the doorbell. 

But I was willing to keep ringing the doorbell.  I was willing to be a pest because David was unraveling.  Children kept putting on his coat, he told me, and playing in his closet.  Then an entire family moved into his bedroom and wouldn’t leave.  David taped a sign to his bedroom door: “THIS ROOM IS CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC.”  He couldn’t use the tv because students were studying for exams in the living room.  A carnival had appeared across the street.  Teenagers were waving flags all day long.  Didn’t I think that was strange?  Wouldn’t they get tired, waving flags all day? 

Improv became an essential caregiver skill.  I had stern talks with the children.  I opened the door to the apartment and asked the family to leave.  “Great!”  I said to David.  “They left, and they promised not to come back.” 

“How did you get them to leave?” he asked. 

“I just asked them politely.  You can do that, too, if other people try to make themselves at home here.”

Other people did, of course, and so did cats.  David welcomed the cats but not the people.  They were faceless; and they looked mean. 

With rare exceptions, David’s hallucinations before the move had featured vague shapes.  Now he saw specific human figures.  He didn’t like being alone, but now his world was peopled with the wrong people.  These people plagued him.  They didn’t threaten violence, but they invaded his rooms and made demands.  Some, like the students preparing for exams, complained about the noise.  Some wanted to watch tv when David wanted to sleep, and it was hard for him to fall asleep with the tv on.  Some bustled around in the kitchen.  One little girl kept climbing into the dryer.

These people appeared most often when David was alone, but sometimes he’d find one in the bedroom after I’d said goodnight to him and settled down to work in the living room.  “Cindy,” he’d call me in a whisper.  “See that guy in the chair? He’s been staring at me.”  I’d speak firmly to the chair, saying it was time to leave, and then I’d open and close the door to the apartment.  Back in the bedroom, I’d shift the furniture around in case shadows were taking human shapes, and I’d hope I wasn’t creating new shadow-shapes.  When he was fully asleep, I’d gather my things and tiptoe out.