PART 5 – The County Worker Left Behind a Plan, but I Was Still the Woman Who Had to Decide Whether an Old Love Was Enough to Keep Showing Up

After Ms. Osei left, the house seemed quieter than it had before she arrived.

Nobody had raised their voice. Nobody had slammed a door. Yet the kitchen felt different, as if the papers on the table had taken up more room than the furniture that was missing.

Trent stayed seated for a while.

Charlene carried the coffee cups to the sink and rinsed them one at a time. She didn't ask me to help.

I returned to Gordon's chair.

He had forgotten about the conversation already, or perhaps he had never understood it in the first place. He was watching the baseball game and rubbing the folded edge of his blanket between his fingers.

“Would you like some water?” I asked.

He nodded.

I brought him a glass and placed it within reach.

He took a drink, then looked at me.

“Are you staying?”

“For a while,” I told him.

He seemed satisfied with that answer.

I pulled the blanket back over his knees. His feet were cold, so I tucked the edge beneath them, careful not to make it too tight.

That was the work.

Whatever else had happened at the dining table, Gordon still needed the same small things done for him.

I could not undo his dementia. I could not make the years return to him or give him back the ability to understand every decision being made around him.

I could make sure he had water.

I could keep the blanket from slipping.

For that afternoon, those things had to be enough.

When I went into the kitchen again, Charlene was standing at the counter with the medication list in her hand.

She read it, put it down, and picked it up again.

I wondered whether she was ashamed of what she had admitted. I wondered whether she was angry with me for bringing the notes to the meeting.

I couldn't know.

I had spent too much of my life guessing what other people were thinking and then behaving as if my guesses were facts.

I wasn't going to start doing that with Charlene.

She had made a dangerous choice with Gordon's medication. She had also admitted what she had done and agreed to follow the plan.

Those were the things I knew.

I went back to the living room.

Trent eventually came in and stood near his father's chair. He asked Gordon whether he wanted anything to eat.

Gordon looked at him without answering.

Trent tried again, offering a choice between two things.

Gordon finally shook his head.

“All right, Dad,” Trent said. “We'll leave it for now.”

He didn't sound impatient.

I watched him straighten the blanket after Gordon shifted in his seat. He seemed unsure where to place his hands, as though he wanted to help but didn't know which movement would be useful.

I recognized that uncertainty.

People often thought caring for someone meant knowing what to do. Sometimes it meant standing there, paying attention, and being willing to try again when the first attempt didn't work.

I had learned that long before I returned to Gordon's house.

I had also learned that affection alone did not make a person good at caregiving.

A person could love someone and still make mistakes. A person could be tired and frightened and still be responsible for the choices they made.

I kept thinking about Charlene's explanation.

She had been afraid Gordon would fall.

I believed her.

I also kept seeing the five entries lined up on the printed pages.

One tablet in the written instructions. Two in the Thursday compartment.

Five times.

I had not imagined the discrepancy, and I had not created it by disliking Charlene.

The record had been there before the meeting. It would remain there afterward.

For once, I didn't feel that I had to convince myself my concern was legitimate.

That evening, I finished my shift as I always did.

I checked on Gordon, helped him settle, and made sure the things he needed were within reach. I recorded what had happened during the shift and entered the relevant observations in the agency system.

I did not add an opinion about the meeting.

I wrote what I knew.

When I got home, I took off my shoes and sat at the kitchen table.

I thought about calling my sister.

She had been the person I spoke to when the past became too heavy to carry alone. She knew what Gordon had done in 2003 and what it had cost me to rebuild a life without him.

She would have understood why seeing him confused and helpless affected me.

She would also have asked the question I didn't want to answer.

Why did you take that job in the first place?

I could have told her I needed the money.

That was true.

I could have told her the agency had offered me three shifts a week and I couldn't afford to turn down steady work.

That was true, too.

But I had known whose house I was driving to before I accepted the assignment. I had sat in my car with the address in my hand and chosen not to call the agency back.

I had wanted to see him.

I had wanted to know whether he was all right.

I had wanted to find out whether the man who had once shared thirty-one years with me was still somewhere inside the person sitting in that recliner.

There was no tidy way to explain that without sounding as if I had never truly left the marriage.

I had left it.

I had signed the papers. I had stopped being his wife. I had learned how to pay my own bills and make decisions without asking what Gordon would think.

But leaving a marriage did not erase the fact that it had happened.

Sometimes I still remembered his habits before I remembered my own.

I knew how he liked his soup. I knew where he kept his socks. I knew why he complained about the porch light.

Those details had survived the divorce.

They had survived the years in which I had no reason to speak to him.

Now they were useful again, and I didn't know what to make of that.

The next day, Denise called.

She told me the agency would be ending my assignment at Gordon's house while the county reviewed the situation.

I sat down before she finished explaining.

I had known the decision was possible. Ms. Osei had been brought into a case in which I was both a caregiver and a former family member, even if Charlene had not known that when she hired me.

The agency needed to avoid placing me in the middle of the review.

Denise spoke gently.

She said I had done the right thing by reporting what I had observed and preserving the notes.

I thanked her.

There was nothing more to argue about.

I understood why the assignment had to end. The family needed someone who wasn't connected to the history in that house, and I could not pretend to be that person.

I had entered the job as a home health aide.

I had done the work.

But I had never been only an aide.

I was Gordon's former wife, whether Charlene knew it or not.

When the call ended, I sat quietly with the telephone in my hand.

I felt relief first.

The responsibility of deciding what to do with the information had been weighing on me for weeks. Now I could step away from the daily routine and allow the proper people to continue the review.

Then I felt the loss.

I wouldn't be there when Gordon asked for his shoes. I wouldn't hear him complain about the porch light. I wouldn't know whether he ate his soup or left half of it untouched.

I had wanted him to be safe.

I had not expected to miss the ordinary work of helping him.

That afternoon, I folded my agency uniform and put it away.

I told myself I had done what I could.

It was a sentence I needed to hear, even though it didn't make me feel entirely better.

Source: blog.giatheficoco.com

Click here to continue reading: PART 6: I Went Back for the Sweater I Had Left Behind, Telling Myself I Was Only Collecting My Things and Nothing More