A grimy sticky streak arced across the kitchen’s polished wood floor, tracing a track from the kitchen recycle bin to the garage.  Though I knew the answer, I pointed out the streak to Mom and asked her if she knew the answer to how it got there: my passive-aggressive encouragement of altered behavior, without offending an aged mother’s soft feelings clouded and tenderized dementia.  But the streak remained a mystery to her.  “When you come by” seems to be the phrase de jour.  When you come by, turn on your dad’s lamp.  When you come by, pick the newspaper up off the floor.  When you come by, close the blinds behind me. And my indignation finally overcame my obsequiousness: “No, Mom.  You can close the blinds yourself, like you have always done.  You’re not helpless.”  “No, Mom.  Get up and turn on the lamp yourself.  You need to move more.”  I have gently told her I will not do for her things she is perfectly capable of doing for herself.  Dad (bless his heart) said humbly one night, When you come by—not now—when you feel like it—will you bring my table a little closer, please, so I can reach it?  The “table” was his TV tray, on which I had already set his plate of streaming cheddar frittata with roasted cauliflower and broccoli.  “Of course, Dad.”  Doing it for himself, in this instance, was impossible.  “I love vegetables, Rog, every time.”  Nice people at church smile and say to me, “I’m sure your parents are so glad to have you living there.  They are so sweet.  Say hello to them for me.”  And I want to scream at them, Why don’t you stop by and say hello to them yourself!… Yes! Mom and Dad are indeed very sweet, and I’m drowning in their doting!…Yes! They are so glad to have me there, and want me close all the time, and in fact, could not live there without me.  “You are so beautiful!” Mom calls to me as I come downstairs in my Sunday best, ready for church—and I want to disappear.  Good sweet people.  I am choking on good, sweet, old, deaf, forgetful, sweet, bossy, piddling, good, sweet people.