“I am quite sick today,” Mom’s text read. “I have caught covid.” A home test confirmed her self-diagnosis. I checked on her every hour. At 3:00 she was fine but feverish and I gave her Tylenol and a blanket. At 4:00 I found her rocking and pushing at the arms of her chair, trying to stand. “I need to go to the bathroom,” she mumbled thickly. Even with my arms under hers, she could not stand. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she slurred. She was wet with fever sweat. No, she had not taken her Tylenol with her tea. And she needed to go to the bathroom. Up from the basement I hauled Dad’s portable toilet, now Mom’s. Set beside her recliner, she would not need to walk, only rise, pivot, and sit. But she could not do it. Out from the closet I brought Dad’s gate belt and sling, now Mom’s. I pulled on the sling with my might and brought her, shaking, to her feet. I twisted her and sat her and pulled at her pants, and she peed in the bucket. In reverse, she fell into her rocker, on the towel I had tucked in—there was no pulling up her pants. Mom, you can’t take care of yourself, and I can’t take care of you. I have covid, too, and I’m sick and I’m weak, and my reconstructed achilles is still healing. I have to call. Her falling face crushed me. “I’m fine. I don’t need any help.” I had no heart to argue. “Mom, if you can stand and pull up your pants, I won’t call, okay?” Okay, no problem—I’ll just stand up and pull up my pants. You’ll see. Easy. Even as she slurred the words, I heard Dad’s voice slur the same words from two years before. Eight brawny paramedics swarmed her and lifted her onto a gurney and rolled her out to a square red ambulance, while I stood panting on the porch. I put away the walker, dropped the soiled towel in the hamper, put her clean laundry on hangers, placed her dirty tea glass in the dishwasher, recycled her New York Times. I walked around the room, turning off the lamps one by one, till the room was dark. Sitting in my own recliner, the house was so quiet—so dark and quiet. The faucet in my bathroom has begun to leak, tonight. Drip…drip…drip: once every second. Time ticking in falling water droplets: drip…drip…drip…drip.

(Photo from KUTV used under the Fair Use doctrine.)