The first evening, Charlene opened the door before I had finished knocking.
She was dressed for an occasion, wearing a neat blazer and the kind of expression people have when they are already thinking about being somewhere else.
I recognized her from the little I had learned about her over the years.
But she had never seen a photograph of me.
By the time she and Gordon began their life together, the divorce was final, and I was no longer part of the household.
Whatever pictures of me had once stood on the shelves had disappeared.
Whatever reminders I had left behind had been removed.
To Charlene, I was a stranger arriving to take care of her husband.
"Wanda?"
"Yes."
"Come in. I'm glad you're here."
She stepped aside.
I walked into the house.
For one foolish second, I expected the place to feel familiar.
The walls were familiar.
The shape of the hallway was familiar.
But the house had changed in ways that were difficult to describe, as if someone had kept the shell and slowly replaced the life inside it.
Charlene began showing me around.
She pointed out the kitchen and explained where the dishes were kept.
She showed me the list of medications and told me where the supplies were stored.
There was a baby monitor setup that allowed the household to keep an ear on Gordon when he was in another room.
I listened carefully.
I asked the ordinary questions an aide should ask.
I wanted to know what he could do on his own, what kind of assistance he needed, and what usually made his evenings difficult.
Charlene answered quickly.
She seemed relieved to have someone else taking responsibility for the hours ahead.
"He can get worked up later in the day," she told me. "Sometimes he says things that don't make sense."
"I understand."
"Don't let it upset you."
"I won't."
She glanced toward the den.
"He isn't himself anymore."
There was nothing unusual about that sentence in a household affected by dementia.
I had heard versions of it before.
Still, something about the way Charlene said it made me look at her more closely.
She wasn't crying.
She wasn't angry.
She sounded tired, impatient, and ready to leave.
I reminded myself that I didn't know what her days were like.
I had no right to decide what kind of wife she was based on a few minutes in the doorway.
I was there to do a job.
That was all.
Charlene checked her purse and looked toward the front door.
"I'll be back later."
"All right."
"If he needs anything, everything should be on the list."
"I'll call if there's a problem."
She gave me a quick nod and left.
I heard her footsteps cross the porch.
Then the door shut.
The house became quiet except for the television.
I walked toward the den.
Gordon sat in a recliner, facing the screen.
The sound was muted.
His eyes were open, but he seemed to be watching something far away from whatever was playing in front of him.
He had been seventy-four for some time now.
I knew that much from the assignment information.
I had not known what seventy-four would look like on him.
He was thinner than I remembered.
His shoulders seemed smaller inside his clothes, and his face had lost the fullness I associated with the man I had once known.
His hands rested on the chair arms.
They looked older than I expected.
I stopped a few feet away.
For thirty-one years, I had known the details of that face.
I knew the crease that appeared between his eyebrows when he was irritated.
I knew how his mouth tightened when he was trying not to laugh.
I knew the way he looked at me when he wanted to ask a question without saying it aloud.
I had seen him sick, exhausted, angry, pleased, and asleep.
I had watched that face change over three decades.
Now he raised his eyes toward me.
He looked directly at me.
For a moment, I thought he recognized something.
Then he spoke.
"Are you the new girl?"
My throat tightened.
I had imagined all sorts of things during the drive.
I had imagined him asking where I had been.
I had imagined him being angry with me.
I had imagined him looking away because seeing me would bring back something he didn't want to remember.
I had not imagined him treating me as a stranger.
"Yes," I said. "I'm here to help you tonight."
He looked at me for another second.
Then his attention wandered back to the television.
That was it.
No recognition.
No question.
Nothing that suggested I had once been the person he expected to see when he woke up in the morning.
I excused myself and went into the hallway bathroom.
I turned on the faucet.
The water ran into the sink, making enough noise to cover the sound I could not quite keep inside.
I put both hands on the edge of the basin.
I didn't want to cry in front of him.
I didn't want him to see a stranger falling apart for reasons he couldn't understand.
So I stood there until I could breathe normally.
Then I shut off the faucet and looked at myself in the mirror.
I was seventy.
My hair had changed.
My face had changed.
I had lived a whole life since the last time Gordon and I were husband and wife.
I had survived the divorce.
I had found work.
I had learned how to be alone without treating loneliness as a personal failure.
Yet one question from him had taken me straight back to the woman who signed those papers in 2003.
I wiped my face.
Then I returned to the den.
Gordon needed supper.
I warmed his soup and carried it over carefully.
He watched me set the bowl down.
I told him it was hot and that he should take his time.
He didn't ask my name.
I didn't volunteer it.
There was something almost unbearable about the ordinary nature of the work.
The soup needed stirring.
The bowl needed to be positioned where he could reach it.
The television remained silent.
I had to keep moving because there were practical things to do, and the practical things did not care that my heart was hurting.
I helped him with his evening routine.
I checked that he had what he needed.
When it was time to prepare him for bed, I followed the same professional rules I followed with every patient.
I explained what I was doing before I did it.
I gave him privacy wherever possible.
I made sure the water was comfortable.
I watched his movements so he wouldn't lose his balance.
He was dependent on help for tasks he had once handled without a thought.
That was the part I couldn't stop noticing.
Not because I believed he owed me anything.
Because I remembered the man who had once walked into a room and expected everyone else to make room for him.
The years had reduced him to a quieter, more vulnerable person.
And I was the one helping him through it.
When I finished, I made sure he was settled.
He looked tired.
I asked if he needed anything else.
He shook his head.
I cleaned up and checked the room before I completed my shift notes.
The house was quiet enough that I could hear the refrigerator running in the kitchen.
I wrote down what I had observed.
His condition.
His food intake.
The assistance he needed.
Anything that might matter to the next person who came in.
I did not write that I was his former wife.
I did not write that he had looked at me without knowing who I was.
Those facts were personal.
The shift notes were supposed to record his care.
I had no intention of using them to tell the story of my marriage.
At the end of the evening, I gathered my things.
I looked toward the den one last time before leaving.
Gordon was resting.
I felt relieved.
That was the word that came to me, and it embarrassed me because I knew how little I had done.
I had fed him, helped him wash, and made sure he was comfortable.
It was ordinary work.
But he had been safe while I was there.
For that night, it was enough.
The drive home gave me too much time to think.
I had accepted the assignment because I wanted to know whether Gordon was all right.
Now I knew he was frail, confused, and unable to recognize me.
I should have felt that my question had been answered.
Instead, I kept thinking about the house.
The old home.
The place where we had raised our family.
It had been changed, but it was still the place where I remembered Gordon as a younger man.
And I had the uncomfortable feeling that I had only begun to see what was happening there.
Click here to continue reading: PART 3: The Empty Spaces on the Walls Were Easy to Miss Until I Began Counting What Was Disappearing
The Man Who Forgot My Name Still Had a Place in My Heart, and I Was Afraid of What I Might Find There
Part 2 of 9
