I take you to see Dad every day. Sometimes twice a day. Even when we move him to the skilled nursing facility—you don’t know what that is…how about I call it a rehab center—you want to go there twice a day. It eats up hours of the day, my day. I have nothing to do while we’re there, and technically neither do you, and yet you seem to get something out of it that I don’t.

If I had to bet (and I mean that figuratively, because you’re allergic to anything I do that’s remotely related to gambling), I’d bet that you miss Dad. You hate it when he yells at you, doesn’t value you—let alone say ‘thank you,’ is mean to the person who holds the door open for him just a little bit too long.

But the moment he’s gone, you’re his knight in shining armor, a set of armor that always looks like it’s about to collapse and clang as the pieces fall to the floor.

“I really pray to God that He takes John home soon,” I hear you say, sometimes to me, sometimes to people over the phone.

But I don’t think you’re really ready for that. You certainly don’t seem ready, even at home.

I think you’re sick.

You cough. But you always cough a lot—still, something tells me that you’re coughing more than usual. Like you’re almost wheezing.

You seem weaker. You can’t get up without Mom’s help. I wonder if it’s the couch that’s the problem—it’s leather and the cushion has a lot of give so you practically sink into it. So I buy you a new one. It’s firmer, and you seem to like it. But you still seem like you have trouble standing up. Or staying standing up.

I buy you a brand new walker. I push it to you. You push it away. Even when I’m holding you and I can tell you’d fall over the moment I let you go, you push the walker away. How come strength and sense fades with Alzheimer’s, but not stubbornness? Someone goofed up somewhere.

Mom thinks you’re fine. She says you’re fine. You’re just being lazy. You’re just being dramatic. Somehow, I think she’s sneaking in a “I really hope…” in the beginning of each of those.

We finally test your temperature. It’s one hundred two.

I give you Tylenol. Mom asks me to take you to the ER. I say let’s wait an hour to see if the fever goes down. But she’s made up her mind, and like a cooked egg, late-night college mistakes, or the One Ring, some things just can’t be unmade.

“Daniel, please. Okay? I won’t be able to sleep if we don’t go. Can we just go now? Okay? Please. Okay?”

“Let’s go,” I say, two minutes later.