Thursday.
Dad rang a little after eight. Dad never rings after eight.
Mum hadn't been herself since the afternoon, he said. Head all foggy. Wanting to lie down. Two mouthfuls of dinner, that was all, then straight to bed.
Then she'd woken partway through and said she'd been dreaming. A lot. Holes, she said. Lots of holes. Couldn't tell him any more than that.
His voice was doing the careful thing it does when he's frightened.
Keys, jacket, out the door. Left the dishes. Told my daughter where I was going, and she nodded without looking up from her desk. Don't remember a single traffic light on the way.
Mum was sitting up on the edge of the bed when I got there, hair flat on one side, hands smoothing the blanket over and over. Said it was strange. So many things in the dream, she said, and now none of it would stay. Said she didn't feel right. Didn't feel like herself.
Didn't ask her much. Went to the kitchen instead.
The pills she takes every day live on the shelf beside the rice cooker. Counted what was left against the calendar on the fridge. Counted again, slower.
Three days' worth gone. Today's, and the next two.
Second time. We'd talked about it the first time, properly, Dad and I. You keep them, you're the one who manages them. He'd nodded. I'd thought that was that.
Asked him quietly in the hallway how it worked, day to day.
He reminds her after meals, he said. Mum's careful. She knows. She'll do it herself.
Didn't see her take them. Never had. Just asked afterwards, did you take your pills?
My best guess — and it is only a guess — is that she took them, and forgot, and then Dad asked, and she honestly didn't know. So she took them again. Maybe more than once across the day.
Wasn't angry at him. Couldn't be. Fifty-odd years of trusting that woman to look after herself — it's not a habit you drop because a clinic letter says so.
But I stood there in the hallway with the light off, and it landed.
Reminding someone isn't the same as seeing it done.
I'd known the difference all my life without ever needing it.
Heated the dinner back up. Rice, a little fish, a few spoonfuls of soup. She managed about half, slowly, the way you eat when someone is watching. Then a pear, cut thin, because it was something to do with my hands. No idea if fruit does anything. Did it anyway.
Back to bed after that, bedside lamp on. Dad took the armchair in the corner.
We'll see how she sleeps, we agreed. Neither of us said what we'd do if she doesn't.
Phone on the arm of the couch, volume up for once. Daughter's text sat unanswered on the screen: All ok?
Dad asked if I could stay a little while.
Said yes. Neither of us said until when.