Father makes whooshing sounds, stuck in bed until his vim returns. Each time the sun shifts, he says to whoever’s close by: Move the curtain six inches left. Now two inches right. Uhh, slightly left. Too far. Try again.

Mother escapes the room, but I don’t mind playing curtain maid. I’m here so seldom, once or twice a year.

Father is conducting the world’s longest symphony. He points to the kitchen at 11 and 4: Cook bring coffee. Shoulder twitches at 1: Where’s lunch? He lifts his hand, fingers limp: Nurse, bathroom. A stronger ascending arm: Hurry. Sideways jerks, almost tumbling off the bed: Emergency. Hand falling slack, face slumping: Too late.

I watch Mother take over the orchestra. The tempo increases. All the players work with their instruments: scrubbing brush, mop, pail. The spill is tended to, the floor disinfected, the air sprayed. Father is cleaned, changed into a fresh tunic. My small part: To tell him he looks fetching, which makes him smile. As he’s put back to bed, Mother scolds Nurse for giving up on diapers. But we all know he just pulls them off when he has to go.

Mother has supervised Father’s decline for a decade. Four pills every three hours to feed his brain dopamine. Sedatives at night. Not a dose missed, ever, a point of pride for Mother. They’ve both grown old from the routine, her service a lifetime sentence, no fatigue parole. I’ve kept witness from my relatively undisturbed life. For years I urged her to hire an aide. I’m perfectly capable, she always said. Until the day she wasn’t. Rising caneless from a chair, Father staggered and grabbed for her. They lay crumpled in a pile, him on top, her smock ripped. Shaken but, miraculously, intact. Mother showed me her shiners on video chat, carmine patches on her arm and side. Why’d she buckle like that? Father mumbled from behind. Never happened before. Her face turned carmine also. It’s his nature to be helpless, she shouted. He’ll use me till he breaks me.

I let the screen absorb their grievances. What else to do from continents away? The next time we spoke, Mother said: I have an idea. A part-time nurse. Obviously, I’ll need to keep watch.

I relearn their habits when I’m home. No one can predict when Father will lurch from bed, sufficiently charged, swaying and weaving as he searches for candy. Or his medical files. Or his golf clubs, long resold. Where’s his walker? Where’s Nurse? I yell as he careens past. On break, Mother shrugs, acting busy with bills. Let him run about. One burst of energy, he thinks he’s young again. But unlike a young man, he tires quickly, his gait mincing, clownish. I hear a thud one morning, then a cry. I rush to the other room, and she is letting him lie on the floor. Just for a minute. The indignity of moaning for help is supposed to edify him. He’s bruised all over now, from frequent tumbles, but Mother insists they’re superficial. His bones are stronger than mine, she says. Is this a contest? I respond. To see who shatters first? 

It's true, though, about her bones. Senses still sharp, Mother is steady enough. But inside she’s turning to chalk. The last time she tripped rushing to Father, her elbow split into pieces. She needed screws put in, then rest. Still, he hovered around her with his ceaseless dirge of complaints. How his body feels like a rock. How Night Nurse slyly cuts his pills. How the doctors could do more if only Mother told them how much he suffers. How she rides around in the car, leaving him alone.

Let him live forever. And let me go soon, Mother says on the phone after a hard day. 

Him without her is a frightening thought, the wrong sequence. But who can blame her if she dreams about being unchained. Flying away while she can. I know her list of one-more-times. Alight into her grandsons’ arms in a distant land. Watch Sunday lovers stroll a cobbled piazza. Wade into a shallow sea at sunset, holding my elbow, for a last sound and light show.

When COVID hits the capital, Mother won’t let Cook take over Father’s care, insisting the nurses continue. In twelve-hour shifts. Can one person deal with him? she says. Lifting, cleaning, feeding, walking. His nonstop demands. The pandemic reaches every alley and doorway. No masks or curtains can keep out its sinuous intrusion. Fiery pyres choke the city with smoke. Unable to travel, I watch the pictures onscreen.

Father and Mother are isolated in the COVID ward mere rooms apart. The doctors, sick themselves, give me infrequent updates. Father is bewildered by where he is. He calls for Mother. Then he’s quiet. The virus sedates him. I imagine Mother alone and conscious meters away, in a dark room filled with beeps and blue lights. Filled with guilt and panic. If Father returns home, he’ll be on breathing and feeding tubes forever. A comatose baby cleaned and dressed six times a day.

In a week he’s gone.

Lucky for everyone.

Mother comes home, a wobbly, fleshless creature. I visit. If I hug her tight, I’ll crush her. Cook is instructed to feed her protein every meal, but she can only eat a bird’s diet. A man comes to help her with exercises in bed, her wings hardly lifting. She tries to rise but can't without assistance. She asks me to phone the doctor. Surely there’s more they could do to make her well. Nurse tells her she just took her pills. I did not, Mother retorts. Why do you lie? She calls to the kitchen, her voice imperceptible. Cook brings tea and a protein biscuit. Though she can barely raise her hand, the orchestra knows the gesture for every note. 

Move that curtain right. Stop. Left three inches. Too much. Once again. Just there. Not quite.