Returning early from deployment, I heard my wife outside our porch. “His mother’s dementia is worsening,” she lied. Upstairs, I found Mom locked in a dark,
I smiled back, handing her the shaved-down vitamin. “Make her think she’s already won.” The next morning, the silence in my car was suffocating. Laura sat in the passenger seat, adjusting her pearls and vibrating with a sick, triumphant energy. She thought she was driving us to the funeral of my mother’s independence. In the…