I waited for a ‘thank you.’
Instead, David stood up slowly. He walked to the junk drawer and pulled out a spiral-bound notebook—stained with coffee and God knows what else. He slammed it on the table.
“Read it, Mike,” he whispered.
It was a logbook. A diary of a living hell.
November 24 (Thanksgiving): Mom didn’t sleep. She screamed for 6 hours that a stranger was in the house. The stranger was me. She threw the turkey on the floor. I ate a ham sandwich in the bathroom so she wouldn’t see me cry.
February 14: Insurance denied the home-care appeal again. They said she isn’t ‘critical enough.’ I had to sell my truck to pay for her new meds. I walk to work now.
May 8: She forgot how to swallow. Choked for ten minutes. I held her while she turned blue, praying the ambulance would hurry. The paramedics know me by name now.
July 4: Everyone is at the fireworks. I’m changing her sheets for the fourth time today. My back gave out lifting her. I’m lying on the floor next to her bed because she’s terrified of the dark.
I couldn’t read anymore. The lump in my throat felt like broken glass.
“You sent $1,500 a month, Mike. Thank you. Truly. But you slept eight hours a night. You had weekends off. You took the kids to Disney. You had a career.”
