Jonathan Evison - This is Your Life, Harriet Chance!

CTO Charmichael looks exhausted slumped behind his sturdy desk, his forgettable shirt rumpled, his thinning hair a little unkempt. The stack of files on his desk is perilously close to toppling.

“It appears, Candidate Chance — and again, I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt here — that you’ve been laboring under a slight misapprehension recently regarding Section One.”

“Sir?”

“Specifically, with regard to the consequences of non-compliance, as clearly — dare I say, eloquently — outlined in Clause 1.4.”

“Yessir. After our last conversation, I checked on that, sir.”

“And?”

“You were right. Nothing will happen.”

“Precisely, Candidate Chance. Nothing will happen. As in, nothing.”

“With all due respect, that’s not much of a consequence, sir.”

“Oh no? Well, I beg to differ, Candidate Chance. Let us consider. Having been granted nearly a century to design and fulfill yourself, to have children, a wife, a lover, several careers, to have served your country, your community, your family, to have eaten and loved and slept and worried, ahem , in short, to have bumbled and mucked about ‘down there,’ as you refer to it, for nine decades, have you any idea of what nothing looks like? What it sounds like? What it feels like?”

“Uh, like nothing, sir?”

“That’s it precisely. Of course, ‘look’ and ‘feel’ are misnomers, technically speaking. It’s actually quite difficult to put into context. A few Greeks tried. But that was a while back, and they didn’t get much beyond shadows and caves. I think we can agree that’s not very far. Allow me to enlighten you: to experience nothing is to not exist, Candidate Chance. To never have existed. To never exist again. Period. To experience nothing is to be stripped of your every sense but one.”

“Which one?”

“The sense of nothingness.”

“So that’s the punishment?”

“We prefer not to frame it punitively. We look at nothing as a choice. Just as we look at everlasting life as a choice.”

“But sir, I can make a difference. I can be a comfort to her. At the very least, I can keep apologizing. Maybe she’ll give in eventually.”

“That may be the case. But it hardly matters in the big picture. And consider the risk, Candidate Chance. You’re not just risking everything here — you are risking anything at all. Do you understand that?”

“Yessir, I understand.”

“I hope you do, Chance. I’m rooting for you, I really am. We all are. I hope you won’t do anything rash. Go with the program, son. Reap the benefits. You’ve been given an excellent opportunity for transition here. Don’t squander this one by getting mired in the past.”

“Yessir, I’ll try not to.”

“You’d best not, Candidate. Or you’ll have nothing to pay.”

Here you are at seventy-seven, Harriet, still kicking, still marking your days with Bernard, though you haven’t had movie night in four months. Indeed, overnight, your life has once again become what you’ve been fearing: cloistered. You’re desperate for diversion, restless to leave the house, but that means taking Bernard, the 140-pound infant, along. And if you thought baby Caroline was a terror, think again.

Probably not a good time to remind you that it’s Valentine’s Day as you spoon-feed Bernard Cream of Wheat. No big surprise that Bernard has forgotten the feast of St. Valentine, seeing as how he’s forgotten his address, his middle name, and apparently how to swallow, as evidenced by the dollop of gruel oozing its way down his stubbled chin. A few things he hasn’t forgotten, a few useful platitudes upon which he leans all too heavily in his new version of conversation: “Speed will kill a bearing faster than an increased load.” “You wanna prevent rust? Vinegar.” And of course: “They used to call Okinawa the gray pork chop.”

It’s enough to drive you crazy, Harriet, literally.

You understand that caring for someone can be a thankless job. You were a parent, after all. You don’t expect gratitude. But the least he could do is cooperate. The least he could do is not rap you on the side of the head when you attempt to wrestle his pants on, or bite you when you’re trying to feed him.

Let’s talk about the ugly truth, Harriet: There are mornings, and this is one of them, when you want to smother Bernard with a pillow, mornings when you’re sure you’re capable. There are moments when your hatred for him is a blind red impulse you can neither control or contain. You scold him viciously when he fouls his pants, throws food, rails against your every kindness. Times like these, you can no more sympathize with Bernard than you could sympathize with an egg salad sandwich. He’s a thing. You have no earthly idea what, if anything, you are to him.

It doesn’t matter that his condition isn’t his fault. It doesn’t matter that the hellish degeneration worming its way through his brain is in itself punishment enough for a dozen men. It doesn’t matter what water has passed beneath your bridges the past half century. Living with him, caring for him, sleeping with one eye open, is a torture worse than physical abuse. Half the time he doesn’t recognize you. The other half he’s erratic, often hateful, sometimes violent.

And it’s not just pillows. Oh no, Harriet. You fantasize about clubbing Bernard senseless like a harp seal. Pushing him down stairs, in front of UPS trucks, off of cliffs. Only halfheartedly do you fantasize, of course. It doesn’t matter that you’ll never act on these impulses, it doesn’t matter that they’re just aberrant manifestations of extreme frustration and grief, the sort of thing that any caregiving manual would caution you against, they are sick and unforgivable, and you hate yourself for these thoughts.

Face it, you’re out of patience, Harriet, out of pity, out of will, out of gas. Totally without the desire to go on living like this. And yet you keep going. Is it your unflagging sense of duty? Your unwavering commitment to service? Or is it just instinct? Surely, it’s not your love of Bernard, because this is not Bernard we’re talking about here. Bernard, as you once and always knew him, has been replaced by a human Brussels sprout.

What you ought to do, Harriet Chance, is strap Bernard into bed by the armpits, as your father once strapped you, then retire to the bathroom and soak your feet. What you ought to do is ask for help. Self-care, Harriet — they talk about it at the Partners of Alzheimer’s support group in the basement of the Calvary Chapel. The one you don’t go to.

All of which, in retrospect, Harriet, begs the question (and apologies for bringing up a sore subject), but where the hell is Mildred Honeycutt now that her lover of forty years is sitting before the television in a loaded diaper, with tapioca running down his chin, convinced that weatherman Steve Pool is hatching a plot to kill him?

As it turns out, Bernard would also like to know the whereabouts of Mildred. “Darling, you’re confused,” you say. “It’s me, Harriet, your wife.”

“You’re not Mildred.”

“No, I’m Harriet.”

“Where the hell’s Mildred?”

“I have no idea. Probably at home.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m your wife. I’m Harriet.”

And using one of the few tools in your belt (not that it ever works), you reach for the wedding picture (must be the twentieth time in two days) and hold it out to him, pointing out Bernard in his two-button tuxedo and you in your mother’s wedding dress.