It's nearly 6pm; I'm winding down from a day's work and thinking about preparing dinner. Then Dad appears in the kitchen doorway and asks 'Am I going out today?'
He can no longer tell the time. For him, 6pm could be 6am in the morning. 'The day is over, it's night time,' I say. 'Look outside.' I don't shout, but there's an edge to my voice. As soon as I've spoken I regret it.
Sometimes I wipe away a tear and vow to do better. But five minutes later, when he again asks 'Am I going out today?' I know I'm probably not going to succeed.
*****
One day I walked past the bathroom and noticed a pale yellow puddle with an odour worse than an unflushed toilet. I cringed at the putrid stench, with the realisation that I had to wash urine off the floor. In that moment my life felt insignificant. Freedom, once as natural to me as breathing, is now competing with a barrage of demands.
A week later I was lounging on the bed reading, when Dad abruptly banged on the door and yelled, 'Where's Anthony?' Anthony is my intellectually handicapped brother. 'He's at the day program Dad.' He repeated the question, only this time louder: 'Where's Anthony?' I felt frustration surge through my chest and spill out my mouth. 'He's at school, Dad,' I said, louder now, too.
One minute lapsed before he repeated the question a third time. At this point I could no longer mask my rage. 'Are you dumb?' I asked, overemphasising each word. Although oblivious to the insult, he was aware of my anger, and made his anger known by banging on the door even louder.
Then he yelled out yet again, 'Where's Anthony?', pounding on the door so brashly that it sounded like a gun in a Mad Max movie. Without a bulletproof vest to protect me I felt the metal penetrate my skin. I laid there immobilised, and let out an unfamiliar scream before I burst into tears.
"'They are going to kill me if I go outside,' he cried. He became so paranoid that he thought the fridge door was a point of entry for these imaginary perpetrators."
Not long after the incident in my bedroom Dad displayed more concerning behaviour. The ugly side of dementia had once again raised havoc in his tormented head. 'They are going to kill me if I go outside,' he cried with the