Nonfiction | April 22, 2026

Solving for Death  

I turn away when the nurse jabs my husband with a needle to draw his blood. She refers to him as my father. All she sees is a bald eighty-year-old with congestive heart failure and blood cancer. I still see the dashing blond tech executive with fire in his hazel eyes who used to drag race me up the hill to work, my Mazda vs. his BMW. 

The test results take an hour, so I roll Walter to the cafeteria. Although he’d rather be on a bike than in a wheelchair, the routine of our weekly visits provides odd comfort.  

“It’s surprising you’re such a good caretaker,” Walter says in his sassy teasing voice—that version of him who danced to bouzouki music at our wedding thirty years ago, making all the Greek village dances look like the jitterbug, sweating so hard that he had to change his shirt three times.  

I hand him a muffin and kiss the top of his head. He’s still got it. 

In the waiting room, I find a sunny spot overlooking Boston traffic and make a list of all the things to do tomorrow that won’t get done today. 

“I’m exhausted,” Walter says. 

“That’s because you’re up all night.” He climbs out of our bed at all hours. 

“Getting to the bathroom feels like climbing a mountain. Maybe a nurse could help. What about that big guy who helped your dad? He could sleep in our bedroom.”  

“I don’t want some big guy sleeping by our bed. Just wake me up and I’ll take you.”   

“You can sleep in another room.” 

I take a deep breath. Dyslexia limits how much information Walter can hold, so he pursues his objectives, disregarding everything else that will only clutter his mind.  

“We’ll do whatever you want . . . .” I fight back my tears. “It’s just that I’d really like to sleep with my husband.” 

Sleeping together is the last of our shared pleasures. In bed, when Walter’s cold feet find mine and his breath brushes my cheek, life feels normal and endless. I’m taken back to our bike ride through Italy, fifty miles a day up the mountains. Fueled by espresso and pasta pesto served by Italian mamas in the back of rural gas stations, Walter carried all our supplies plus my funky dress from Rome. His skin was dark as mahogany, and his legs were like steel. Intoxicated by the smells from a lemon orchard outside Siena, we napped in a neighboring vineyard until a tractor blazed through.