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Rebecca quickly got up and moved to his left side while motioning me to sit between Will and the footboard, blocking him from using it to stand up. She got firm with him, but I could hear so much love in her voice. “Where ya goin’, Will? You can’t get up. If you get up, you’ll fall down. We’ve been over this with you before. If you fall down, you’ll get hurt. If you get hurt, we’ll have to call an ambulance to come and get you. If they come and get you, they will take you to the hospital. Do you want to go to the hospital, Will?”

Will was irate. He pushed us both, yelling at us without using words. He turned away from Rebecca and turned in my direction. I knew it was my turn to be firm yet loving with him as Rebecca had just been. Before I could say anything, Will grabbed my face and pushed me away. I had so much respect and love for this man, and he’d just pushed me away from him – using my face to do it. I immediately got up and started crying. Rebecca looked at me with the strength I couldn’t gather, and said, “Nikki! Don’t. Sit down and stand up to him. He can’t get up. He can’t fall into the footboard again. He doesn’t mean to hurt you. Please don’t take this personally. He needs to you to love him, and to do that now, we have to be firm. He cannot get up.” Rebecca gave me strength and energy I had lost in this fight. I realized I was about to give up. On Will. On myself. On the task. I had fallen into a young woman again. The one who let Will push her away so many years ago. Only this time I was willing to walk away from him. Will was angry with me. I hated that. But Rebecca was right. This wasn’t personal. I wanted to curl up in the corner with a blanket and just cry. Instead I joined Rebecca and Will back on the bed. I held firm in my spot between Will and the footboard he’d used to get himself in that position.

“I love you, Will. We love you. We are here to help you, but we can only do so much. We can’t get you up off the floor if you fall again, Will, please don’t get up.” I said it, but I cried with every word leaving my mouth. I knew he was listening to me because as soon as I was finished I felt his weight leaning against me. I almost sighed in relief until I realized he was trying to push me off the bed.

“Lay down. Leave me alone!” then all he had were mumbles. He pushed me again. Harder. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to get me off the bed or if he was trying to lay down himself.

“No, Will, you have to lay down the other way. We need your head at the top of the bed because you fell into the crack between the mattress and the footboard before. We can’t let that happen to you again.” I leaned into him just as hard as he was leaning into me. I held my breath the whole time I fought because I was so afraid of hurting him. Breaking his thin skin or hitting a tumor on his leg or wherever else they may be would be devastating to us all.

Will eventually fell back onto the bed. And peed. I knew it. I had forgotten, with all the trauma with the footboard and quick movements from Will, plus the hand in my face pushing me away, he seemed to have this pattern. He’d move and become irritated when he had to pee. Rebecca just looked at me and sighed. Then she said, “He’ll be out for a while now. We should have given him his medicine. I’m sure if it’s not time now, it will be soon.”

“Well, we have to change the sheets again. He’s starting to smell like pee. I think we should try to clean him up a bit too. I don’t want him to itch. Brian?” Brian was no longer standing in the room with us. I didn’t know when he’d left, but he was gone.

“I’ll see if the other sheets ever made it into the dryer. I’m not sure how many more we have for this bed.” Rebecca left the room too. I went into the bathroom and ran the hot water, found a wash cloth, wet it with warm water, let it cool a little bit, and then went to go clean an old lover’s naked peed on body. Probably something his wife should be doing, but, what the hell. Rebecca came back in the room and said Brian was just putting the other sheets into the dryer. It seemed he knew what was coming as well, but since we’d all fallen asleep earlier, they never made it out of the washer.

“How about this. Do you have two top sheets? Maybe I can make two sides of the bed, we can put pads under each side, and then when he goes again, we can try to get him to the other side. It is already dressed with a pad and a clean sheet, or half of one at least.” I was thinking of all the mom tricks I had tried when my little Emily had the stomach flu the year before and couldn’t keep her bed clean for more than an hour at a time.

Rebecca looked at me like I had said something completely crazy; maybe I had. None of us had gotten much sleep. Who knew what I was saying, but I did have a plan in mind. Will hadn’t moved, so he was still lying on the side of the bed with his legs hanging down. I knew that wouldn’t last long without discomfort, but I thought maybe I could make the other side of the bed and the top end of the side he was on, and then only have one quarter left to make. If I did it in parts and pieces, he’d be ready to move by the time I was ready. Rebecca tossed one top sheet into the room and told me she’d be right back with another. I got to work on the opposite side of the bed. I was terrified Will would just slide to the floor while I was away from him, but before I could worry too much, Rebecca was back and standing right in front of him just in case he’d fallen.

“Were you able to clean him? I don’t smell urine anymore,” she said.

“Just a quick wipe. His legs were wet. I tried to get under him. I think his robe might still be wet, but I don’t know. We’ll just have to let that go.” I had the wall side of the bed made with pads underneath. I was coming around to the top side of the bed when Will’s body started to slip downward.

“Oh no. No no no, Mister! You ain’t going nowhere!” Before I could even react, Rebecca had his legs in her arms and was scooting his body backwards. He was able to roll a bit on his own once his legs were fully on the bed. All of the worry and within a few moments, he was resting on the clean side of the bed. I quickly rolled the wet sheets and put a new top sheet on the wet side of the bed with bed pads placed under the sheets. But on that side I also placed the bed pads on top of the clean sheets with them tucked under the other top sheet to keep them in place. I hoped Will wouldn’t notice them, and if he wet the bed again, we wouldn’t have to irritate him more by changing the sheets. Over time, the seam I created between the two top sheets irritated Will, but each time he moved I was able to straighten and move it around to smooth it out keeping the top bed pads in place. I had high hopes for this new plan I had in my head for his bed.

Will was comfortable again. The bed was clean, dry, and somewhat protected. We didn’t get his medicines into him, but he was resting. It was after midnight, so we decided to let him sleep and the next time he woke, one of us would get the meds ready. Until then, we rested too. As a mom who nursed two kids for over a year each, and whose children didn’t sleep through the night until after they stopped nursing, I was feeling cynical about sleeping. I knew Mommy’s Law, much like Murphy’s Law, said as soon as I fell asleep, Will would wake up. It had been like that for years in my house, at least with my children. And would we actually sleep anyway?

I did eventually fall asleep, but only after lying in the dark, staring at the ceiling, watching the seconds tick by on Will’s Epoch clock. I noted the numbers once and tried desperately to figure out what day and time it was, but I knew nothing about Epoch time. I thought I wouldn’t be able to turn my mind off, shut down and fall asleep. I kept seeing Will all those years ago, his curls hugging his beautiful face, his smile, his half laugh always coming before a full blown laugh, the way he’d make fun of the way I said, “go head,” instead of go ahead, and the way he’d laugh at my own silent laughs. He’d make me laugh so hard no sound would come out of my mouth, but my body would shake so hard he thought I would pass out from non-laughter. My mind did eventually fade out, and my body gave in to sleep.

When I woke again, the numbers had changed on the Epoch clock, but I had no idea how much time had passed. All I knew was Will was standing above me looking down at me and Rebecca, who was sleeping next to me on the floor. I jumped up, “Will! Rebecca.”

Rebecca was already moving before I said her name. We were both at Will’s side in a split second. But we had no idea what to do. Here was a dying man with no strength standing next to me, and I couldn’t muster the strength to do what needed to be done. We laughed later about how we should have just pushed him backwards back on to the bed, but we never could have done such a thing. It may have turned out better than trying to let Will walk to the bathroom. He mumbled something about his walker, and we tried to talk him out of using it.

Brian was standing in to doorway with the portable urinal in his hand. “Hey, Buddy. I have the urinal right here, how about you leave your walker there and I’ll just…” his voice cracked and faded. “…I’ll just hold this for you.”

“I have to piss, dammit, and you can’t stop me.” Will was very clear with his words after the mumbling moments earlier.

Will grabbed the walker from Rebecca and me with more strength we than we could find in ourselves, and he took two steps towards the bathroom. He stopped, took two more, screamed, and then took two more. He was doing it, shuffling towards the bathroom. I walked next to him, looked at Brian, and nodded towards the bathroom. Brian walked to the bathroom door to help Will inside while Rebecca and I walked next to Will and his walker. I figured if he was determined to pee in the toilet, we should let him. Will took two more steps. Paused. And fell to the floor. He was about four steps from the bathroom door. He fell very close to a huge, heavy dresser. My stomach sank. I fell to my knees next to Will, who was on his stomach moaning.

“Rebecca, he hasn’t had his medicine. Remember, we skipped…” She stopped me with a hand signal and ran out of the room. Will had fallen. He was determined, but he was still weak. I was sure he was in pain before he fell. What were we thinking? We should have pushed his ass back on the bed and given him medicine, knocked him out, and let him pee in the bed again. In trying to let him have his dignity and pee where he wanted to pee, we put him at risk of breaking something and having to go to the hospital in an ambulance. I was in shock. Again, I didn’t know what to do beyond cry and apologize to Will. Rebecca came in with his meds and a small glass of ginger ale with a cut straw. Will was still on his stomach, but he’d grown subdued; almost too quiet. I put my hand on his back, thinking of all the times I did the same to my babies when they were sleeping and were turned over or too quiet, to make sure they were still breathing. I could feel Will’s frail body moving under my hand. “Will, Rebecca brought your medicine. I think if we can get you on your back, we can get it into you. You need it, sweetie. You just fell, and if you’re not hurting now, well, you will be…well, I’m sure you are now. Can we get you to roll over toward me?”

I think Will knew exactly what I was saying, so he put his arm in front of his chest and rolled to his side. Only he was going the wrong way. He couldn’t get over to his back because he’d rolled away from me and up against the trunk at the foot of the bed. “Will? Can you use the other hand and roll this way? We can’t get you on your back, the trunk is there.”

“I am!” Will yelled at me. Only he wasn’t.

“Brian, maybe he can stay there and roll onto his back that way, if we can move the trunk,” Rebecca said. “Just remember the trunk is pushing on the footboard, so we need to make sure it doesn’t pop out and hit him.” Rebecca and Brian wedged a pillow against the trunk and Will’s backside and pushed the trunk out of the way. Gravity took over, and Will thumped onto his back and moaned as if he’d been dropped.

“Good thinking with the pillow,” I said, “The trunk might have scratched his skin, and he’s so sensitive. That’s why I didn’t want to try to roll him myself. I couldn’t imagine that thing scraping against him. Oh, man. I didn’t even think about the trunk scratching him when you mentioned moving it. Oh, my God, what are we going to do now?” I was rambling again, my mouth spewing all the random thoughts swimming around in my head.

“Well, we get some of this into him, that’s what we do.” Rebecca sat next to me with the loaded syringe in her hand. “Come on, Will. I have them all ready here, and then you can have some ginger ale.”

Will took the meds with no problems this time. I guess after skipping a dose, standing up on his own, walking half way across the room, and falling, he was ready for something to take the edge off. He took his meds with little noise and no protest, took one sip from the straw, and plopped his head down onto the floor.

We all sat there, Brian, too, who usually left Rebecca and me alone with Will once things were under control, in silence, all looking at Will. Will kept his eyes closed for several minutes. He seemed calm, and I wondered if he still had to use the bathroom. There was no way of getting him in the bathroom without hurting him, and no way he would allow any of us to help him use the urinal. I decided to let the thought go and just be prepared for any accidents he may have. Rebecca seemed to read my mind and left the room to gather more bed pads. She handed me two when she came back, and I laid them out on the floor where I thought Will might roll if he were to move again. She put the two she’d kept for herself on the trunk.

“He can’t be comfortable,” I said quietly. “Maybe we should try to get a blanket down so he has a softer surface. This carpet,” I said as I rubbed the same carpet from so long ago, “might be scratchy on his skin.”

“I’ll get it,” Brian left the room. I knew he’d be coming back with the same blanket he’d helped carry Will in earlier when Will had fallen in the other bathroom on the opposite side of the house. At least it was a fluffy soft blanket.

While Brian was gone, I felt tears well up in my eyes again. I watched Rebecca gently move Will’s thin hair away from his face. She was so careful not to touch his skin.

“The bed,” I said.

“I know,” Rebecca looked at me and smiled. “We finally got it all set up, bed pads under the sheets in all the right places, sheets on all sides, ready to sleep in, and no one to sleep in it.”