The Last Prescription

The vitamin bottle sat on her nightstand like a small accusation. Ella picked it up, the plastic rattling—calcium, magnesium, vitamin D, all the things her body was losing at forty-three while her mother was losing everything else.

"She doesn't need that dog," David said from the doorway, not looking at her. "Mom can barely remember to feed herself."

"Buster remembers for her." Ella didn't turn around. "He's the only thing that makes her feel like herself."

She felt David's approach before his hand settled on her shoulder—his palm warm against her bare skin, but she leaned away, just slightly. He noticed. He always noticed.

"I'm just saying," he continued, "we should discuss the facility again. The memory care unit allows pets."

"We discussed it. She's not ready."

"Ella." His voice shifted—that careful tone he used when he thought she was being unreasonable. "You're exhausted. You're driving there three times a week. You cried in the car last night."

She whirled on him then. "You think a vitamin supplement and a nursing home will fix this? She forgets my name, David. But she never forgets Buster's. That dog is her last tether to who she was."

He stepped back, his expression crumbling. "I'm trying to help you. You won't let me."

The silence stretched between them, filled with all the things they'd stopped saying over the past year. Ella looked at his hand still hovering in the air between them, his palm lined with life she didn't know how to share anymore.

"I don't need help," she said softly. "I need to not forget her the way she's forgetting herself."

David's hand dropped to his side. "You think I don't see what this is costing you?"

"Then don't watch."

The words hung there, sharp and final. Behind her, the vitamin bottle caught the morning light. Somewhere eighty miles away, her mother was probably already sitting in her armchair, one hand on Buster's head, calling for a daughter who might or might not come today.

Ella grabbed her keys. David didn't follow her to the door.