Carol Ann explains to the narrator her unusual living arrangement with Gary, where they live together to care for their spouses, who both have cognitive decline. Gary's wife Hoshiyo has Alzheimer's and no longer realizes her legs don't work. Carl, Carol Ann's husband, has Alzheimer's as well. The narrator is asked to watch over Hoshiyo and Carl for an hour while Carol Ann and Gary go shopping. During this time, the narrator feeds Hoshiyo and has a thoughtful conversation with Carl about music and their memories before he begins crying. The narrator reflects on different living arrangements throughout their life and doesn't see anything strange about people living together to care for one another.

1. Strange Arrangement
Thingsheat up at MeadowbrookGroveas the sun goes down. Couples stroll
languidlyand hold hands, looping around the NorwegianWood culde sac
where the sky smudges violet on the horizon. As if at twilight, lifeimitates
art, everything a glossy advertisement for thetranquilretirement
community.
My mother felt well enough one evening for a walk around the block. At the
corner we fell in step with Garyand Carol Ann. They were strolling arm in
arm. The sweetness of their gesturemademe want to fall back, to allow
them their moment. But Carol Ann was pleased to see us, though I hadn’t
yet met her. She dropped Gary’sarm and beelined over.
“Have you heard about our strangearrangement?”sheasked me, a
mischievousglint in her eye. She linked her arm with mine.
It was September. I’d been homefrom Spainfor a month and had been
keeping a low profile in my mother’snew retirement community. I hadn’t
heard about any arrangement. Islowed my strideto match CarolAnn’s, my
mother and Garytaking up a conversationof their own.
“Garyand I first met in college. Siena College, have you heard of it? Small
Christianschoolupstate. He will tell you that we went on at least one date,
though I don’t really recall it, but it didn’t get much further thanthat,
because I wasbusy studying while he wasbusy partying. Well, he went off

2. to join theservice in Japanand ended up marrying a womanover there. I
moved down south to teach, and met my husband, Carl.”
One thing was clear: Carol Ann was a force to be reckoned with.
“Well, I must have madequitean impressionon Gary,” she continued.
“Whenhis wife Hoshiyo wasin decline, forty years later, he goes looking for
me on Facebook!” she paused for effect, or perhapsto take a breath. “He
finds me, and we get to talking. It turned out that my husband, Carl, was
also in decline.”
I was accustomedtousing the word ‘decline’ in the context of speciesor
epidemics, but thiswasthe first timeI’d been in conversationwith
someone who used it to describea person.
“He has Alzheimers,” she concluded, matter-of-factly.
“So eventually,” Carol Ann continued, “Garyand I joined forces and moved
in together here, with our other halves.” She fist-bumped theair to
punctuatetheir solidarity. “Wearepartners, and together we carefor our
spouses so they don’t have to go in a home. I like to call it a commune!” She
smiled cheerfully, giving my arm a squeeze.
I looked down theroad to where my mother and Garywere walking with
Cho Cho the papillon, its tailmore like the plumageof an exotic bird than
anything that should adorn a dog’s ass. They were undoubtedlytalking
about their shared appreciationofthe Meadowbrookseptic system or the

3. efficiencyof their boilers. I quickened mypace in hopes of catching up to
them.
Several monthsafter that evening, I rang Carol Ann’s doorbell to returnthe
cookie press she’d forced upon me for her smorgasbord. Her husband, Carl,
sat in his wheelchair in the far corner of the living room, a tv traytable
before him. It was the samespot I’d seen him in each timeI’d been at Carol
Ann’s. Hoshiyo, Gary’s wife, was on the couch besideCarl. She was asleep
sitting up.
“Hoshiyo hasn’t figured out yet that her legs don’t work,” Carol Ann
informed me in a twangysottovoce. She stood at her kitchenisland,
holding court ina striped apron. “The other day I found her crawling across
the floor towardsher bedroom.” She announced thismatter-of-factly, the
sameway she might havestated a preferencefor salami on a sandwich.
She asked me if I could stay for an hour while she and Garywent to the
store. Their regular caregiver had called in sick.
“It’s our only free timetogether,” sheexplained. “And ShopRiteis having its
Can Can Sale!”
…..
I sat on the couch besideCarl’s wheelchair as he ate a piece of custard pie.
On my oppositeside, Hoshiyo was half-consciousand slumped, dwarfed by
the two blanketscovering her from neck to toe. A quickglanceto the couch
and you wouldn’t know a person was there at all.

4. Cho cho perched on the cushionabove us, licking my nose each timeI
leaned over to checkon Hoshiyo. I was supposed to feed her a bowl of
applesauce.
“Hoshiyo,” I offered, my voice hushed. Shestirred at the sound of her name
but looked nowhere.
I gingerlyspooned applesauceintoher mouth. She swallowed, shuddering
from the coldness of it. I paused betweeneach spoonful, waiting for her to
signalshe was readyfor another. There was only her cataract stare.
“Do you want more?” I asked. The sound of my voicestartled her.
“E-ah,” she affirmed, her unexpected staccatosurprisingmewith itsforce.
She parted her lips and I lifted the spoon to her mouth.
The tv was on, as it always was, a local primetimenewsprogram on theair.
New YorkCity and theoutlying suburbsthedomain. The news anchors
laughed with each other, their teeth preternaturallywhite, their hair
perfectlycoiffed. The colors of their outfitsand the newsroom scenery were
Hollywood vivid. Their report of a threealarm fire and possible overnight
precipitationwereexistentiallyreassuring.
I felt awkward sitting betweentwoadultsyet not speaking a word. I knew a
conversationwith Hoshiyo was out of the question, but beyond polite
introductionsI’d not yet had an opportunitytospeakwith Carl. I knew
from Carol Ann only two thingsabout him; that he’d been a civil rights
lawyer and that he had Alzheimers. I wasn’t sure what to expect.

5. “How was the pie?”
“Good, good,” he offered, his voicea gentle rasp.
“Would you like some more?”
“No, that’sfine.” He gestured to the emptyplate. I cleared it and wiped his
traytable.
“Carol Ann tells me you like to look out the window here at the birds,” I said.
Behind the circleof houses on YesterdayDrive wasa marshy area that filled
with runoff from the storm drainsafter a rainor thaw. Cattailsand
coneflower grew rampant along theedges, and an occasionalred cardinal
flower dotted the bank. At several corners, largepvc pipes snaked out from
rock piles. I admired themarsh for itsunruliness amidst thehermetically
sealed mini-mansionsofMeadowbrookGrove. Whether by design or by
flaw, the marsh had becomepopular for all manner of bird. Carol Ann had
joked that she wanted to fill it with fake pink flamingoscomespring, but I
was content watching thesongbirdsand finchesdart and careenabout in
their dominion.
“I like birds,” Carlanswered. “Do you like birds?” heasked. I found myself
spontaneously recounting thebirdsI’d seen with my father, in Florida.
Cormorants, frigatebirds, spoonbills. Herons, egrets, storks.
“Therewas a reserve near my father’shouse, we’d go to.” As I mentioned it,
the memoryof widesky and salt air filled my mind, the lilt of my father’s

6. voice in my ears. I thought of thesmall flocks of brownpelicansthat flew
low along thecoastline, how they seemed to command a certaintaciturn
authoritythat wasout of placein the Florida garishness.
“You’relucky,” Carl said, and I nodded my head in agreement. “You’re
privileged,” he said.
A commercialplayed on the tv and I hummed along. “Do you like music?” I
asked.
“Yes.” Carl’s eyes searched the distance. “Mysister, she played piano…was
beautiful.” Hisvoice scratched at histhroat, wanting tobe louder thanit
was. Tearswere in his eyes.
“And the Detroit SymphonyOrchestra,” hepaused, searching for words,
“wasbeautiful. Beautiful.”
“You grew up in Detroit,” I offered.
“Had a paper route,” he said, laboring a bit. “I canremember that
route…likeit was yesterday…but Ican’t…think of…the word for…” his voice
trailed off.
He looked at me and begantocry. I said nothing, only met his eyes and
held his gaze. I wasn’t going to talkhim out of his tears. We all had a right
to them, and god knows he’d earned his. I brought him a tissue from the far
side of the room.

7. “You’relucky,” he repeated. “You’reprivileged.”
…..
My mother was in the den watching a World War II documentarywhenI
got home. It wasn’t unusual to find her doing that anytime, dayor night.
Wrapped inher flannel blanket, din of artilleryfire coming from the
television. The dog napping ina fetal positionby her chair.
Seeing the grainyblackand whitefootageof Nazi troops or the South
Pacific stirredinme a softness for her. Her father, my grandfather, had
been the chiefnaval officer on Guam. He survived the war and resumed life
with his young bride, going on to father twogirls and run a successful
dentistrypractice. But he never set foot on a boat or plane again. Anywhere
worth going could be gottento in his Buick.
In my life, I saw my grandfather only sparingly. I knew him to be a
humorless manwho favored plaid pantsand the occasionalcigar. It had
only been since I’d comehome from Spainthat mymother offered small
insights. “Your grandma saysthewar changed him,” she had mentioned to
me recently. I knew those documentariesweremy mother’sway of bearing
witness, of keeping him close.
“How was it?” my mother inquired about mytimeat Carol Ann’s.
“I made twentybucks,” I said.
…..

8. I thinkabout the manyarrangementsI‘ve had, riddled with imperfections
and rifewith good company. My upstairsneighbor inMainewith her
menagerieof petsand the child-sized hole in her kitchenceiling that the
landlord was too senile to repair, our condemned apartmentbuildinga
pseudo co-op of kindred spirits. I thinkof Pepa, thedonkey in my dooryard
in Spain, how she brayed hello to me each morning.
I remember thelook of concernon my students’faceswhen they’d ask me
where my familywas, why I was so far from home. Donde es tu madre?
camethe accusatoryquestion, timeand again.
There aremore placeson the map where all kinds of relationslive together
under one roof. Through blood or love or plain old humancircumstance, we
belong to each other. I don’t thinkthere’s anything strangeabout that
arrangement.
“You’re lucky,” I think to myself. “You’re privileged.”