The last thing I heard before I fell was my grandson saying, \u201cGrandma, these aren\u2019t whole.\u201d He had one of the white tablets in his palm, broken into four uneven pieces. I tried to take it from him. My hand missed his, and the counter seemed to rise in front of me. Then came the hard knock of something hitting the floor. For a moment, I thought I had dropped the bottle.<\/p>\n
I woke to a voice I didn\u2019t recognize asking me to keep my eyes open. Someone had moved the kitchen chair out of the way. My cheek rested against cool linoleum, and my grandson, Ben, knelt beyond a pair of dark shoes. He was sixteen and usually too self-conscious to hold my hand in public. Now he had both hands wrapped around mine. \u201cThe ambulance is here,\u201d he said. \u201cI called them.\u201d<\/p>\n
I wanted to tell him I was sorry for frightening him. Instead, I asked whether he had locked the back door. The stranger beside me said it was taken care of. Ben shook his head, and I could see that he was trying very hard not to cry. It frightened me more than the pain in my chest.<\/p>\n
At the hospital, a nurse asked me what medications I took and when I had last taken them. I knew the names. I could picture the bottles arranged beside the toaster. But I could not answer the second question without explaining why Ben had found broken tablets on the counter. I said, \u201cYesterday morning, I think.\u201d Ben stood beside the bed with my purse in his hands. He looked up.<\/p>\n
The nurse glanced at the list Ben had brought from home. \u201cAnd how much of this one did you take?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA little,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
She waited. It was a patient silence, the kind that leaves a person room to tell the truth. I looked at the blanket over my knees. \u201cA quarter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ben made a small sound. He had already worked that out. Hearing me say it was different.<\/p>\n
My daughter, Claire, arrived while they were taking blood. She still wore her work badge and had a pen tucked into her hair. Her eyes went first to Ben, then to the monitor, then to me. She asked the nurse if I was going to be all right. Only after the nurse said I was being evaluated did Claire pull a chair to the bedside. \u201cHow long have you been feeling sick?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy chest was tight this week.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis week,\u201d she repeated. \u201cYou spoke to me on Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\n
I remembered the call. Claire had asked if I wanted her to bring groceries. I had told her I had plenty, although the refrigerator held milk, mustard, and half a cabbage. She had asked how I was feeling. I had said fine because I could hear a meeting starting in the background and because she had asked the same question on three earlier calls. Each time, I had given her the same answer.<\/p>\n
The doctor came in before either of us could say more. He spoke carefully about the tests they were running and the need to watch my heart. He asked whether I had changed my medication on a doctor\u2019s advice. I said no. There was no use letting him think anyone else had made that decision. When he asked what I had been taking, I told him. Claire\u2019s chair scraped against the floor.<\/p>\n
For eight months, I had been stretching the tablets. The first month, I split them in half. Later, I split those halves again. Some pieces crumbled under the cutter, so I collected the powder in a folded square of paper and took what I could. I knew it was foolish. Every morning I opened the drawer, saw how few tablets remained, and did it anyway.<\/p>\n
My check was $1,540 a month. The prescription cost $312. Rent, electricity, food, and the other things a person needs did not become cheaper because I was frightened of a pharmacy bill. At first, I covered the difference with savings. When those were gone, I sold my good dishes. Claire had offered to help me sort the cupboard last spring. I told her I had decided to keep it as it was. By summer, most of the shelves were bare.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy didn\u2019t you tell me?\u201d she asked when the doctor left.<\/p>\n
There were several answers, and none sounded decent said aloud. Claire had spent the previous year working extra hours after her divorce. I knew how carefully she watched her own bills. Once, she had paid to fix my washing machine and then claimed the repair company had made a mistake in her favor. I had recognized the lie and accepted the machine anyway. I could not bear the thought of her making another quiet sacrifice every month.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought I could manage,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
Claire pressed her thumb against the pen mark on her hand. \u201cYou knew you couldn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
She was right. I had known it each time I stood at the counter with the little plastic blade. I had also known that if I told her, she would come. Those two certainties had somehow led me to keep silent.<\/p>\n
Ben sat near the window and studied the sheet of paper the nurse had given us. He had always counted things: stairs, fence posts, the buttons on my coat. When he was little, he counted the blue squares on my kitchen tiles while I made lunch. Last Tuesday he had stayed over because Claire\u2019s shift ran late. I had gone to bed assuming he was watching a film. In the morning, he found the bottles while looking for cereal.<\/p>\n
He lined them up by the dates on their labels. Then he counted what remained. I was annoyed at first. \u201cLeave those alone,\u201d I had said, reaching past him for the kettle. He told me the number of tablets didn\u2019t match the number of days since the last refill. I said I sometimes forgot one. Ben picked up a white tablet and showed me the cut through its middle. When he found the quarters, his face lost its color.<\/p>\n
Now he turned the paper over. \u201cThe nurse said they\u2019ll have someone talk to us about paying for them,\u201d he said. \u201cI wrote down the name.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBen,\u201d Claire said gently, \u201cyou don\u2019t have to take care of this.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know.\u201d He folded the paper once, along the crease already there. \u201cI still want to remember what she said.\u201d<\/p>\n
I watched them both. Claire was holding herself so still that I could see the effort of it. Ben had my purse on his lap, its worn strap looped around his wrist. I had spent months thinking of my silence as a way of protecting them. In that room, I had to look at what it had cost them instead.<\/p>\n
A nurse came to move me for another test. Claire stood and stepped aside. Ben handed me my glasses. One arm had bent slightly in the fall, and he had wrapped it with a strip of tape so it would stay on my face. He looked embarrassed when I noticed. \u201cIt\u2019ll do until we get them fixed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
I put them on. Through the crooked lenses, I could see my daughter and grandson waiting beside the door. I wanted to promise I would never frighten them again. I could not promise that. What I could do was answer the next question honestly. When the nurse asked whether there was anything else my care team needed to know, I told her about the eight months, the dishes, and the calls I had stopped taking.<\/p>\n
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