by Doug Jacquier

The kettle in the fridge. Calling everybody ‘darling’. Copying the young women’s craze for
ash-blond streaks in her hair. Sending money to the man in Africa that she’d met on a dating site. Filling her rooms with goods that she’d bought online, boxes unopened. Only when she bought a gleaming white sports convertible and drove it into town to browse the clothes shops, wearing only a fur coat and her underwear, did we put her in a nursing home. In her garage we found her collection: No Stopping. No U-turn. One Way. Steep Descent. All the signs were there.

Originally published in The Dribble Drabble Review. Click here to read Doug Jacquier’s reflection on writing about caregiving.

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Doug Jacquier has lived in many places across Australia, including regional and remote communities, and has travelled extensively overseas. His poems and stories have been published in Australia, the US, the UK, Canada, New Zealand and India. He blogs at Six Crooked Highways.