No good deed goes unpunished. 

This is, perhaps, one of the tritest expressions in the English language. 

But there is a reason some expressions are trite, isn’t there? Their veracity, their specificity, their sagacity, their reproducibility?  

No good deed goes unpunished. 

Let me tell you about my good deed. 

And the vicious punishment it meted out. 

Willie’s new digs at the Temple of Doom has a stylist. She comes in every few weeks to give the residents haircuts. 

Up until the day Willie moved into assisted living — and I mean this literally; Willie’s stylist called to remind her of an appointment the day we moved Willie to her new apartment — Willie went to the salon once a month for a cut, color, and wax.  

Now, it would have been easy — so, so easy — for me to leave Willie’s coif to what I’m sure is the very capable stylist at the Temple of Doom. 

But I just couldn’t do it. 

Willie’s been with her stylist for at least 20 years. Everybody in the salon knows Willie. That they called Willie to remind her of appointments when her memory hit the skids is one of the many kindnesses they afforded the ailing Willie. 

And also problem 87,673 in the saga of Willie’s memory loss. 

It’s good for Willie to get out. To go to familiar places. See familiar faces. And if you’ll just pretend with me that there are zero problems with Willie knowing her stylist and salon but not my sister or her house, we can turn this into a somewhat decent day. 

So, once a month, I text my brother, AKA Willie’s court-appointed guardian, to tell him I’m taking cash from Willie’s account, because writing checks on a guardianship is about as easy as spelling antidisestablishmentarianism.

Then I head over to the Temple of Doom and pack up Willie. 

Which is about as easy as writing checks on a guardianship. 

First, I sign into the Temple of Doom while desperately ignoring scenes from The Shining and lyrics from “Hotel California” flashing through my head. 

Then, I sign out Willie and wait while she uses the bathroom. 

Of course I call Willie before I arrive. Of course I do. If we lived in a perfect world, Willie would answer her phone, use the bathroom while I was en route, and remember both my sister and her house. 

But Willie was never good at answering her phone before the dementia. Clusters of Tau proteins clogging her brain cells were never going to improve that. 

Not even if I call while she’s holding her phone, playing Solitaire. 

True story. 

Next, I get Willie and her rollator in the car.  

Willie’s rollator is basically a Goodwill with a seat and wheels. I have to unpack all the random bits of detritus, load them into the back seat, then Tetris the rollator into the car’s trunk. 

But when we get to the salon, well. Willie struts in like a king on coronation day. She sits with her hair coated in blonde goo, reading a Good Housekeeping like it’s 1978 and the daughter she can’t remember is sitting in her belly, and tonight’s dinner is defrosting on the counter at our old house, the one I made her sell when Indy grew too sick to live there. 

You guys. Stop. We agreed years ago we wouldn’t discuss the sad stuff! C’mon! 

When I have spent so many years making hard decisions, awful decisions, this decision to keep Willie with her long-time stylist feels like a win. 

And who, really, doesn’t want more of that? 

Willie, once she retired and had the time, went for twice-monthly manicures.  

There are definitely no manicurists coming to the Temple of Doom. So, I found Willie a lovely salon with a manicurist for whom I do not have enough superlatives. 

Willie talks to her manicurist. She tells her how her life would be so much better if she could just get her car back. 

And that manicurist, well. She doesn’t shoot me dirty looks, forcing me to sputter that Willie, just a few weeks ago, huffed with impatience as I sat five cars deep at a red light and ordered me to drive around “these people stopped for no reason.” 

Also a true story. 

And when Willie laments about leaving her independent living apartment, the manicurist doesn’t suggest to me that if I just did more, maybe Willie could stay there. 

This manicurist, she suggests Willie tell her about places she’s driven, or her favorite thing about her old apartment. She never even glances at me. It’s like I’m a less evil version of Kevin Bacon in Hollow Man. 

That is, invisible. 

Which makes her response to my good deed punishment that much more remarkable. 

Willie was describing her boyfriend to her manicurist. As the manicurist painted Willie’s nails the pretty late summer pink she’d chosen, Willie prattled on about her boyfriend, her boyfriend, her boyfriend. 

Then, in exacting detail, Willie described the first time she and her boyfriend, um, well … you know. 

Willie’s manicurist stopped dead. She looked at me. “Are you hearing this?” she said. 

And this is why I say no good deed goes unpunished.

I don’t have to take Willie to any of these appointments. I do it because it makes Willie happy. 

And that makes exactly one of us.