So, we’re on the phone with the Temple of Doom, who assures us nobody is hurt. 

“Not too badly,” they said. 

In the eternity before those next words, many, many thoughts raced through my head. 

Nobody was hurt badly, but somebody was, obviously, hurt. Who? And who caused the injury? What was the injury? Was it the kind that doesn’t look bad from the onset, but festers, ultimately causing death? 

Like a brain hemorrhage, maybe. Or an open wound, destined for infection? 

Did Indy or Willie fall? Topple the TV onto elderly ribcages? Trip over another resident? Had they choked, fallen out of bed, slipped in the shower? Were they Final Destination-ed into some bizarre accident? 

Good news on that front. 

It was way worse. 

Indy and Willie were heading out to pick up groceries. As per usual, Willie exited the building through a side door near her sedan’s assigned parking.

Indy, walking with a rollator, exited through the Temple of Doom’s main doors. Those doors are fronted by a circular driveway.  

Indy waited patiently on the curb of that driveway as Willie drove around the building’s corner to pick him up. 

It was a bright spring day. The sky was a lovely cerulean, and the temperature hinted at summer. The trees, so recently bare, now gently unfurled their May greenery. 

A few miles away, I drove with — what? Hope? Goodwill? Whatever you want to call it, I thought maybe Willie’s refusals to bring in help, Indy’s frequent hospitalizations, the push for me to take on more, more, more, could all come to a close in this lovely Pennsylvania springtime. 

It was at that moment a Temple of Doom maintenance man, lying prone in that circular driveway as he painted bright yellow caution paint on the curb at Indy’s feet, was run over by Willie and her sedan. 

Yeah. 

The maintenance man saw Willie coming. He hopped out of her way. But the bumper of Willie’s sedan caught him, pitching him forward. He smacked his head on the sidewalk, right next to Indy. 

In the kerfuffle to evaluate the maintenance man’s injuries, Willie loaded Indy into the car and just … drove away. 

I mean, she had groceries to pick up.  

When the Temple of Doom called me, they had no idea as to Willie and Indy’s whereabouts. 

The maintenance man was evaluated in the emergency room and found to be concussed. 

Or, you know, potentially hosting that slow brain bleed I so desperately feared.  

That thought didn’t keep me awake at night for the next month. Nope. Not at all. 

Now let’s get a few things out of the way right here. 

First, my son heard the entire story.  

So, this is where I tell you children are collateral damage in sandwiched caregiving.  

Almost 40 percent of caregiving lasts longer than five years. That’s more than a quarter of your kid’s 18 years with you. My kids have had a front-row seat to my parents’ decline. 

“Well,” my son said, “that’s why I never drive with Mom-Mom.” 

My next thought was that I needed to take the car keys.  

Once upon a time, Willie was in my position. She’d confiscated her father’s car keys when his brain tumor impaired his ability to drive.  

Her mother and siblings agreed she was the one to take the keys because she was the one who would hold firm. 

And hold firm she did. When her mother later called to say they’d made a mistake, that Willie should return the keys, Willie flat out refused.  

“It was one of the hardest things I ever did,” Willie often told me, “but it was the right thing to do.” 

Surely, Willie would have empathy for me. The moment I took Indy’s keys was a painful moment, but also one of the most tender of my life.  

We were in it together, Indy and me. 

“Take them!” Willie yelled at me when I broke the news to her. She winged the keys to her car, to Indy’s, across the room. They whizzed past my ear as they slammed painfully into my palm. 

OK. So, no empathy. Got it. 

After the call from the Temple of Doom, I left my son at home — huge regret, there — and hightailed it to Indy and Willie’s. 

Willie was just lugging the last of her groceries into the Temple of Doom. 

“Hiya honey!” she said, perky as a spring squirrel. “What brings you here?” 

“You don’t know?” I asked. 

“No,” she said, still smiling. “Are you OK?” 

So Willie either forgot about the maintenance man or thought I didn’t know and wasn’t planning on telling me.  

Let me just say I didn’t like either option.  

But only one of those made me really, really angry. 

So I told Willie I was there because the Temple of Doom told me about the maintenance guy. 

“Oh, that,” Willie said, rolling her eyes. 

So she did remember. 

And wasn’t going to tell me. 

Just like that, all my hope, all my peace evaporated like spring dew. 

Later, when I took ownership of Willie’s sedan, the car dealer would tell me the car was past inspection, had near-bald tires, and had $6,000 in body damage. 

It was also out of gas.  

Willie was hitting things for a while. And lying about it. 

She would tell her Temple of Doom cronies how I just took her car. Willie’s minions would agree I was awful, the maintenance guy was at fault, and Willie should be driving.  

Months later, Willie told me the maintenance guys, once quite unhurried in fulfilling her maintenance requests, now provided immediate service. 

“I would think so,” I said. “They don’t want to get run over.” 

“I didn’t really hit him,” Willie said. “You’re so dramatic.” 

Well. 

That makes two of us.