When I saw my father this last time, something had changed inside me. Previously, while I had savaged my mother’s martyrdom in my head, all my self-inflicted arguments would end with whether I could sit across from my father and say, “You have to go to a home.”

And that was always the momentary end of the struggle, the beginning of helpless anguish. Because of course, I could second guess my mother forever, but I could never stomach the reality of what would have to happen to get my Dad the kind of help my parents probably need at this point. His fear. His childlike vulnerability and aloneness. The terrible knowledge that in the hands of strangers, he might be victimized in any number of ways. The father that spent my life protecting me.

So it was surprising this past visit to realize I felt fully capable of saying those things. I now feel like a surgeon, perhaps one interviewed in a documentary about conjoined, parasitic twins. It’s a shit situation, and has gotten to the point where I can no long afford empathy for him. He can’t survive on his own, and he is killing my mother.

During last visit, Middle told me that our mother had also told Middle she was an orphan. Middle went gaspy with tears at this admission. I told my sister Mom had said similar to me, and that over time, I’d come to see it as a true blessing; Now, I feel as though Mom and Dad are beloved parts of our family, but I no longer think/feel about them as my parents.

In my head, when I said this, were all these memories and snatches of science I’d heard over the years, about how even smelling your mother can lower your blood pressure and give you comfort. Whatever angry/snarky/happy thoughts I had about my parents, there was always a basic sense of comfort -– maybe nothing more or less than pheromones — that made me feel safe when I hugged them. I could breathe easier. I was their child.

I feel that when my mother declared me orphan, I began some biological process of detachment. When I hug them now, I don’t get that boost. I don’t feel as though I’ve come home. But neither do I get that agonized sense of abandonment anymore, or fear that when they die, a significant part of me will die as well.

But I didn’t have a good way to put those thoughts into words in the moment. Perhaps that’s why Middle gaped at me with her tear-shiny eyes, pulling back as if I were half a monster. Maybe I am? *puts on parasitic twin’s surgeon’s voice again* But I think that’s OK.

Middle seemed to go the other way, saying something to the effect of how she couldn’t cut them out, and would experience the full lifespan of our parents as our parents. Honestly, I don’t know if either is better. With my parents spiraling into such a dark place, I worry my sister/s will be pulled down with them. But I don’t know what’s best for them. Or for myself for that matter.

I spoke on the phone with my mother a week or so ago. She sounded the way small children do when they wake up from nightmares; that high pitched, blurry voice and wandering thoughts, as if still afraid whatever terror dreamed might yet jump out of the shadows. She was near tears about an everyday mishap. When I was up there visiting, she’d agreed to try and get the housekeeper for more hours, so she could leave Dad more often. But when we spoke on the phone, Mom had only been able to secure two more hours a week, and seemed unable to come up with another strategy for help. I told her flat out to send Dad to daycare. She remains resistant.

I’m sitting on the fence, knowing things aren’t yet bad enough to warrant a call to social services, and once they do tip into that arena, I’ll have to make some careful decisions. But believe me when I say they are bad.

At the end of the conversation, my mother said, “Let’s make plans for (ONE OF YOUR KIDS) to come up and spend a week this summer.”

My mother spent summers with her grandmother as a child, and has cherished those memories all her life. She’s been talking about having one of my kids up to her house two years now. Last year, I was super uncomfortable with the idea, mainly because of the fall-out that had occurred between me and my mother. I’d dodged and hemmed and avoided.

But last week when my mother said so hopefully that she wanted my kid to visit, I flat out answered, “We’re not going to do that.” My response wasn’t from my earlier concerns, but out of complete shock that my mother thought she could take care of a child when I’m having such serious doubts about her ability to take care of herself.

(The only thing I could come close to connecting my mother’s disconnect to was a show I once saw about cat hoarders. The video scrolled over a kitchen overrun with cats, cut screen to a desiccated cat corpse under a pile of broken down boxes in the garage. Someone off camera had said, “How can they treat animals they love like that?” And the therapist answered, “Because they live like that. If they feel it’s a good enough life for them, it should be good enough for animals they love.”)

On the phone, my mother sounded so stunned. She asked again, and I had to tell her no again.

“Oh, OK,” she said in that winded, trying-not-to-cry way, again like a child waking up from a nightmare – like things are OK, but monsters are also real.

I felt so shitty, doling out one more horrible blow to someone suffering more than she can stand. Like I had a chance to help make a bright spot in my mom’s life, for my child to know her grandparents as they really were, while they all still can.

But at the same time, I can’t justify putting my kid into their home. So I guess maybe all this is just me processing that it’s already too late.