“Dad,” I start, but the porcupine is in my mouth, and if I swallow it, I might cry. I grab his arm like he asked me to, and the shaking subsides. “Why were you out here?”

“I thought I heard something upstairs. I wanted to make sure it wasn’t someone breaking in. You’re the only one who sleeps up there.”

“But you can’t get up the stairs, Dad, remember?” I swallow. It hurts.

“Sure I can. I just need to turn around.” He looks at me, then toward the kitchen. There’s sweat on his forehead, and his knuckles are white on the wooden doorframe.

“Okay, let’s move your leg.” He’s in the socks with white chicklets on the bottom. I think my mom took them from the hospital the one and only time he was there. “This leg, Dad.” I tap it so that he understands. It doesn’t move.

“My feet are stuck to the floor,” he says quietly. “The floor is just so sticky.”

I don’t know how to respond. We both know the floor is smooth as a lie. “Let’s get your chair, okay?” I spot it by the sliding door, but as soon as I move my hands, he tilts back.

“Oh,” he calls out. Fear flashes across his face, and I steady him, but now I feel shaky too. Stuck. “Hold tightly to the railing, okay?” He nods. I get his chair outside the sliding door and push it toward him. Somewhere between this part of the house and that one, he decided he could walk. What were you thinking? Where do you go when the disease gets in and jumbles everything?

“Let’s get you back to bed, okay?” He nods but doesn’t move from the corner. “You have to let go, Dad, I got you.” I pry his fingers from the rail and drape his arm on my shoulders. He’s so heavy that I stumble back toward his chair. He falls into it, and I get a shooting pain up my neck.

“Careful, Cham,” he says to me, his face strained.

“I’m okay.”

“Don’t help me next time. I would’ve gotten there by myself. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

I don’t know where there is. “I’m okay, Dad, really. Ready?”

Once we’ve both caught our breath, I push him down the hall and into his room. I glare at the light coming from under the door to my mom’s room, as if any of this is her fault.

“I’ve got it from here,” my dad says, wheeling himself around and reaching for the doorknob. “Thanks.”

“Of course, Dad,” I say, lingering in the doorway as he’s still reaching. After a few seconds, I grab the knob for him.

“Do you want this closed?” I ask. He nods.

“I love you,” we say at the same time, then laugh our identical laugh, left eye slightly squinted.

“See you in the morning,” I say as I close the door. Before it shuts, I feel a pang of sadness looking inside his room, where the TV is talking quietly to the furniture, as if nothing needs my dad around anymore to keep doing what it does. I lean against his door. I still need you. We both do.