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Princeton Medical Center.
    Ray doesn’t seem to hear this. Or , hearing , discounts it.
    His concern is something I am to bring for him , from home—to use here in Shannon’s house. He has an “apartment” in Shannon’s house.
    Calmly I tell Ray no : he is not in Shannon’s house , he’s in the hospital where Shannon is a nurse.
    “Honey , you’ve been very sick. You’re still sick. You have—”
    But Ray is irritated with me. Ray will have to argue with me to convince me , yes we are in Shannon’s house.
    “Honey , no. Shannon is a nurse. You’re in the Medical Center. You have pneumonia—you’ve been very sick. But you’re getting better—the doctor says you might be able to come home next week.”
    How long we discuss this absurd issue , I can’t recall afterward. I am shaken , disoriented. This man—this slow-speaking stubborn childish man!—is no one I know.
    At the nurses’ station I seek out Shannon—I ask her what has happened to my husband and she tells me not to be alarmed , this sort of thing happens sometimes , it’s common , it will pass. I ask her where on earth Ray has gotten the idea that he’s in her house—in an “apartment” in her house—and Shannon laughs and says yes , “your husband who is such a sweet man” has been saying that to me , too—it’s better not to upset him , just humor him for the time being.
    Humor him. For the time being.
    How embarrassed Ray would be , to know that he is being “humored”—this is very upsetting.
    I seek out one of Ray’s doctors—Dr. B_.
    Dr. B_ is Ray’s admitting physician. Dr. B_ is better known to Ray than to me , a very nice cordial man of early middle age. Dr. B_ will be the Certifying Physician on my husband’s death certificate.
    Dr. B_ too tells me not to be alarmed—“delusional thinking” isn’t uncommon when a patient’s brain isn’t receiving quite enough oxygen.
    My husband , Dr. B_ assures me , is only “mildly delusional”—the nasal inhaler isn’t working or he’s breathing through his mouth and not his nose as he’s been instructed. That’s why it’s good for me to remain with him as long as I can , Dr. B_ says , to “anchor” him to reality.
    I am relieved—Ray is only “mildly delusional.”
    I am relieved—Dr. B_ is so matter-of-fact , even a bit bemused. As if , if he had but the time , he could entertain me with any number of comical delusions of patients he has known—very possibly , previous patients in room 541 being treated for pneumonia.
    Dr. B_ tells me the condition is reversible.
    Reversible?
    How casually this crucial term is uttered. Reversible!
    Yes , Mrs. Smith. Reversible , usually.
    Dr. B_ orders the nasal inhaler to be removed, the oxygen mask to be resumed. Within a short while—it’s a miracle for which I will hide away in a hospital women’s room, to weep in gratitude—my husband has returned to normal—to himself.
    Days, nights in giddy succession—like a roller coaster—at the hospital, at home—at the hospital, at home—driving into Princeton, driving out into the country from Princeton—this February has been a cheerless month yet this week—the final week of our lives together—our life—overcast mornings are suffused with a strange sourceless sunshine.
    This mysterious radiance from within.
    I am relieved—more relieved than I wish to acknowledge—that Ray’s mildly delusional state has faded.
    Not in a mood to ponder reversible , irreversible —nor in a mood to consider what is normal , what is self. Harrowing to think that our identities—the selves people believe they recognize in us: our “personalities”—are a matter of oxygen, water and food and sleep—deprived of just one of these our physical beings begin to alter almost immediately—soon, to others we are no longer “ourselves”—and yet, who else are we?
    Is the self the physical body, or is the body but the repository of self ?
    It’s the most ancient of all