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At five o’clock, I stop at McDonald’s again because I really don’t care what they eat as long as they eat without complaint.

There is still mild complaining with the Happy Meals—Liv says the chicken nuggets are too hot, and Grace says her apple slices are slimy—but they are mostly appreciative of the indulgence.

We get to Daly City just after seven o’clock. They are both beginning to melt down because they are tired. Grace says she has to pee. Liv’s pull-up is probably about to leak. I am starving because all I’ve eaten is cold french fries, the rejected remains of their meals.

Merry is standing on the front porch. She looks thrilled to see us, and Merry is not normally someone who looks thrilled. We are a reprieve, I’m guessing. We will enable her to deny her current reality for a short, necessary while.

All I’ve told the girls is that Papa is sick, and Grace said, “Like Daddy?” I told her that he was sicker than Daddy and had to be in bed during the day, but that he was excited to see them. I hope that’s true. I hope he remembers their little faces.

“Oh my goodness, look at you big girls,” Merry says when we emerge from the car. She goes to Grace and Liv, hugs them with more force than she’s ever hugged me with. They are unusually shy until Merry says, “I have cookies!”

Grace says, “Yay!” and both girls follow her inside.

The moment I step into the house, it feels different.

There’s a noticeably different smell—not bad, necessarily, but nursing-home-ish.

Stale, maybe. There are boxes of supplies lining the hallway—rubber gloves (extra large), adult diapers, wipes.

As I’m taking stock, Merry is presenting a plate of chocolate chip cookies to the girls, and a voice behind me booms:

“You must be Nicole!”

I turn. Frank, in the flesh. He is shorter than I imagined, a couple of inches shorter than me.

“Frank, hi.”

I reach out my hand to shake his, but he gives me a hug instead.

“And you brought the little ones,” he says, peeking around me to see the girls shoving cookies into their mouths.

“I did,” I say. “Quite the drive.”

“I bet! Well, go on in and say hi to your dad. He’ll love to see you.”

I do as he says, approaching my dad’s bedroom with a sense of dread, as if my body knows before my mind that it will be difficult to see what I see.

The king bed has been moved out (to where, I don’t know) to make room for a hospital bed, something the hospice team brought a few days ago.

My dad is sitting upright in it. His feet are in what look like cushioned booties.

It takes me a second to realize that these are to help prevent bedsores on his heels.

It takes me another second to realize that he must not be getting out of bed much at all.

“Hey, Dad.”

His bed is facing the TV on the opposite wall, so he doesn’t see me when I first come in.

“Who’s that?” he asks. His voice is quieter than usual, just above a whisper. It’s as if whatever is siphoning the strength from his body is also siphoning strength from his vocal cords.

“It’s me, Nikki,” I say, bracing myself for his confusion.

He turns his head to the side, and I come into his line of sight.

“Nikki! What are you doing here?”

“I came up with the girls, Grace and Liv. Your granddaughters.” I have decided I will give him more information than he may need because I cannot handle the pain of his obliviousness.

“Wow,” he says.

There is a commode next to his bed. I move it out of the way so I can sit next to him in bed.

He smells strange—likely a combination of sweat and pee.

Someone comes to bathe him a couple of times a week, and he’s in diapers full time now.

Smells are inevitable. This must be the source of the nursing-home-ish scent permeating the house.

“What are you watching?” I ask.

The TV is on, but the sound is off. It appears to be some kind of zombie-apocalypse movie.

“I don’t know.”

“Do you want to watch golf?”

My dad has always liked to watch golf, something that has perplexed Merry and me for years.

“Sure!”

I start to peruse the channel listings and have no idea where to find golf. I ask what I know is a stupid question: “Do you remember what number the golf channel is?”

He furrows his brows and says, “Eighty-three?”

I give it a try, and sure enough, he’s right. Then he starts to talk about Phil Mickelson and how he’s from San Diego. For a moment, I’m able to pretend that he is my dad, healthy and normal.

Then he says, “When’s breakfast?”

“Dad, it’s seven o’clock. It’s nighttime. We’re having dinner soon.”

“We are?”

I leave the room when Frank comes to change Dad’s diaper and get him into his wheelchair.

Merry has made pesto pasta, garlic bread, and green beans.

I put some food on the girls’ plates, knowing this is a fool’s errand, and then sit with them and Merry at the table.

Frank wheels out Dad, who glances around the table, apparently surprised to see all of us.

What little hair is left on his balding head is wet, noticeably combed. Sweet Frank.

“Nikki, what are you doing here?” my dad says.

“I came up with the girls,” I tell him. I point to each of the girls and say, “Grace and Liv.”

The girls stare, slack jawed. I don’t know if they’ve ever seen someone in a wheelchair before. I did not adequately prepare them for this, mostly because I have not figured out how to adequately prepare myself.

“Hi, girls,” my dad says.

“Hi, Papa!” Grace says, cheerful. I’ve never been more thankful for her exuberance.

Frank sits on the couch in the living room, occupied with his phone, while we eat, which is awkward. If I were Merry, I would invite him to join us, but I’m sure she wants the opportunity to forget she has a caregiver in her house. He’ll go home after getting Dad in bed for the night.

My dad really can’t manage his utensils by himself, but we let him try, his shaky hand maneuvering the fork to the pasta, twirling it once before giving up.

“Want some help, Dad?”

He shrugs like I suppose I do .

I feed him, exercising the expertise I’ve gained from feeding Grace and Liv. I assume Merry usually does this. Or Frank.

Predictably, the girls eat the garlic bread and nothing else, but I tell them they can have ice cream when Merry presents the option.

If the girls look back on this phase of life—which they won’t, because their brains will not preserve any memories of this time—they will think of it as a happy time, a time when they got to eat a lot of fast food and sugary treats.

Perhaps it is a mother’s responsibility to foster such blissful ignorance.

As I spoon-feed my dad ice cream, I ask him, “If you could have anything, what would you want?”

I am hoping for one of his rare moments of clarity. I am hoping he will tell us a desire he has for his final days, even though he doesn’t know they are his final days.

“If I could have anything?” he asks.

I nod.

He looks around the table. “This,” he says.

Just as the tears start welling up in my eyes, he farts loudly, and we all laugh.

Merry has placed a full-size mattress on the floor in my bedroom for the girls to sleep on.

I change them into their pajamas, which is no small feat because they are overtired and feral.

I presume they will awaken me several times during the night.

They have never slept side by side like this. I can’t imagine it will go well.

“Mommy?” Grace says, as I tuck her in.

“Yes?”

“What’s wrong with Papa?”

Children, unlike adults, have no problem asking the difficult questions. They do not yet realize what makes certain questions difficult. They are unrestrained in their curiosity, unburdened by social expectations and niceties.

“Well, he’s sick,” I say. “Sometimes when people are sick, they have to be in wheelchairs.”

Liv looks at me wide eyed. I have no idea if she’s following along with this conversation.

“It’s hard to hear him,” Grace says.

“I know. He’s very weak.”

“Is he going to die?”

Grace has just started exploring the concept of death, mostly by pointing to bugs on the ground and saying things like “Aww, he died. His battery ran out. I hope he had a good life.” I’ve started googling how to discuss death with young children, and the key, supposedly, is to be very direct and literal.

I should not say things like “We lost him” or “He passed away” or “He’s in a better place” because all these things are very confusing to a little person.

I can already imagine the questions I’d be bombarded with if I tried to use vague language: You Lost him?

Where is he? How do we find him? Can we visit the better place?

Do you have pictures of it on your phone?

“He is going to die,” I say, taking Google’s advice. I swallow back follow-up statements, attempts to soften what must be a horrific blow.

“Oh” is all she says.

Then: “Where will he go?”

“Well, some believe people go to heaven.”

She nods. She seems familiar with the idea of heaven, probably thanks to YouTube.

“Am I going to die?” she asks.

I glance to Liv, who is starting to doze off.

“All living things die. But you will not die for a very, very long time.”

Grace starts crying. I’m afraid she’ll wake up her sister, but Liv seems undisturbed.

“Are there toys in heaven?” Grace sobs.

I pull her into my body, kiss her soft cheek.

“I think anything you want to be in heaven is in heaven.”

The truth is I think heaven is a story mortals tell themselves to keep their fears at bay. But if believing in it makes my children happy, then color me a believer.

Grace takes a deep breath and appears accepting of my answer. I feel like a good mom for a single invigorating moment.

“Can you tell me a story?” she asks.

God, I hate telling stories.

“Okay,” I say and make up some nonsense about fairies in a garden with magic paintbrushes.