As Loni’s parents aged, they gave her more stress and grief than either of her teenagers had. After her mother had an aneurism and died, her father was put in memory care, but he and his new best friend escaped and were found a block away in the drug store downtown “getting supplies”, they told the officer, for their cruise on the love boat. The nurse reported to Loni she had confiscated a box of condoms, a tube of lubricant, and a large bottle of CBD gummies. Loni no longer understood her Don Quixote father and knew nothing of his Sancho Panza side-kick. The nurse added that she hoped she had thwarted another outbreak of STDs, unlike their nursing home competitor in town.
The next time Loni visited, her father thought Loni was his late wife, told her he wanted a divorce, and that he’d found someone else down the hall in another room on the love boat. As Loni left, she noticed the ocean blue paint, the border of cresting waves, and portraits of sailors on the wall and realized while his reality and hers were perpendicular now, he wasn’t completely lost at sea.
