I found it almost unbearable to watch, and I was only the help.

There is a particular cruelty in being treated as already dead by the living, and Arthur endured it every day in his own home.

His children spoke over him and around him and about him, but rarely to him, as though he had become a piece of furniture in the estate they were dividing, a thing to be inventoried rather than a father to be sat with.

I saw it wear on him in ways he would never have admitted.