“He can’t be discharged to home,” she said. “Not to a fourth-floor walk-up with no supervision. And he’s refusing placement, which he’s entitled to do.”

“So what happens?”

“Right now? He signs himself out and takes a bus and we see him again in five weeks in worse shape.” She looked at me. “Ms. Whitaker, is there anyone with legal authority to make decisions on his behalf?

A power of attorney, a health care proxy, an agent?”

And I stood in a hospital hallway and started to laugh, and then stopped, because it wasn’t remotely funny.

Seven years earlier a bank manager had closed the blinds on a glass office and told me my father had called claiming to hold financial power of attorney over his mother.