I don’t remember the exact moment I lost my mind. Maybe it was the third time Mr. Ramírez looked at me with those foggy eyes and asked, “Where’s my wife?” Maybe it was the way his voice trembled — half hope, half confusion — when he searched the room for a woman who wasn’t there.

I could have told him the truth: that she’d been gone for five years, buried in a quiet cemetery his mind had long forgotten. But instead, something inside me cracked open, and I heard myself say, “She just went to the bathroom, my love. I’m back now.”

And just like that, I became a liar.

The next morning, Dr. Hernández nearly dropped his coffee when he entered room 304 and saw me sitting on the edge of Mr. Ramírez’s bed, holding his hand while he told me about “our honeymoon in Acapulco.”

“Nurse Contreras,” the doctor said in that tired, authoritative tone that meant trouble. “Can I speak to you in the hall?”

“Not now, Doctor,” I whispered. “My husband is telling me how he won me over.”

Mr. Ramírez beamed proudly. “I serenaded her! Three mariachis, singing Bésame Mucho right under her window.”

I laughed softly. “You were such a romantic.”

Out in the hallway, Dr. Hernández stared at me as if I’d just claimed the moon was flat.
“What the hell was that?”
“Emotional palliative care,” I said, crossing my arms.
“That’s not a medical term.”
“It should be.”

He sighed — that long exhale only doctors and nurses who’ve seen too much can make. “He has advanced Alzheimer’s, Contreras. He doesn’t know what year it is. He’s confused, vulnerable.”

“He’s lonely,” I corrected. “He doesn’t remember his children. They moved to America years ago and never call. All he remembers is that he once had a wife who loved him. Is it so wrong to give him that?”

The doctor rubbed his temples. “If this goes wrong, I didn’t know you.”
“Deal,” I said.

And that’s how my double life began.

By day, I was Nurse Contreras — practical, efficient, invisible in white scrubs. But to Mr. Ramírez, I was Lupita, the woman he married in 1962, in a small church in Puebla, wearing a white dress that smelled of gardenias.

He liked to think I brought him basket tacos every Thursday — though they were really just from Oxxo. “They taste just like our honeymoon,” he’d say, licking his fingers.

“Did I tell you that I sold my guitar to buy your ring?” he’d ask me again and again.
“Really, love?” I’d say every time, pretending it was the first.
“The ring was terrible, but you said it was beautiful.”
“It came from you, dummy.”

The problem came one night when Nurse Sánchez took the night shift.

“Good evening, Mr. Ramírez,” she greeted.
“Oh, thank God you’re here,” he said. “Can you call my wife? She must be worried.”
“Your wife…?” She hesitated. “Mr. Ramírez, your wife—”
“My wife what?!” His panic rose, his frail hands trembling.

They called me at two in the morning. I arrived in pajamas, hair a mess, heart pounding.

“I just went out for bread,” I told him softly, taking his hand. “See? Still warm.”

He calmed instantly, smiling through tears. Nurse Sánchez glared at me from the doorway. “You’re out of your mind.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But he’s sleeping now, isn’t he?”

There were moments that broke me. Like the day he stared at me for a long while and whispered, “Lupita, can I tell you something?”

“Of course, my love.”

“I know you’re not my wife.”

My heart stopped.

“My Lupita had green eyes,” he said. “Yours are brown. And she was tiny — one foot fifty. You’re taller.”

I froze, waiting for anger, confusion, heartbreak. But instead, he smiled.
“You’re too kind to pretend. Life is more beautiful when someone pretends to love you.”

Tears stung my eyes. “I’m not pretending, Mr. Ramírez.”
“I know, little one. I know.”

The next day, he didn’t remember that conversation. He called me Lupita again, and I answered.

A week later, Dr. Hernández caught me in the cafeteria practicing my signature: Guadalupe de Ramírez — on a birthday card.

“You’re going too far,” he warned.
“It’s his birthday tomorrow,” I said.
“You’re not his wife!”
“But he believes I am. Isn’t that what matters now?”

The doctor sighed. “What happens when he…” He didn’t finish the sentence.
“When he dies?” I said quietly. “Then he won’t die alone.”

Three weeks later, the call came.

He’d gotten worse — his breathing shallow, his lucidity flickering like a candle in the wind. I rushed to the hospital still in gym clothes, barely breathing.

When I entered his room, his eyes lit up. “Lupita,” he whispered. “I knew you’d come.”

“I’m here, my love. Always.”

He smiled faintly. “Would you… stay with me for a while?”

I climbed into the bed beside him, holding his frail body in my arms. His heart beat weakly against my chest.

“Sing to me,” he murmured. “That song you love.”

I sang Cucurrucucú Paloma, completely off-key, and he laughed softly.
“Still can’t sing, Lupita.”
“And you still love me anyway.”
“In spite of that… and because of that,” he whispered.

Then the monitor beeped. The nurses rushed in, but I wouldn’t move.

“I’m his wife,” I said, and my voice didn’t tremble. “I’m staying.”

He left the world with a smile on his lips.

At the funeral, I stood in the back, hidden among strangers. His son recognized me.
“You’re the nurse, right?” he said. “My father… he sounded so happy at the end. He talked about Mom like she was alive. Thank you.”

I couldn’t answer. I just nodded.

Outside, Dr. Hernández waited for me in the parking lot.
“What you did…” he began.
“I know,” I said. “It was wrong. Unprofessional. A lie.”
He looked at me with tired eyes. “It was the most human thing I’ve seen in twenty years of medicine.”

We stood there in silence, watching the sunset bathe the hospital in gold.

“Would you do it again?” he asked.

I thought about Mr. Ramírez — his laugh, his trembling hand in mine, his final breath filled with peace.

“Without a doubt,” I said.