Ninety-eight days have passed since my husband was admitted to memory care, first for a month’s respite then, sadly, as a permanent resident.

Ninety-eight days with ups and downs as stomach-twisting as a rickety rollercoaster ride.

Ninety-eight days of uncertainty, confusion, frustration, anxiety and sadness. And that’s just my list. For Peter, I’d add to those anger, fear, anguish and longing.

Since those first heart-breaking mid-April days — I remember them as very cold, though they were not — the succeeding weeks have glommed together like cheap paper towels. There’ve been bad days and good, more lows than highs, a few baby steps forward, but more giant steps back. Silly me, I thought when someone else took responsibility for my husband’s safety, feeding and care, I would be able to catch up with myself. Not so. But it’s not about me anyway.

Within hours of his admission Peter had a meltdown that prompted a call from the evening charge nurse. Would I talk to him on the phone to see if that would help? Yes, I would. When that didn’t work, would I come to try to calm him? Yes, I did. It took several hours, but he was laughing by the time I left. Oh, I’m no hero, but I generally know which buttons to push. The staff had yet to learn.

Within seventy-two hours he’d gotten out of the facility, even as his ankle bracelet screeched while he walked through the main door. A maintenance man found him behind the building near an area surrounded by woods.

By the third, maybe fourth, week he started to acclimate a tiny bit.

The food, though nutritious, does not appeal to my picky husband. And showering with a female aide hovering nearby is not gonna happen. Without me to nag him about changing his clothes, he doesn’t. Instead of putting his things in the laundry, he hides them in the waste baskets and they’re gone forever. His slippers, leather scuffs, have vanished several times. Once I found the left one in a wheelchair parked outside another resident’s door. A few days ago I found the right one under a table in the shower room. But the left one had disappeared again. Peter isn’t necessarily to blame. Residents in memory care units are notorious for “stealing” from other residents.

Houdini could be his middle name.

Peter advises the cat on how to escape.

No, I really can’t blame him for any of this. No one can know what it’s like to be so confused and disoriented all the time. During his first 12 days there, he’d had relative freedom. But he was quickly moved to the “lock-down” wing after he busted out a second time. He left for an outing with Mark in the morning, but returned to a different room that afternoon. He didn’t even realize he’d been moved. And a few weeks later when we were finally able to move our furniture in to replace the borrowed stuff, he never noticed the change.

So, he’s safe under lock and key…touchpad and code.

Except he isn’t. My husband is an escape artist. He snuck out in my care, and when he wants to get out, he continues to walk out right past the nurses. For years Peter took Nobby to visit the residents where he himself now lives. He knew the code to get into the locked areas and how to get out. Served him well when he was the one on the inside. Frankly, I laughed when I heard that he remembered the code. He can’t remember names or places or much of anything at all, but numbers? His engineer’s brain still computes with reasonable ease. Then, too, he can read. There’s a sign on each locked door that says: Press for 15 seconds and door will open—fire code requirement.

It’s all about control.

From the first days he looked for ways to maintain control. Leslie and I set up his first room and made it as homey as we could. It was a large attractive room with a pleasant outlook. He very quickly rearranged things to suit himself—he hid the family photos, stacked books and puzzles in a corner, and put his tooth and hairbrushes in the little refrigerator that was left behind by the previous occupant.

Less than two weeks after he was moved to the more secure area, he started conjuring more creative ways to dominate his surroundings. He folds his clothes and conceals them in pillow cases, then secures them with his belts or wrapped in his shirts. Lately he’s wrapped everything, gift-like, in towels or sheets. He stashes handkerchiefs in the travel toothbrush holder he requested, not for his toothbrush, but to conceal whatever he could stuff into that little green cylinder. He hid family photos underneath a framed picture of his dad.

In more recent weeks he started taking the screens out of his windows. Almost every evening he disconnects his television, but two days ago he hid it. From himself or from me? I found it and hooked it up again, even though I always say I won’t.

Days 94-98 have been more troublesome. No matter howfrustrated I get, I know Peter is a hundred times more frustrated—he isn’t to blame for his shenanigans. I tell myself that while I bang my head against a brick wall.

2016 National Society of Newspaper Columnists’ contest finalist.