“I want you at the ER tonight.”

That was all he said. Dr. Aris didn’t even look at my teeth. He just stood there with my chart in his hand, his face tight and serious.

I looked at the little tray where my dentures were sitting. They had been rattling around in my mouth for weeks, loose and annoying, but I had just used more adhesive. I thought it was just age. I thought it was just me getting old.

“Your body has been trying to tell us something for a long time,” he added, his voice dropping into that soft, professional tone that doctors use when they know you are about to be scared.

I felt the air in the small room get thin. Honestly, I didn’t even know why I was there for a cleaning to begin with. It was just a routine thing I had booked months ago. But the hygienist, a sweet girl named Maya, had kept stopping her work. She had looked at my gums, then at me, then at the clock.

“Have you been drinking a lot of water lately?” she had asked. “And do you find yourself needing to nap during the day?”

I nodded. “I’m just tired, honey. It’s been a long year.”

I remember the way she took off her blue latex gloves. She didn’t say another word. She just walked out of the room to get the dentist, and the silence she left behind was heavy. It was the kind of quiet that makes you start thinking about all the things you have been hiding from yourself.

For months, I had been waking up at 3:00 a.m. with a thirst that felt like I had swallowed a desert.

My mouth would be so dry my tongue stuck to the roof of it. I would stumble to the kitchen, gulp down two full glasses of water, and then lay back down, only to be exhausted by the time the sun came up. I was napping before lunch. I was napping after lunch. I thought it was just the stress of the house, or maybe just the way life goes when you hit your seventies.

“I don’t think I can go to the ER tonight,” I said to Dr. Aris. My voice sounded thin, like someone else’s. “I have things to do. I have the house to watch.”

He looked at me then, really looked at me. “Brenda, your blood sugar is at 480. You aren’t watching anything if you don’t go.”

I didn’t argue. I just grabbed my purse.