Page 47

I sit by my dad’s side until one o’clock in the morning. The new overnight hospice nurse, Ingrid, sits in a chair next to me, alert and focused. She is older than the others who have passed through—in her fifties. She has an accent, something Nordic.

“You can get some sleep,” she says. It’s only when she says this that I realize I’ve started to drift off. Merry went up to bed a couple of hours ago.

“I just don’t want to miss ... it.”

She gives me a smile that seems to pity me a little. “Sometimes, they wait until you leave the room to die. Sometimes, they want to be alone.”

“They do?”

She nods. “It’s quite common.”

“Why?”

She shrugs. “I think the transition is a very personal thing. He might not want you to see his life leave him. He might want to protect you. He might think it would be too painful for you.”

“It wouldn’t be.”

She shrugs again. “I’m only guessing.”

Of course she is. How could any of us pretend to know?

“You’ll call us if anything changes?” I ask.

Lying in bed, even if just for a few hours, does sound good. My body is tired.

“Of course.”

I give my dad a kiss on his cheek, whisper, “I’m going to get some rest, Dad. I love you. I’ll be back soon.”

That way, he knows I’m stepping out. If he wants to die alone, he can. If he wants to wait for me to return, he can.

“Do you think he can still hear me?” I ask.

Again, how could she know for sure? I am desperate for her omniscience.

“I think so.” She must know that’s what I want to hear. I am grateful.

I go upstairs and get into bed with Merry. She stirs lightly. I wonder if she thinks, for a split second, that I am Dad, coming to bed late.

“Oh, it’s you,” she says groggily, taking me in.

“Can I sleep with you tonight?”

I feel like a child asking this.

“Okay.”

I get under the sheets on my dad’s side of the bed. I reach my arm over to touch Merry’s arm, and I fall asleep just like that.

Merry’s cell rings just before four o’clock. She has the ringer on high. It nearly gives me a heart attack.

“Hello?” she says, already sitting up straight, then swinging her legs over the side of the bed.

“I think it’s time,” the voice says.

Ingrid.

Merry and I go downstairs, holding onto each other for comfort and balance. I have never felt my heart beat so hard, vibrating my rib cage, preparing my body for the unprecedented experience I am about to have.

When we enter the room, Ingrid is bent over Dad, her stethoscope pressed to his chest.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I saw him take one big gasping breath, and I thought there would be at least one more after that, but it was just that one.”

“He’s gone?” Merry asks, her voice at a pitch I have never heard before.

“I’m so sorry,” Ingrid says.

Sorry that he is gone, or sorry that we did not see him take his last breath, I’m not sure which.

She continues listening to his chest, just to be sure, but does not amend her original conclusion.

Looking at my dad now, I realize that the state he was in the last couple of days was not as corpse-like as I thought.

This right here is a corpse. The life is gone.

His skin is ashen. His mouth gapes open.

His eyes are a quarter open. Ingrid goes to him, closes his mouth for him, gently presses down his eyelids.

“Oh, Daddy,” I say, the pitch of my own voice startling me. I sound like someone in shock, someone who has lost a loved one suddenly and without warning, not someone who has been preparing for this event. It’s blatantly obvious that there is no way to prepare for death. Shock is inevitable.

Merry strokes his bald head with her hand. I grasp his arm. It’s so cold.

Ingrid has tears in her eyes. Despite her years of doing this, she is still moved.

“I can feel your love for him,” she says.

I watch a tear roll down her cheek. She doesn’t swipe it away. She lets it free-fall from her face. She puts her hand on my shoulder, leaves it there, steadying me as my body is racked with sobs.

“Would you like me to call the mortuary?” she asks. “It usually takes them an hour or two to come, so you will still have time with him.”

I look to Merry. She meets my eyes but appears helpless, unsure, incapable of making any decision at all.

“Yes, you can call them,” I say.

Ingrid nods and then steps into the hallway. I hear her on the phone with them, reporting the time of death, confirming the address. The mortuary has a team of people on standby for predawn calls like these. There is a whole world I know nothing about.

There is a knock at the door an hour later. I open it to find a man in a black suit with a clipboard in his hands. If I didn’t know better, I would think him a Jehovah’s Witness.

“Hello, ma’am. I’m with Fitzgerald Mortuary. I am so sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you,” I say, opening the door for him. That’s when I see that he has a woman with him, also in a black suit, standing a few steps behind. She follows him inside.

“My condolences,” she says with a respectful bow.

They have me sign some papers, then go to my dad’s room and confer among themselves quietly.

I’m sure they are discussing his size—he’s still a large man, even with the weight loss—and wondering how they will negotiate the steps out front.

After their brief conference, they return outside.

I look out the window as they unload a stretcher from the back of their white van.

I see another stretcher inside. I wonder if they make multiple stops, if there are certain days with more deaths than others, certain times of day that are common for people to leave the world.

Merry and I wait in the living room while they put Dad on the stretcher. We can’t watch. When they emerge, he is enclosed in a black velvet body bag. I hold the door open for them.

“Thank you,” the man says. “Again, we are so sorry for your loss.”

They walk slowly down the steps, the man in front, the woman in back.

I can’t watch that either, can’t bear the thought of them tripping, my dad’s body falling to the cement.

I just stare at the van, wait for them to make it there.

They do. They slide him inside and shut the doors.

The man takes off his suit jacket as he walks to the driver’s side door.

He has a tattoo of barbed wire encircling his upper arm.

It bothers me for some irrational reason.

I don’t want my father driven away by a dude with a barbed wire tattoo.

When I turn around, I expect to see Merry, but she isn’t there.

“Merry?” I call.

I find her in Dad’s room, stripping the hospital bed.

“Hey,” I say.

She doesn’t look up, just keeps bustling about, now making piles of all the hospice supplies on the floor.

“I want this stuff out of here,” she says.

She unplugs the oxygen machine, wraps the cord around her hands in a tight circle, then rolls the machine into the hallway.

“Okay,” I say. What else is there to say? “I’ll get a couple trash bags.”

We use one trash bag for actual trash, the other for items we plan to donate to nursing homes—diapers, gloves, bandages. I don’t know why she wants to do this right now , but I can tell it’s making her feel better. At the very least it’s forcing pent-up energy out of her body, freeing her.

After a couple of hours, we have everything organized. Merry sends an email to the hospice company, tells them she needs them to pick up their equipment as soon as possible.

“All right,” she says, hands on hips, her face covered in a thin sheen of sweat, “that’s done.”

I suggest we eat some breakfast, and she looks at me like she’s never heard of breakfast before.

“I’ll make us some coffee and toast,” I say, “something easy.”

She agrees, reluctantly. We sit at the kitchen table, sipping our coffee, taking small bites of our toast. At seven, there is a knock at the door, and I briefly fantasize about it being the mortuary people, saying my dad came to life in the back of the van and is miraculously healed.

The mind is capable of crazy things.

But it’s just Frank. He’s here for his workday. Nobody from the hospice company has told him Dad died.

“Morning!” he says with his usual joviality.

His face falls when he takes in our faces. We must look completely wrecked.

“Oh no,” he says.

He goes to my dad’s room, then comes back.

“No,” he says.

I nod. He comes to us, his arms outstretched, with the clear intention to take us both in. Merry and I allow this. Frank’s arms are thick, and his body is warm, and it is just what we need.

“I’m so sorry,” he says, pulling away from the embrace after a few moments. His eyes are wet with tears. He is shocked too. Even the professionals are not spared.

Merry asks him to help her wheel the hospital bed into the hallway.

It is not a logical task to insist upon.

The hospice company said they would come tomorrow or the day after to take away all the equipment.

Merry must feel the need to make progress of some kind, any kind.

Frank does not question her. I’ve found most men are also comforted by progress making, especially in times of unfixable despair.

I sit on the couch.

This is the first time I’m sitting on a couch without my father being alive, I think.

How many of these types of thoughts will I have in the coming days?

This is the first shower I’ve taken as someone without a living father.

This is the first dinner I’ve eaten without my father on earth.

This is the first time I’ve had sex since my father died.

Life has been cleaved into before and after. I feel as if I am standing at the precipice of a great unknown.

He died

I send this text to Elijah and then to Kyle.

Elijah responds first:

Oh, sweetheart

It is the first time he has used this term of endearment with me. My dad has died, and I am someone’s sweetheart.

Him: I knew it was coming, but my heart still breaks for you