Page 115 of Woman on the Verge

I open the door to give her a wider berth, and she comes in. She is bouncy and energetic, and I want her cheerfulness to be contagious. I follow her to my dad’s room, where Merry is still spoon-feeding him.

“Hi, Meredith,” Becky says. She is good with names. I wonder how many visits she has per day with the dying and their agonized families. I wonder how she remains so perky.

“I know you said to consider not feeding him,” Merry says to Becky, guilt all over her face. “I just ... can’t.”

Becky gives her a thin smile and puts a hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay. These last days are as much about your comfort as they are about his.”

“Wait, why should we stop feeding him?” I ask. Merry hasn’t told me this.

Becky goes to my dad, places a thermometer in his mouth.

“Well, there’s the risk of aspiration pneumonia because he’s having trouble swallowing,” she says. “But at this stage, it is what it is.”

She pries open my dad’s eyes, points a little flashlight into them.

“His eyes are fixed and not responding to light.”

“What does that mean?” I ask.

“He’s likely going blind.”

Merry’s face falls, and she starts to cry, her shoulders heaving. I go to her, hold her, let her put her weight into me.

“Can he hear us?” I ask.

“Yes,” Becky says without hesitation. “Hearing is the first sense we gain in the womb and the last we lose.”

If he can hear us, does he comprehend that he’s dying? He appears so calm. I like to think he does comprehend and that he has come to acceptance and peace. It is the rest of us who suffer.

“I can’t be here,” Merry says before leaving the room.

I follow her to the kitchen. She falls to her knees, hanging on to the edge of the granite counter. She weeps. I crouch next to her, my own tears coming.

“I don’t know who I’ll be without him,” she says.

He has been the sun she’s revolved around all these years. Movies glamorize this as the ultimate form of love, something to aspire to. I see the dark side.

“You don’t have to know that right now,” I tell her.

We stay like that on the floor until Becky comes into the kitchen and says, “Okay, all set. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

I stand. “Is there anything we should be doing for him?”

“You’re doing it,” she says brightly. “Just be with him. He knows you’re here. He can hear you. Talk to him.”

As soon as she leaves, I heed her advice. I go to my dad. Frank has elevated the back of the bed so he’s sitting up.

“I was going to bring him into the other room for dinner,” Frank says. “Merry likes that.”

He’s wheeled over the Hoyer lift, a manual hydraulic lift that looks like a giant version of that arcade game where you maneuver a claw to grasp a toy. With the Hoyer lift, the “claw” connects to a sling that’s placed under my dad’s body. With a push of a button, he can be lifted out of bed and placed in his wheelchair.

“Can I just have a minute with him?” I ask.

Frank says, “Absolutely!” and quickly makes himself scarce.

I sit next to my dad, his eyes still closed. He is wearing his navy blue Wave Rider T-shirt, a favorite, cut up the back like all his shirts now.

My face is inches from his. I see up close the definition of his cheekbones.