Page 124 of Woman on the Verge

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.