Dear. Are you waking up now? He didn’t move. Dad?
He lay staring up at the ceiling out of half-open eyes. Then he breathed deeply, a kind of rattle. She felt his forehead. He felt cool, clammy to the touch.
Can you hear me? she whispered.
She bent and kissed him and went quickly upstairs to Lorraine’s room.
Honey, can I come in?
Lorraine had just gotten out of bed in her light summer nightgown.
What’s wrong?
He’s going now. I’m afraid he is.
Is something different?
He won’t wake up. I can’t get him to talk. He feels cold.
Lorraine put her arms around her. We knew this was coming, Mom.
Come down with me, would you. I want to turn him on his side. The nurse said he’d breathe a little better on his side if we turned him.
Lorraine put on a robe over the nightgown and followed her mother downstairs. Dad’s eyes were shut now. He breathed and stopped and breathed again, rattling in his throat. They folded back the summer blanket and the sheet and turned him so he was facing the door, and placed an old flat pillow under his head, and put another between his knees. His feet looked mottled with blotches climbing up his legs and his hands were blue and on the undersides of his arms were more blue spots that were like faint bruises.
Look at his poor fingernails, Mary said.
Yes.
They covered him again with the sheet and blanket and stood together beside the bed, watching him. His mouth stayed open. He breathed and made a little involuntary noise and breathed again.
He never woke that day. He lay quietly in the bed, his mouth open and dry and his lips cracked, his face yellow and washed out. Lorraine called the nurse and she came and examined him and looked at his feet and hands, the blue places and mottling on his arms and legs, and told them he was in the final stages. They talked about what they should do. They said they would bathe and dress him themselves after he died, they preferred that, they wanted that last duty and moments of caretaking for themselves, and the nurse said, That’s fine. But you still need to call me so I can certify his death and dispose of the unused medicine. When you’re ready we can call the mortician. But there’s no rush. You take as long as you want.
We’ve already talked to George Hill, Lorraine said. He’ll take care of all the details for the cremation and there’ll be a service at the church and a brief graveside service. Some of his ashes will be buried at the cemetery. But we’ll keep most of them here.
Just please call me if you need something, the nurse said. It doesn’t matter what time it is.
What about his pain now, while he’s like this? Mary said. I’m afraid he’ll choke if we give him a pill.
Give him liquid morphine under his tongue, with the eyedropper. That’ll be all right. And just keep him dry and clean and turn him regularly. That’s about all you can do.
Will it bother him for us to talk in the room here while he’s sleeping like this?
No, I wouldn’t think so. He might even like hearing you even if he doesn’t seem to.
I think he might, Mary said. It might comfort him.
They checked on him every half hour. And then at midmorning they turned him again, toward the wall now, and he was wet and they changed his diaper and washed him. He slept on as before, breathing, stopping, starting again, the rattle still there in his throat.
In the afternoon Berta May called and she came over, and they called Rob Lyle and he came too. Lorraine met him at the door. He put his arm around her.
Thank you for coming, she said. She brought him into the living room and he hugged Mary.
I’m glad you’re here, Reverend Lyle.
I’m not a preacher anymore, he said.
Aren’t you still a reverend?
No.
You do still pray?
Yes, I still pray. That hasn’t changed.