They May Not Mean To, But They Do

23

This is a general picture, the pamphlet said. Then it said that the skin turns a gray or green or bluish hue. Her father’s skin was gray and green and bluish. He is off-color, Molly thought, like a joke. As you hold his hand you may notice that it feels cold. Her father’s hand was as cold as ice, as death.

He was dead.

Joy came into the room.

“Oh, Mommy.” Molly pressed her face against her mother’s shoulder and cried in ugly dry heaving sobs.

“Molly, Molly.” Joy patted her back, kissed her cheek. “There, there, Molly. You must be so tired.” She turned to Aaron, lying still on his hospital bed. “That terrible jet lag,” she said to him.

“But Daddy … Daddy’s…”

“Come,” Joy said gently. “Aaron, we’re going to get some tea. Back in a minute!”

In the hall, she closed the door to the bedroom and said, “Now, what is it, sweetheart? I don’t want to have any sad discussion in front of Daddy.”

“But…”

“The booklet said you must always act as if he can hear you. Hearing is one of the last senses to go. We have to be careful not to scare him. He can hear what we’re saying even if he doesn’t seem to.”

“But, Mom—”

“The booklet said so,” Joy said fiercely. “It’s disrespectful to talk about dying in front of him. Do you understand?”

“Mom, his fingers are blue.”

“He’s chilly.”

“Do we get a mirror or something?”

“This is not television, Molly. Go wait in the living room. I want to chat with your father. Just the two of us.”

Molly found Daniel and Freddie in the kitchen. “I think Daddy died,” she said through her sobs. “But Mommy doesn’t want him to know.”

She slid down the wall and sat on the floor. She wished she could breathe. She watched Daniel make his slow careful way toward their parents’ bedroom. Maybe her father would be alive again by the time he got there. Maybe her mother would have talked him back to life.

“She thinks he’s still alive and she’s talking to him,” Molly whispered.

Freddie slid down and sat beside her. “Is he? Maybe he is.”

“But he’s green. And waxen.”

When he came back a few minutes later, Daniel said, “She’s holding his hand. They’re having a quiet conversation, she said.”

“So he’s alive?” Molly asked.

“I don’t know.” Daniel started to cry.

Freddie and Coco, the in-laws, went in to take a look as more neutral observers.

“He’s awfully stiff-looking,” Coco said. She emitted a tiny, nervous laugh, then shook her head.

“Is he still green?” Molly asked.

“Bluish green,” Freddie said.

“Is he moving?”

“Of course he’s not moving. If he were moving they would know he wasn’t dead,” her brother snapped.

By the time the hospice nurse came for her afternoon visit, rigor mortis had set in. Rigor mortis, she said in her rolling Jamaican accent. Rigor mortis.

But still Joy could not be sure. Death? How could anyone be sure of something as unlikely as death? Death made no sense. Where was Aaron if not there? Who was that if not Aaron? Why were the children filing in to say goodbyes as if he were about to take a journey on an ocean liner? She sat on the edge of the bed where she and Aaron had slept and looked at the silent, still man in the hospital bed. Who would take care of him now that he was dead? Who would get him his tea and see him sneak three spoons of sugar into it and pretend not to notice? Who would make him wear his hearing aids? Who would buy him warm sweaters? He would be so helpless and so alone now that he was dead and she could no longer look after him.

She supposed she was crying. Her sinuses were swollen and painful. Her face was wet with tears. She heard uneven sounds, hoots of sorrow, and suspected they came from her. She heard sirens and turned toward the window. It had stopped snowing. She stood up and gazed at Aaron on his hospital bed, his arms now crossed over his chest. Perhaps the nurse had done that, because Aaron, she had to admit, certainly had not.