chapter 14; part 11

continued from chapter 14: part 10

The next morning, I got out of bed around six as the sun was rising. I stood at the window and watched the red sky.

"Red sky in the morning," I whispered softly.

I quickly showered and washed my hair and while it was drying I put on the kettle and sat glancing thought the paper. I'll be at the hospital by nine, I thought.

The phone rang. It was quarter to seven. It was Doctor Walter, the resident to tell me that Hal had just died.

I remember asking if he suffered and I don't remember much about what he said but I knew in my heart we had needed one more day to make his dying easier.

I called the children and they all made arrangements to meet me at the hospital.

When I entered the building that last morning my eye was irresistibly drawn to that corridor where the death cart was kept and I saw that it was missing.

Oh god, I thought, I don't want to see it outside his door.

It wasn't near the door and I never saw it while I was there, and for that I thank them. They wouldn't have known that I knew what it looked like but I did.

Doctor Walter happened to be standing by the elevator when I arrived on the ninth floor and he walked me to Hal's room. I feel frightened, I thought. I am afraid of seeing that dead body. He opened the door and the curtain sheltered the bed from view.

Melissa was sitting by the bedside and she swiftly came to me and put her arms around me. The doctor quietly withdrew. Then I looked at the bed.

The stillness, oh that stillness. The life color was missing and his skin was a yellowish shade. His mouth was open and his head was tilted up to his right, I could see that his chest was fully expanded. The needles had been removed from his arm and I was relieved at that.

"Oh Hal, oh my darling Hal, my darling Hal," I kept repeating as Melissa held me.

Then I moved away and sat beside the bed.

"I had to touch him just to be sure, " she said.

"I don't want to touch him; I want to remember his warmth."

We sat beside the bed waiting for the children. A couple of nurses came in and were sweetly gentle. His wedding ring and his watch were on the bedside table and his other possessions had been bundled into plastic bags. The lovely pot of yellow chrysanthemums our friend Bonnie had sent two days before had died with him. They had been lusty the night before.

This had been his final gift to me- he wouldn’t let me see him die.

After the children came, Mike went over to the bed and stroked Hal's hair. When the time seemed right, we prepared to leave. As we walked toward the door, I stopped and my throat caught.

"Oh, I'll never see him again."

I returned for one more look.

"Now you wait for me," I said and then joined the children at the door.

I was a widow.
continued in chapter 15: part 1