She dozed the rest of the way, until Dad pulled up in front of the house and stopped the car. The house was all dark, Lorraine was not home yet. She was still out somewhere in town with her friends. It was almost midnight, the latest they’d been awake for a long time. They sat for a while looking at the unlighted house and then Dad shut the engine off and they went inside and fell to sleep beside each other in their familiar downstairs bedroom at the back of the house.
27
THE HOSPICE NURSE had come and gone. The same small quick efficient woman with the beautiful smile. It was late morning now on a hot July day toward the end of the month. She had arrived just after nine o’clock and Dad was back in bed when she came. He had gotten up for breakfast, had drunk his morning coffee and eaten a little piece of buttered toast, dunking it in the coffee, and afterward he had sat for an hour at the window in the living room looking out at the green lawn and the shade tree, then he had gone back to lie down in bed in the back room. The nurse had attended him there.
She checked his blood pressure and pulse and temperature and asked how he was and he said he was a little worse maybe, he couldn’t tell but felt he might be slipping faster now, and she asked about his pain, and if he was taking the medication regularly, and he said it was all right, he could live with it, and again she told him he didn’t have to just live with it but could have relief, and he looked away and said he knew that, he understood that, then she checked his pills, to see if he had enough, and asked was there anything else, and he said he couldn’t think of anything, but he wanted to thank her for coming and looked at Mary and Lorraine who were standing at the foot of the bed watching and listening to it all, and then the nurse leaned forward and took his hand and pressed it warmly and said she’d be back, to call her if he needed anything, anytime day or night, and then she packed up and left.
Mary and Lorraine walked her outside and stood in the shade of the silver poplar trees. How long do you think now? Lorraine asked her.
Two weeks maybe. Sometimes they surprise us. Maybe ten days.
Is there anything more we should be doing?
No, I don’t think so. He’s lucky to have such good care. A lot of people don’t. But you need to be sure to take care of yourselves too. You must know that.
We can rest later, Mary said.
Yes, the nurse said.
She got in the car and drove off up the street. The street looked hot and dry. A dust rose up behind her.
When they went back into the house Dad was asleep again. Later in the morning they woke him when Rudy and Bob came to show him the store accounts, knowing he’d be disappointed if they didn’t.
The window was open in the bedroom and there was a warm breeze blowing in but even so Dad lay in the bed with the blanket pulled up over him. Now he propped himself on the pillows and Rudy and Bob carried two chairs into the bedroom and Lorraine followed them and sat in the big chair that was always in the corner. Dad looked at the two men.
Lorraine’s going to join us here, he said. I mentioned that the last time.
We know, Dad, said Rudy.
Okay. I didn’t know if you remembered.
Yeah. We remembered.
Well. How you doing? How’s it going these days?
We’re doing good. And you, Dad, that’s what we want to know.
I’m going down, I guess, he said. I can feel it.
Are you hurting?
Not very much.
He is, Lorraine said. But he won’t take all his pain pills.
You ought to take your pills there, Dad, said Bob.
I will when it gets bad enough. I want to be awake as much as I can. I don’t want to faze out.
Yeah, but if you’re in a lot of pain, Dad. We wouldn’t want to think you was hurting too much.
I appreciate that. That’s what they keep saying too.
He won’t listen to us, Lorraine said.
No, he always had his own mind, didn’t he, Bob said.
And I still got it, Dad said. What’s left of it. You sound like I’m not here already. I don’t want no pity either. You remember that. He looked at the two men and looked at Lorraine. All right, will you show me the accounts? You better do it soon. I seem to sleep all the time now. I seem to want to sleep.
Rudy stood and laid the store accounts in their folder on the bed beside Dad and he picked them up. Hand me my glasses there will you, honey? he said. Lorraine gave him his glasses and he looked briefly at the papers and then pushed the folder across the bed to her. You look at them, he said.
I will. Can they be left here?
We have other copies, Bob said.
I’ll look at them later.
So, Dad said. Everything’s all right down there?
Yes sir. No problems to talk about this week.
I don’t guess I’d much care if there was. I’m too tired.
You need to rest. That’s the best thing. Leave this to us.
He studied them for a while. I was thinking about that old spinster lady again after you left the last time. She come to my mind. When I was laying here. What’s her name?
Miss Sprague, Rudy said. The old lady with the freezer, you’re talking about.
Yes, her.
Did you change your mind? You want us to repossess it?
No. But she’s all alone, isn’t she.
There’s nobody over there except her, that I know of. Never has been. So far as anybody else knows either.
I want you boys to help her.
How do you mean?
I don’t know. But I want you to find some kind of help for her. Somebody to look in on her.
You mean hire somebody.
Something like that. You figure it out. Lorraine can help you. I don’t want her left alone over there in that house of hers.
Yes, we can do that, Lorraine said.
You can pay for it out of the store. Get some kind of caretaker for her. Some older woman or somebody. But it needs to be taken care of.
We will, Rudy said.
And another thing. I was remembering that fellow Floyd down there in Oklahoma.
About his story, you mean?
The one that drowned, Dad said. That’s not funny no more. The man went over the side of that boat into the lake and didn’t come up. He was alive, then he died and his life has to mean more than just a story some guy that comes up here from Texas tells us that’s on some combine crew.
You want us to do something there too? Rudy said. I don’t see what we can do about that.
No. I’m just saying. Telling you what I’ve been thinking about while I’m laying here. It’s not funny to me no more. Not this morning, anyway.
If that’s how you feel, Bob said.
That’s how I feel.
Then we don’t have to mention it again.
Dad lifted one hand from the bedsheet and inspected it front and back and let it fall back down. I don’t know if I’m going to see you fellows again, he said. I got a idea this might be it. But I want both of you to know how much I appreciate all the days and years we’ve been together at the store. I trusted you. I believed in you. You two fellows — you’ve been more to me than somebody I just hired. You were friends to me. I want you to know that. Dad’s eyes welled up as he was talking.
Thank you, Dad, Bob said. We feel the same way.
Well, I wanted you to know. I wanted to have it said out.
The two men were teary eyed now too. They sat side by side, tall and short, on the two hard wooden chairs in the hot room, their hands in their laps.
So, Dad said. All right. Lorraine’s going to be the store manager. Like we talked about. For a while anyhow. And you two fellows are going to still be assistant managers together.
They didn’t say anything.
You understand me, don’t you.
We understood this was coming from what you was saying before, yes sir.