“Hmmm. I think it’s better on them. I’d just as soon have all my kids with me. But don’t tell them that, Father: They’ll feel better doing it their way. Besides, I am awful tired. It’s probably better I don’t have a crowd now. Just let whoever’s next come up. I’ll try to keep track of them.”
He smiled and briefly held her hand. “Remember, I’ll be down there if you need me. Otherwise, I’ll see you when my turn comes around again.”
It reminded him of wrestling’s Australian tag team matches, where a beleaguered contestant tags his partner, who, in turn, enters the ring a bit fresher for battle.
When Koesler reentered the living room, Lucy stood up. Evidently, she was next to be at her mother’s side.
That left Koesler, Vincent, and Tony in awkward silence.
“The Tigers are on TV,” Tony announced. He looked from the priest to his brother. “Any objections?”
There were none, at least none stated.
Van Patrick was saying that the score was Chicago White Sox 4, the Tigers 2, in the bottom of the fifth inning.
Somehow, to Father Koesler, watching a game seemed inappropriate with Louise so ill just upstairs. On the other hand-life goes on.
But the first few minutes appeared to have reached Vincent, who retreated into the dining area. He sat at the table and buried his head in his hands. He was praying, Koesler knew. And, while affecting interest in the ball game, Koesler joined, in spirit, the praying Vincent.
His prayerful thoughts were interrupted by Lucy’s appearance at the living room door. It seemed to Koesler only moments since she had gone upstairs. He checked his watch: fifteen minutes. Lucy seemed startled at the televised ball game, but seeing how absorbed Tony was, she said only, “Your turn, Vinnie.” Her tone carried wonder that he would need to be reminded.
“Oh … oh, uh, sure.” He rose and headed for the stairs.
“She seems to be taking little naps,” Lucy said. “When she comes out of them, she kind of looks around to see if anyone’s with her. So, don’t go to sleep.” Seemingly, the latter remark was intended as humor.
If so, Vincent didn’t get it. Somberly, he climbed the stairs.
Koesler glanced at his watch: He would time the upstairs visits.
He was somewhat surprised to see Lucy seat herself on the couch next to Tony and gaze at the television. She must need the distraction, he thought.
Her admonition for Vincent not to doze reminded Koesler of the Good Friday liturgy when, in the Garden of Olives, Jesus is disappointed in His specially selected Apostles when they cannot watch, with Him for even an hour.
With nothing better to do, and feeling “prayed out,” Koesler became interested, if not absorbed in the ball game.
Someone of the Tiger persuasion hit a home run. Koesler missed the name, but Mr. Kell was waxing poetic about the batter’s “extension of his arms” and how he had gotten the ball high into the wind that was blowing toward the right field stands.
Koesler got into a conversation with Lucy about the salaries paid to baseball players, as well as to professional athletes in general.
Suddenly he became aware that Tony appeared distracted; he seemed to be paying no attention to either the conversation or the game. So focused was Koesler on Tony’s state that he didn’t hear Vincent enter the room; he was startled when Vincent spoke. “She seems a little worse. She’s slipping in and out of consciousness. I don’t know …” His voice trailed off.
Tony rose and without a word climbed the stairs.
Koesler checked his watch. Vincent had been with his mother a little better than fifteen minutes. He wondered if the kids had an understanding on the timing of their visits. He hadn’t checked Lucy, but he thought the length of her latest visit mirrored Vincent’s.
Vincent took Tony’s place on the couch. But it was immediately evident that he would pay even less attention to the TV than Tony had been.
Koesler and Lucy continued their observations on the state of payment for services rendered according to vocation. It was, they agreed, a crime that teachers and nurses were paid so much less than working actors and many athletes.
They were interrupted again, this time by Tony’s hurried footsteps descending the stairs. Koesler checked his watch. Fifteen minutes. It had to be an agreed time.
Because Tony had come down the stairs so rapidly, they all stood and turned to him.
“I think … I think …” His voice betrayed near panic, and he was breathing hard-unusual for a conditioned athlete. “I think you’d better come-all of you.”
He and Vincent led the way, followed closely by Lucy and Koesler.
None of them would ever forget what they saw.
Louise’s eyes were closed. But her mouth was stretched open as if that were the only way she could breathe.
Both her forearms were lifted while her elbows rested on the bed. Her hands were pointed at the ceiling.
“She wants … she wants someone to hold her hands. That was the last thing she said before she … before she got like that.” There was no doubt that Tony was over his head. He had never seen anyone in such a state. And it was his mother. He was not going to be part of her wish to have her hands held.
Quickly, Lucy knelt on one side of the bed, Koesler on the other. Each of them took one of her hands in theirs. Each held it tightly. Her hands were almost icy and she did not return their squeezes.
Tony sank down in the doorway, as far from the bed as he could get and still be in the room. He could not nor did he attempt to hide his bewilderment.
Vincent nearly collapsed at the foot of the bed and grasped both his mother’s ankles, to let her know he too was there. He murmured something. It sounded like “Now.”
Koesler assumed Vincent was calling for the miracle. It was, Koesler was all too willing to admit, time. This, the brink of mortality, would clearly be recognized as well beyond what could be expected from human nature at its strongest. Koesler had never beheld such a scene. Yet instinctively, he knew Louise was on the threshold of death.
Without taking his eyes from her, Koesler said, “Tony, call the doctor. Ask him to come. If he can’t come immediately, tell him forget it. We need him now.”
No one could be sure what good the doctor might do. This was it: either a miracle or death. And if he were more calm, Koesler would have admitted it. He wanted the doctor there at very least to certify death. If it came to that.
Koesler’s gaze was riveted on Louise’s face. Her expression was frozen. To him it seemed she was half here and half … where? In transit to eternity?
“I think she can hear,” Lucy said softly. “I read that someplace. Let’s say the Rosary. She always loved the Rosary. You lead, Vinnie.”
Silence.
“I said lead us in the Rosary, Vinnie! Come on!” She would be obeyed, even by her elder brother.
Absently, Vincent felt around in his pockets. From one, he pulled a plain black, much used rosary. “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. I believe in God …”
And so the familiar prayers followed’ one another, with the others joining in. He chose to meditate on the sorrowful mysteries, those events that immediately led to the crucifixion and death of Jesus.
He announced the first mystery: the agony in the Garden of Olives. He began the “Lord’s Prayer.”
Koesler continued to study Louise’s face. Suddenly, there was a subtle change in her expression. Hitherto it was as if she were carved from stone. Now she seemed to wince as if she was struggling for another breath but could not find one.
He thought of the etymological origin of “expire”: to breathe out. To breathe one’s last breath. To die. Louise had done just that. And he had witnessed this solemn moment. “I think … I think she’s …”
Without rising from her knees, Lucy reached to the night table and pick up a hand mirror. She pressed it to her mother’s lips. After several moments, she turned the mirror and studied it. There was no sign of condensation. She looked at Koesler and shook her head.