Page 87 of Life, Love, and Other Messes

The cafeteria was bright and enormous compared to where we’d spent the past several hours. Kevin got a big plate of chicken fingers and fries from the steam table, but I found a sad-looking turkey and American sandwich on white bread in a refrigerated case and paired that with a Coke. Instead of going straight back up to the room, we chose a little round table and ate there. We knew nothing was going to change upstairs, and neither one of us wanted to face Pastor Hardeman again.

It was most of the way through the afternoon when the doctor came back. His coat said his name was H.K. Jain and he explained that he was a neurologist. He’d looked at the MRIs, he said, and they had shown no brain function. Essentially, he told us, the only thing keeping Mom alive was the respirator. The three of us said nothing. Dr. Jain told us that we could continue to keep the tube in, or choose to extubate at any time. That was when Dad flinched for the first time. “There’s no chance she’ll wake up?”

Dr. Jain repeated it. “No brain function.”

Without looking at Kevin and me, he said “Let me think about it.”

Dr. Jain left. The nurse on duty, whose name was Lexi, told us she’d be right outside at the nurses’ station if we needed her. Her voice was gentle and her eyes were sympathetic. I didn’t want to know how many times she’d had to watch someone die.

Again, we were alone in the room, alone with Mom and the machines and a landslide of memories and emotions none of us had dealt with. Dad lowered himself into his usual chair next to the bed gingerly, but his expression was blank. Instead of sitting back down, Kevin and I both stood there, as if we expected him to come to a decision right away. Twenty minutes later, we were still standing.

I finally broke the silence. “Dad, does she have a medical directive?”

Dad shook his head. “Nothing is recent. We talked about taking care of that. We should have taken care of that.”

I shook my head. “It’s okay. There’s no way you could have known.”

“What should we do?”

Kevin exchanged a look with me. “I think that should be up to you, Dad.”

Dad looked straight at us for the first time in forever. His eyes said help me.

I stepped in. “I don’t want this to be my call either, but I think it’s just a question of when you’re okay with letting go.”

“Okay.” Dad nodded. “Okay.”

We extubated at five thirty. There was nothing else to do. We watched in silence for what felt like forever as all the beeps and waves on the monitor slowed, then finally went still. Lexi, who had been hovering silently in the hallway, came in, bent close to Mom, and said it: “She’s gone.” Lexi caught a doctor in the hallway who pronounced time of death: 6:13 p.m.

Each of us had a moment alone with her. Dad came out of the room looking ruffled but remarkably stoic. Kevin came out in just a couple minutes, looking like he wanted a smoke and to go home. When it was my turn, I lowered myself into the chair Dad had been using. I didn’t know what to do. I thought maybe I should cry, should feel something, but I was absolutely empty. We’d had such a fucked up relationship and this was such a fucked up family and I’d fucked things up so royally at the end and I didn’t know what to do with it. I’d been in therapy most of my adult life and I still didn’t know what to do with it. I sat and I thought, thought about the times we’d all made an effort. I said nothing, but I thought.

Dad finally poked his head in; I didn’t realize how long I’d been. “You okay?”

Leave it to my father to be like okay, Mom’s dead now…You ready? I nodded, but let the door close behind him again. I wanted to think I love you, but I wasn’t there. I’d never gotten there. There were some things I wanted to thank her for, but I love you didn’t feel right. I’d sat on the sofa with Catherine enough to know that I couldn’t make this into someone else’s family, into someone else’s life. This was what it was, and we were who we were. And it would have to be okay.

That was the note I left on. Dad was busy with Lexi, discussing our choice of funeral home. Kevin offered to drive me back to the house, but I reminded him that I had my car there. I tried to wait for Dad, but he told me to take my things and get settled and get some sleep. Nobody mentioned dinner. I drove the twenty minutes to my parents’ house, feeling relieved, then awful because I felt that way.

I expected things to look different, maybe to have some crime scene tape wrapped between the mailbox and one of the columns or something, but there was nothing obvious until I climbed the driveway. Much of the snow covering the front lawn and the flower bed was full of huge boot prints. I intentionally didn’t look at the rocks set next to the walk, and tried not to picture anything untoward, just let myself and my bags in and closed the door.

That was when I broke. There in the warmth, all alone in my parents’ house, I broke. I couldn’t begin to count the number of times I’d burst into tears upon entering the kitchen in the middle of the night, all by myself, when things had gone sideways with my friends. Now, there were no friends cluelessly backing out of the drive, now there were no childish reasons. I was crying, I realized, mostly because I hadn’t cried at the hospital. Because there had been nothing to cry for. Because there was no point in making myself do it.

I wanted to wait up for Dad, but I realized that I hadn’t slept in a day and a half and that the tears probably weren’t going to stop until I got some rest. I found a sticky note pad on the counter below the land line and scribbled a note asking him to wake me up if he needed anything.

It took me about three minutes to get ready for bed. I realized I’d forgotten something to sleep in, so I took the chance that Dad wouldn’t wake me and settled naked beneath covers that still smelled new. I’d stopped crying by then, but there was a raw, open hollow inside me that I couldn’t imagine filling with anything at all. Still, I took out my phone and called Lisa.

Chapter Twenty

There honestly wasn’t much to do on Saturday or Sunday. We had an appointment at the funeral home on Monday morning, but nothing until then. Fortunately, we woke up Saturday to fluffy snowflakes falling, so I made Dad breakfast and sat at the kitchen table to watch it snow.

“You don’t have to do all this, you know. I can make breakfast.”

“I know it, but Mary Margaret said the other day that French toast was delectable. And it made me smile.”

“Well, it is quite good.”

“Thank you. I don’t cook often.”

“You don’t cook for your girlfriend?”