Having unintentionally left his mother to die alone at Our Lady of Mercy several years before, Malcolm was determined to remain with his father until the end.
“The dialysis didn’t do what we hoped. His heart is weakening and his lungs are filling with fluid.” Dr. McArthur patted Malcolm on the back and gently moved his hand up to squeeze his shoulder. They watched the squat orderly push Malcolm’s eighty-eight-year-old father out of the ICU room that he had occupied for three days and down the hall.
“He’ll be in a single so you can have your privacy. We’ll keep him comfortable.”
Malcolm, a bachelor dermatologist in his fifties, unaccustomed to being in acute medical settings, nevertheless knew what was coming. He used a pay phone in the lobby to phone his sister at home. “Multiple organ failure… a day or two… morphine… Morphine. No, it won’t make him better… It helps the sensation of drowning… Room 264. Flannery Pavilion.” Malcolm could hardly believe he was having this conversation.
Malcolm’s sister arrived thirty minutes later, having completed some errands. She greeted Malcolm with an air kiss and half-hug as she entered her father’s room and inquired about his condition. No change. The siblings sat on either side of the bed in silence, interrupted only by the sound of dinner trays being served to other patients. “What’s the plan for tonight?” Barbara asked, as if they were going to be ordering Chinese.
“Why don’t you go home, Barbara? Your kids will want you close by. It’s...
Subscribe now to keep reading
Please enter your email to log in or create a new account.