“What’s the matter. Dad?”
He sighed a little, as though he were straining against something, then smiled and tried to sit up. “I don’t know. I’ve got the shivers, and my whole head hurts.”
“Should I call the doctor?”
“No.” He had to stop after every few words to take a breath. “I’ll just rest for a while. I feel drained. I need some sleep, that’s all.”
My sister came in then, with a tray for my father. There was soup and tea and applesauce. “Your dinner,” she said, without looking at me. She had no thought for me then. Her father was sick.
I went out to my room off the kitchen and threw my coat on the bed. I went back to the kitchen and ate. I don’t know what I ate.
After I finished eating, I went back to my father’s room. My sister stopped me in the doorway. “Are you going out tonight?”
I was surprised. “Sure. It’s Hallowe’en.”
“Who are you going out with?” She had that way about her, commanding and yet not imperial.
“I don’t know. Whoever’s around, I guess.”
She backed me up against the wall. “Someone’s got to stay with Dad.”
“What’s wrong with you?” I had no place to go really, but I didn’t want to be commanded to stay home.
“I’ve got a date.” She knew she’d won; I never had talked her down.
“All right. But don’t stay out late.”
She walked past me to the kitchen without a word. She’d won, and that was that.
She left about seven-fifteen, and about quarter to eight my father got up. I was in the parlor watching television with all the lights turned off, because I didn’t want anyone ringing the bell for handouts. I heard my father in the kitchen and ran out. He had the little light over the sink on and was getting a drink of water. He looked a couple of hundred years old. He was shaking; not just his hands, but his whole body. I got him back to bed as quickly as I could. I could feel him shaking as I helped him into the bedroom. As he got into bed he said, “Call Doctor Heinz.” His voice was so low, so pitifully weak, and he had to stop between each word to breathe. His face was flushed, and his copper-colored hair lay limp and bedraggled on his forehead.
I rushed to the telephone in the dining room without even bothering to answer. I found the doctor’s number in the little hook beside the telephone and dialed. When the busy signal blared into my ear I almost fell. I held onto the telephone stand for a moment, then dialed again. I must have dialed twenty times in two minutes before I finally got the line. The doctor himself answered the phone. I told him what was the matter and he said he’d be right over.
A little after eight my mother came home. I heard her open the front door and come up the stairs. I opened the door as she reached the top step. “Dad’s sick.”
She looked first surprised, then alarmed, and then scared. “Did you call the doctor?”
I nodded. “He should be here in a little while.”
We went out to the bedroom and peered together into the darkness. I said, “Dad?” There was no answer. I felt odd then. I felt like screaming or running or doing something, doing anything. I couldn’t just stand still. But I did. My mother whispered, “He must be asleep. He’s breathing regularly.”
I didn’t breathe a sigh of relief. I didn’t breathe at all. I just listened. After a moment, I could hear my father’s breathing, deep, regular, but too loud. He didn’t breathe as though he were asleep: he breathed as though he were unconscious. Then the doorbell rang.
In three leaps I was in the kitchen. I pressed the buzzer and ran to the front door. I prayed it wasn’t kids, having a happy Hallowe’en. I prayed it was the doctor. It was.
The doctor came in, took oil his coat, and I led him to my father’s room. When I turned on the light, my father opened his eyes a little bit and squinted against the light. The doctor went over to the bed, opened his bag, and began talking to my father, the way doctors always talk to patients. As I left the bedroom, my father said, “It’s all over. My chest and my legs and under my arms and my head.”
My mother stopped me in the hall. “Get the priest.” I just about heard her. I guess that’s when I really got scared. I raced down the stairs and out into the street. When I had gone the block to the rectory I was winded. One of the priests answered the door, and I gaspingly told him the story. He said, “Wait a minute,” and went through a doorway on the right. He was back in a minute or two with his coat and hat on.
As we walked back to the house, I told him about my father’s heart attack in ’47. He asked me if my father was a regular churchgoer, and I said yes. At any other time that would have seemed like a silly thing to ask, but then it was right. All the way home I kept trying to think of what I should have for Extreme Unction. I knew all the things by heart; yet all I could think of was a lighted candle; and then I remembered something I’d read somewhere about candles burning out. I said a quick Hail Mary.
When we reached the house, I couldn’t get the key into the lock. I almost swore, but caught myself in time. I led the way upstairs to my father’s bedroom. Then I went into the living room and sat down. I’d never felt so helpless in my life. And I’d never wanted to be able to help so much.
All of a sudden I realized I was sitting in my father’s chair, the chair he watched television from, my father’s chair. I jumped up and began walking around the room aimlessly. I felt somehow ashamed. I didn’t know why. I wouldn’t even look at my father’s chair. I felt as though I’d done something degrading.
After a while the doctor left. I heard him tell my mother, “I don’t think there’s anything to worry about, but you can’t tell in these things. If he gets worse during the night, call me. Otherwise, I’ll be here in the morning.”
A little while later the priest left. He hadn’t anointed my father, and somehow I felt better about it.
When I went out to his room, my father said to my mother. “Don stayed in tonight to take care of me.”
My mother smiled at me, and I felt pretty good, until I thought of that chair. I told myself I was being foolish, but somehow I didn’t feel right about sitting in my father’s chair, when he was sick in bed and might never sit in it again.
When I went to bed that night, I didn’t sleep for a long time. I did a lot of praying. I kept remembering what the doctor had said: “I don’t think there’s anything to worry about, but you can’t tell in these things.”
And You
(poem)
1954
Or Give Me Death
“Give me liberty, or give me death!” was merely a quotation from a history book to Dr. Lambert until Patrick Henry walked into his office and complained of suffering from a chronic headache.
“I’m a very busy man,” said the editor.
“I know,” said his visitor. “I won’t take long.”
“You can’t,” said the editor. “I have too much to do. Sit down.”