She looked at him.
“Same?”
“No.”
“Related.”
She squeezed.
“I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
She smiled.
“I said it.”
“Yes.”
“I’m allowed now?”
“Yes.”
They laughed quietly.
Then Camille said:
“I don’t want everyone talking about that vacation at my funeral.”
Marcus stared.
“You planning?”
“I know you people.”
“Fair.”
“Tell them printer.”
“I’ll tell them you tried to abandon my daughter.”
She slapped his hand weakly.
“Monster.”
He kissed forehead.
Camille recovered enough to go home.
She lived another eighteen months.
Those months were smaller.
Good.
Walks became porch sits.
Travel became doctor appointments.
Jordan visited every Wednesday.
Eli cooked Sunday.
Maya came whenever work allowed.
Grandchildren rotated.
Camille hated being treated fragile.
So they stopped asking “how are you feeling?” every five minutes.
They talked gossip.
Politics.
Television.
She watched terrible dating shows and judged everyone.
Marcus pretended not to.
One evening she said:
“If I die before you, do not marry anyone who likes decorative pillows less.”
“That narrows field.”
“Good.”
“You planning to die?”
“Eventually.”
“Rude.”
She smiled.
“If you die first, I’m selling all your tools.”
Marcus sat upright.
“You wouldn’t.”
“Watch.”
They laughed.
Camille died at home on a spring morning.
Not unexpectedly.
Not exactly expected that day.
She had been sleeping.
Marcus woke beside her and knew.
There is a silence bodies have when life is gone.
He had never heard it before in a spouse.
He touched her shoulder.
No response.
For one irrational second, he thought:
She’s excluding me.
The absurdity almost made him laugh.
Then grief hit.
He called Maya first.
Not 911 because hospice already involved.
Maya arrived twenty minutes later.
Jordan forty.
Eli nearly hour because he lived farther and drove too fast.
The children gathered around bed.
Marcus sat in chair.
He could not stop staring at Camille’s hands.
The same hands that once had removed Maya’s clothes from suitcase.
The same hands that later braided her hair.
Held grandchildren.
Signed counseling notes.
Clapped at graduations.
Weak after stroke.
Now still.
Human beings contain all their actions in one body until suddenly they do not.
Jordan knelt beside Marcus.
“Dad.”
Marcus looked.
Jordan called him Dad easily now.
Not always.
Enough.
“What?”
“Come downstairs.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.”
“No.”
“I’m fine enough.”
Jordan looked toward Maya.
She shook head.
Let him.
They knew.
Marcus sat until hospice nurse arrived.
She was gentle.
Efficient.
She asked family to step away during some care.
Marcus refused at first.
Then remembered Camille hated people watching medical procedures.