by Kelly Rimmer
to plan his next day’s search, told Ewan he just couldn’t. But the
next day the postman came, and there was a stack of overdue
notices in the mail, including a particularly fierce letter from
Yesler Terrace estate management. He’d missed a month’s rent
payment.
“How did this happen?” I asked Patrick quietly. He scratched
a hand over his scruffy beard and admitted, “I spent all of my
last pay on gas so I could keep looking for her. And when I don’t
work, I don’t get paid, so everything that’s come due since has
just had to wait.”
I convinced Father to cut Patrick a check so he could at
least cover the rent. He grumbled and complained but wrote
the check and informed Patrick that this was most definitely a
“one off.”
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Patrick went back to work the next day. The vigil was over
without a conclusion and I was about to learn yet another hard
lesson: sometimes life demands that you to move on without
closure. Grace had disappeared, we had no idea where she was,
and the truth was we might never know. Maybe I’d have run
away then, too—tucked my miserable tail between my legs and
run back to California—except that I couldn’t. I knew it was a
little less likely with every day that passed, but I could not let
go of the hope that Grace would resurface somewhere. And in
the meantime, I simply had to keep searching for her notes. The
last one she wrote now represented a threat to my entire future.
Fortunately for me, it seemed to make sense to everyone else
that I’d stay. They all assumed I was sticking around at least in
part to help with the children, and the only problem with that
assumption was that it meant I was alone with four children all
day, every day, and I had no idea how to care for them.
I gradually, painfully, figured out the basics on my own—
diapers, simple meals, how to work the television, but I still felt
like a bumbling fool. After five years of excelling in academic
study, I was learning that domestic life commanded its own skill-
set, one I’d never thought to respect. I forgot I put eggs on the
stove to boil one morning and the pot went dry and the eggs
exploded, sending yolk and white all over the kitchen walls and
ceiling. I took the children to the grocer to buy food for dinner
and Jeremy ran off—it took half an hour to catch him because
he thought running up and down the aisles away from me was
a delightful game. I discovered that Beth’s diapers were almost
impossible to clean properly if I didn’t get to them quickly. Mrs.
Hills started spontaneously delivering baked goods for snacks
for the children and days later, I learned that she was only doing
this because the kids had been sneaking through the fence to
beg for food.
“I didn’t realize children snacked so much,” I told her, by way
of apology. She gave me an incredulous look and said, “This is
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what happens, isn’t it? You girls go off to get your book learn-
ing and you don’t learn common sense.”
The worst indignity of all for me was that even as a twenty-
three-four-old woman of the world with an honor’s degree
under my belt, I was now periodically forced to ask a four-
year-old for guidance. Tim seemed to know how to manage
the younger children best. He knew where their clothes were
and when they needed naps and what foods they would and
wouldn’t eat.
“Do you know where Mommy kept her letters?” I asked him
hopefully one day. He nodded confidently and took me to a
drawer in the kitchen, but when he opened it, I found it was
stuffed to the brim with old bills and overdue notices.
“Thanks, Timmy,” I sighed, and I sorted through them just in
case, but just like all of my other efforts to search, it was fruitless.
Beth
1996
When I wake the next morning, Hunter is still in his pajamas,
speaking quietly on the phone. I feed Noah while I sip tea and
nibble on some toast. When my husband hangs up the handset,
he takes the seat beside me and gives me a hesitant look.
“Your dad really didn’t look great last night so I thought I’d
call and check in on him before I go for work.”
“Oh?”
“They said…ah, they said maybe you should come in.”
“Today?”
“As soon as you can, honey.” Hunter reaches across and rests
his hand on mine. “I’m so sorry.”
“Dad’s had his ups and downs for months,” I say, more for
my own benefit than for Hunter’s. “This is just another down.
He’ll pick up.”
“Babe,” Hunter says gently. “I get that you’re trying to be
positive, but you do realize…” I stare at him expectantly, and he
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winces and looks away. The end of that sentence hangs heavily
in the room, and I push my chair back abruptly.
“I’m going to get dressed.”
Forty minutes later Hunter has taken Noah to his mother’s
house and I’m at the nursing home. They’ve moved Dad from
his original room into another, much larger space. This room
is painted in a soft yellow, and Dad is resting on a much wider
bed. There are comfy sofas and pastel artworks all around, and
a little kitchenette stocked with a coffeemaker and snacks.
This room is setup to bring comfort, and I admire it for a mo-
ment, but then a shiver runs through me. This is a special room,
but it’s not an upgrade—it’s a place to see out the last hours of
a loved one’s life.
“How did you get here so fast?” I ask Tim. He’s stretched
out on the bed beside Dad, focused on the chart in his hands.
“I called the nursing station at five,” Tim says without look-
ing up. “They told me about his bloods, so I did my rounds and
canceled my day then came straight in.”
I look to Dad at last. He’s propped up into a sitting position,
which I know helps with his breathing. Even so, his breath is
audible in a way that I’ve just not seen before. Even with oxy-
gen and the drugs and the seated position, even in sleep, Dad is
clearly struggling to get enough air.
“Is all of this because of the stress of yesterday?” I ask miser-
ably. I lean over to kiss Dad’s cheek, then I take the seat at his
bedside, opposite my brother.
“No.” Tim shakes his head. “I told you, Beth. Stress does
make things worse, but we’re long past the point where keep-
ing him calm makes much difference. He’s not sick because you
upset him. He’s sick because his organs are failing.”
“And…” For the first time I let myself think the words. My
eyes burn as I force myself to ask for confirmation. “So this is
the end?”
“It’s close, Beth. We’re talking days at best now, not weeks.
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That’s what I was trying to tell you yesterday before the shit hit
the fan. His blood results were bad when we moved him, but
they’re catastrophic now—his kidneys are barely functioning.”
“Can’t they do dialysis?”
“To what end, hey?” he says gently. “To buy him another
few weeks of pain until his liver goes, too?” I blink back tears,
and Tim slides off the bed to walk around to my side. He sits
beside me, his gaze soft on mine. “We’re at the point where it
would be cruel to intervene. I know this is hard, but it really
is for the best.”
“Will he suffer?” I croak.
“The staff will do their best to keep him comfortable.”
My gaze tracks back to Dad. Don’t leave me, Dad. Not now.
But it’s hard to ask him to stay when I can see him laboring for
every breath. And it’s hard to hope that he holds on if he’s going
to be in pain. The first of what I know will be many tears runs
down my cheek.
“Will he wake up again?” I whisper.
“Maybe. It’s hard to say.”
“I’m just not ready to say goodbye,” I choke. Tim sighs and
pulls me close for a hug.
“It’s time, Bethie. It’s really time we let him go.”
When Ruth and Jeremy arrive, we take seats close to one an-
other on the sofa in the far corner of the room.
“I’ve been thinking,” Ruth says quietly. “If Dad has only days
or hours left, I don’t want to spend that time trying to dig up
the past. I know the notes…the death certificate… I know these
things raise questions we’ll want to answer one day, but I don’t
want to waste this time. I want us to promise one another that
until this is over, we put everything else aside.”
“I agree,” Jeremy says, for once, falling into step with his twin.
“We don’t know much about their early life together and we
don’t know how Grace died, but we know for sure is that Dad
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is an extraordinary man who lived an extraordinary life. We
have a limited number of hours left with him after a lifetime of
love. We owe it to him to love him in these hours as if we never
doubted him.” The words are rough, and Jeremy’s eyes redden
as he speaks. Ruth reaches across and takes his hand.
“Can you do this, Beth?” Tim murmurs. I inhale then ex-
hale slowly, then nod.
“Okay.”
“He raised us to care for each other, first and foremost,” Ruth
says quietly. “I think the ultimate homage to Patrick Walsh’s
life will be for us to focus on this family, even as he leaves us.”
Tim reaches to rest his hand over Ruth’s, as it rests over Jer-
emy’s. I give a noisy sniffle, then throw myself at the three of
them, initiating what soon becomes a messy, awkward group
hug.
A day passes and then another. We are keeping vigil by roster
under Ruth’s careful administrative command—two of us here
all the time, the other two home resting, waiting for the call to
come. Hunter can’t take off work because he’s in court, so Chiara
takes Noah. She brings him to the hospital sometimes, helping
me to keep breastfeeding without any fuss, and I’m so grateful
for that. When Ellis brings the older boys, they crowd around
Dad on the bed, hugging him and telling him they love him.
Dad’s congested breathing seems to ease a little when the boys
are with him, and so the next time Chiara comes, I rest Noah
on the bed with Dad, too. On her next visit Chiara brings a
camera, and she takes a picture of Noah beside his grandfather.
“I know it seems strange now, but this photo will be special
to you one day,” she whispers, giving me a sad, watery smile.
Dad wakes up sometimes for brief stretches, but he’s often
confused about where he is and who we are even when he does
manage to speak. Tim explains to me that this is a sad interplay
between his comorbidities—the dementia was already wreaking
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havoc on his brain, but now toxins are building up in his blood,
too. He warns us to expect Dad’s mental state to become more
and more muddled as the end nears, and I hate every second of
this. I’m endlessly torn between wanting Dad to stay, because I
need him, and wanting him to go, so he can be at peace.
Sometimes I convince myself he’s going to turn a corner.
After all, he’s been sick for a long time, and he’s survived crises
before. Dad’s a strong man—he’s always pulled through. Maybe
he’ll surprise them all and bounce back again. Maybe a week
from now, he’ll be back in the other room, watching black-and-
white movies on the TV and cuddling Noah when we visit. I
don’t dare voice these hopes aloud. My siblings have all come
to terms with saying goodbye, and I know that if I try to be
optimistic, they’ll keep me in check.
On Wednesday morning, Tim and I are about to leave to
go home and rest, and we’re speaking to Ruth and Jeremy in
quiet whispers in the hallway, catching them up on what’s been
another long night of coughing and wheezing and morphine
doses. Just as we say goodbye, I glance back at the room and see
that Dad has woken up and is watching us through the door-
way. My siblings keep talking, but I rush back to his bedside
and kiss his cheek.
“Hi there,” I say softly.
“Maryanne?” Dad says, peering at me with eyes that are glassy
and hopeful, even as his cough emerges closer to a sob. “You
came back.” I’m about to correct him, but then his face crum-
ples. “I need to say sorry.” Dad is concentrating hard and visibly
determined to get this out. “I was… I don’t know the word.
What’s the word? I made you go away. I’m so sorry.”
These words from him fall slowly and he enunciates them
with care. I want to correct him and to make him see that it’s
me here—Beth, his baby girl. But at the deepest level of my soul,
I feel my father slipping away, and I realize that it’s just too late
to do anything but to offer him comfort. For some reason he
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needs to think I am this mysterious Maryanne right now, and
I have no choice but to play along.
I smile softly at my dad, and I stroke his forehead gently as
I whisper,
“It’s okay, Patrick. I forgive you.”
“I didn’t mean it. I just couldn’t bear it. And I did a thing, I
think,” Dad says. There are tears in his eyes, and when he blinks,
they roll down in a slow path toward his chin. “I did a good…
what’s the word?”
“You did so many good things.”
“Job. I mean I did a good job with them.”
Oh, God. He’s speaking about us kids and I can’t bear this. But
he needs this, and I can see it in his eyes as much as I feel it in
my heart.
“Oh, you did a wonderful job,” I whisper.
“I missed you,” he chokes. He’s weak, and his eyes drift
closed. For a moment I think he’s asleep but then he speaks
again. “Are you…happy? I don’t know the word, Maryanne.
Are you…what’s the word? Are you…happy of me?”
“I am so proud of you,” I say. Dad smiles at me, sad and ten-
der, and he lifts his hand to my cheek. His swollen fingers are
trembling violently.
“I didn’t mean what I said.”
“I know, Patrick. I understand.” This hurts. Everything
hurts—grief is a physical pain in my chest and I don’t know
how I’ll ever survive it. These are my last minutes with Dad, and
he doesn’t even know who I am. I have clung to hope that he’d
recover somehow because I couldn’t bear to face the truth—but
the man I knew as my father is already gone—all that is left is
this tortured shell, and I couldn’t wish him another minute of
pain. “Everything is okay now, Patrick. You did a beautiful job
with the children, but your work is finished now. You can rest.
You can…” My voice cracks, but I force myself to say it. “You
can go, Patrick. You can go.”
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His hand falls from my face to the bed, and he closes his eyes,
slipping back into sleep.
“What was that about?” Ruth whispers behind me.
“I don’t know,” I choke. She sits on the edge of the bed beside
me and rests her head against mine, then slides her arm around
my shoulders to hold me close. “He thought I was someone else,
and it just seemed cruel to keep correcting him when he obvi-
ously had something he needed to say to her.”
“You should go home and sleep,” Ruth whispers.
“No.” I shake my head. “I need to be here.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. And I think…maybe it’s time we call Father Jenkins.”
In the end, Tim stays, too, and the four of us are there when
