by Ruth Ozeki
When her watch alarm sounded in the early morning, she ran a shower and got Yummy to her feet and into the bathroom. She called the hospital and went out for coffee. When she returned, Yummy was seated on the side of the bed, dressed and cradling her head. She jumped at the noise of the door slamming. She squinted into the light.
“What happened?”
“Nothing. Here, drink this.”
She took a sip of the coffee and winced. “How did you find me?”
“I saw the Pontiac in the parking lot on the way home with the kids.”
She looked up quickly. “Where are they?”
“They’re fine. Lilith is looking after them.”
“Oh.” She relaxed, took another sip of the coffee. “Did you stay here all night with me?”
“Yes.”
“I was passed right out, huh?”
Cass didn’t answer.
Yummy sighed. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
She yawned and kneaded her temples. “God, I feel like shit!”
“I’ll bet,” Cass said. “Come on. I’ll take you to the hospital.”
Yummy laughed. “I’m not that sick—” Then she stopped.
“Your father,” Cass said.
“Right.” Yummy closed her eyes and let her head drop.
“I just phoned the hospital. He’s unconscious. They said you should come.”
She was silent in the car, bracing her head against the headrest. Cold air from the window hit her face. Her lips were pressed tightly shut, and she frowned, trying not to throw up. Cass offered to pull over, but she shook her head.
“Just drive.”
At the hospital Yummy led the way up to the ward, but at the entrance to his room she paused and slumped.
“I can’t.”
The strains of harp music wafted from the hall.
“Fucking harps,” she said. “Come on.”
He lay there on his back, propped on all sides by pillows. His breathing was spasmodic. Each gasp convulsed his chest, followed by a terrible silence that threatened to last forever, but then the next breath would rattle up from somewhere deep in his lungs. Yummy groped for Cass’s hand.
“Oh, shit. This is it, isn’t it?”
Cass squeezed as the doctor came in.
“Good,” he said. “You’re here.”
He shuffled through a batch of papers attached to his clipboard, then handed one to Yummy.
“What is it?” she asked, staring at the paper.
“It’s the DNR order. It states that he doesn’t want any heroic measures taken to keep him alive.”
“Heroic measures,” she repeated. “He signed this?”
He pointed to the bottom. “Last night. After everyone had left. He had the night nurse witness.”
Yummy passed it quickly to Cass. It was clear how hard it must have been for Lloyd to hold the pen and sign his name. The letters were faint and wobbly, and the signature tilted to one side like it was going to slide off the edge of the form.
“He designated you as his proxy,” the doctor told Yummy. “Which means he wants you to execute his wishes and make decisions for him should he become incapable of doing so.”
“Me!”
“Well, it’s usual to designate a son or daughter.”
The doctor waited for her to take in this information, and then he continued. “You’re going to have to make a decision now about a feeding tube.”
Yummy looked down at her father. “Is he conscious?”
“Hard to say.”
“Is the tube painful?”
“Well, it’s not pleasant. It’s inserted down the throat, you know. Into the stomach . . .”
“Oh, God,” she choked, holding up her hand and swallowing hard. “I’m not feeling well. I’m going to be sick.”
“Sit,” said Cass, leading her to the armchair. “Put your head down.” She cupped the back of Yummy’s head and pushed it in between her legs. “Breathe.”
“I’ll let you think about the tube, then,” the doctor said, backing out of the room.
“Wait,” Yummy called. “Without a tube what happens?”
“No tube means no food or liquids, and when you withhold hydration and nutrition . . .”
“He starves to death?” She raised her head and looked at him.
“It’s not exactly like that.”
“What else is it? Forget it. I’m not starving my father to death.”
The doctor hesitated. “It’s really more about his wishes, you know.”
“I know that. Do the tube.”
“Why don’t you take some time before you decide? Let me know.”
“No.” She dropped her head between her legs. “Do the tube.”
The doctor frowned and made a notation on the chart. “If she changes her mind, tell the nurse,” he said to Cass, and slipped out the door.
Cass got a plastic basin from the bathroom and slid it under Yummy’s head. She kneaded the back of her neck and listened to the sounds of breathing, Lloyd gurgling and Yummy gulping for air. After a while Yummy lifted her head and sat up in the chair, then pushed herself to her feet and went to stand by her father’s side.
“Lloyd?” she said, peering into his face. “Dad?”
There was no response, just the rhythmic wheeze and rattle. Cass came over to stand beside her. When Yummy spoke, her voice was hushed. “It’s hard work, dying. I never realized.”
Cass nodded.
“Did you go through this with your parents?”
“More or less. I think it’s always different.”
“Do you think I’m doing the right thing?”
“It’s really about what he’d want,” Cass said. “That’s what’s important.”
“You know how he feels about life! What am I supposed to do?”
“I know he hated all the fussing and hospital procedure,” Cass said. “You remember last time how much he wanted to come home? You gave him that. He got to be home for the best part of a year because of you. He got to meet his grandkids. He got to be a prophet of the revolution. But this time is different.”
Yummy thought for a while. “He told me he didn’t want to be a vegetable.”
Cass nodded. “Well, I don’t blame him.” She gave Yummy a little shove. “You have no idea. . . .”
“Right,” Yummy said. “But you do.”
“I can imagine.”
“So no tube, then?”
Cass shrugged. “If you can live with it.”
Yummy returned to the chair. “You can go now. I mean, I’m not going to throw up or anything. I’ll just sit here. Maybe he’ll wake up, and I can ask him what he wants.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. I’m fine.”
“I’ll go get Momoko.” Cass picked up her bag and turned on her cell phone. “Call if you need me.” She headed toward the door.
“Cass?” Yummy called. “Thanks.”
“Sure.”
Yummy sat there bent over her knees, her face in her hands. “I know you think I’m losing it.”
“Just don’t drink so much,” Cass said. “You’ll feel better.”
the beginning
Imagine the worst hangover you’ve ever had. The kind you loathe yourself for incurring, where even the slightest movement or sound or wafting scent or change in the quality of light makes your world keel onto its side. The kind where you’ve smoked so many cigarettes that your lungs ache and your head feels like it’s been skewered with a red-hot metal rod between your eyes, and the slightest movement, or sound, or wafting scent . . .
That was my hangover on the day my dad died, but I was there by his side nonetheless when he made his last appearance.
After Cass left, I watched him labor, too sick to move.
“Lloyd?” I said. “Do you want a feeding tube?”
I watched him for a sign, expecting little, but slowly losing even what hope I had. I dragged the chair closer to his bedside.
“I’m here if you change your mind.” My stomach was starting to churn again. I leaned my head back in the chair and closed my eyes. That was when he rallied.
“Oh—” he whispered. “Oh, my . . . !”
I barely heard him at first. Then I sat up, reeling and dizzy. His eyes were shut, but when I leaned over, bracing myself against the bed, they opened. Milky and startled, they were brimming with tears.
“Dad?”
The blue eyes focused briefly on me before swimming away again, chasing something.
“I . . . I had . . .”
“What is it, Dad?”
He coughed, bringing air up from his waterlogged lungs. “I had . . . the most wonderful dream!”
I held a tissue to his mouth so he could spit. “What did you dream?” His lips worked, pushing out a gummy white mucus. I used the little sponge on a stick the way I’d seen Lilith do, dipping it in water and swabbing his tongue. He sucked gratefully. When I withdrew the sponge, he closed his eyes.
“I was there.” He sighed. His eyelids twitched as he watched dream images play across them, spinning and shifting.
“Where, Dad?”
He paused, searching for the answer. He was as frail as a newborn.
“At the beginning . . .”
“The beginning of what?”
He fell silent. Maybe he was sleeping again. I watched him for a while, and then I closed my eyes, too, because his face was too exposed, too fragile to bear. I drifted, still whiskey drunk, so that when he spoke again, his voice was far away and it felt as if I were dreaming, too.
“Everything,” he whispered. “Of life . . .” His words were like faint puffs of a breeze stirring. “So beautiful! Everyone I love . . . was there. Momoko. My father, mother. All my seeds. My potatoes . . .”
By now I was sitting up, gripping the edge of his sheet, and my heart was pounding. I knew the danger in the question I was about to ask. My throat closed. I felt like I was going to retch if I spoke, or if I didn’t. He closed his eyes. He was slipping away fast.
“Daddy!” My voice was too loud, and I could feel my face flushing, but I needed to know. “Wait! Am I there? Am I in your dream?”
I held my breath. Miraculously, his eyes opened once more, peering out at me, watery blue and blinded. He opened his mouth and closed it, and I was afraid he would die before he could answer.
“Why, Yumi,” he said at last, as though it were so apparent to him, the most obvious thing in the world. “Of course you are.” His words were no louder than air.
I crumpled then, bending and gripping his cold wrist. “I love you, Daddy,” I sobbed into his palm. “You’re with me, too.”
“My . . . !” He sighed, drifting. I felt his thick, swollen fingers move a little against my eyelids, which was all the comfort he was capable of offering me now. His voice was whisper thin and barely ambient. “My, my, my . . .”
seventh
Science, unlike theology, never leads to insanity.
—Luther Burbank, from “Why I Am an Infidel,” published in Little Blue Book #1020
rogue
My father died without a feeding tube on the first Sunday of September. It happened several hours after he spoke his last words, and he dissolved so quietly out of life that Momoko and I missed the moment of transition. We were by his bedside, but we had both dozed off, and maybe he was waiting for us to do so. It’s hard to check out when your loved ones are watching.
That same Sunday, September 5, the New York Times ran an article entitled “Hidden Traps in Fooling Mother Nature,” which outlined in some detail the potential environmental hazards that could result from genetic engineering and the biotechnologies. Geek downloaded the article from the Times’s Web site, and the Seeds rejoiced, and they decided Lloyd was rejoicing with them, wherever he was.
On that same morning when Lloyd’s heart gave its final palpitation, the first frost of autumn settled on the fields, freezing the potato vines and signaling the start of harvest. Will and his crew would spend the next few days beating the plants. Some of the farmers used chemical desiccants like diquat, paraquat, Enquik, and Endothall. Others used sulfuric acid. But, as Will carefully pointed out to Geek, whenever it was possible, he preferred to kill mechanically what the frost left standing. After the plants were dead, he would wait for three weeks, leaving the potatoes in the ground so their skins could thicken, and then came the real race—to dig the tubers out of the ground before the hard frosts set. That was where a little rotten luck could do you in.
So it was a busy time of year for all of Idaho’s farmers, but this didn’t keep the people of Liberty Falls from gathering at the Falls Mortuary to pay their final respects. Geek had sent out notices for the memorial service, and many of my parents’ longtime customers had come, as had some of the Seeds’ friends. Everyone packed into the chapel for the service, which was led by Reverend Glass. The old minister looked around at the variegated congregation, at the local folks and out-of-towners, the gardeners and hippies, the pornographers and members of the Tri-County Interfaith League of Family Values, and he read to us from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. “ ‘Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die....’”
We followed the casket to the cemetery. The grass was as green as the town golf course, and the newly dug grave was raw and shocking, a perfect gaping rectangle of naked earth, just the size for a flower bed. Reverend Glass said a few last words as the coffin was lowered into the ground. Earth to earth and dust to dust. Being mostly farmers and gardeners, the people who’d come to watch understood this, and they stayed until the very end, because you would never walk away from a seed half planted. Then, when the last few shovelfuls were placed, people stepped forward and took turns planting a few seeds of their own in the newly turned soil. It was primarily a symbolic act. Only some of the seeds would overwinter, to germinate in the spring, but nobody seemed to mind. They planted and spoke.
“I’m Ellen Anderson. I’ve been a customer of Fullers’ Seeds for about twenty-two years now. I met Mr. and Mrs. Fuller one time on vacation with my husband, God rest his soul. We saw the sign for Fullers’ Seeds on the roadside, and we stopped and bought some melon seeds. Hearts of Gold and Mr. Uglys. My husband loved those melons, and I’ve kept them going in his memory, and I’ll continue for Mr. Fuller, too, but I’m seventy-three years old, and I only got a backyard garden plot, and you know how melons like to spread. I’d appreciate some help from some of you young people here.”
“I’m Joe Delaney. I live just west of here, over in Idaho Falls, but I was born here in Liberty Falls, and . . . well, I’ve known Lloyd since we was boys. Used to farm potatoes, too, but couldn’t keep up. Well, I live with my son and his wife now. They both got jobs with computers and such, but they got a nice place with a garden, and they’ve signed on to keep a couple of the beans going. We always liked Lloyd’s beans.”
“My name’s Edith McCann, and I’m sure going to miss Lloyd’s newsletters. I subscribe to several magazines, but I always read Lloyd’s newsletter first. I’m cultivating three of Momoko’s squashes, and I just hope I can keep them growing true, but if anybody gets any strange crosses from my seeds, you be sure to let me know.”
“I’m Will Quinn. My wife and I live next door to the Fullers, and I’ve been farming Lloyd’s acreage for the past twenty or so years now. I guess we’re going to take on some of his peas and whatever else gets left over. Lloyd was a good farmer and a good neighbor.”
“I’m Cass Quinn. I’ve lived next to Lloyd and Momoko all my life. I’m going to miss Lloyd. He was a good man.”
“My name is Ocean Fuller, and Lloyd is my kupuna, and I was scared of him at first, but now I just love him a lot. I didn’t bring a seed, but I brought an egg from Chicken Little instead, and I know they don’t grow this way, but Grandpa likes eggs, so I’m gonna plant it anyway.”
“I’m Phoenix. Lloyd was my grandfather, too. We only met him this year for the first time. I w
ish we’d known him for longer. He was totally awesome. He was a prophet of the Revolution.”
And on it went. Momoko didn’t speak, and neither did I. We just stood side by side, and we listened. Geek spoke for the Seeds of Resistance. He told how they’d come to Liberty Falls, what they’d learned from Lloyd and Momoko, and how much Lloyd’s support had meant to their cause. “He was a man of vision. Don’t let his dying nightmare become our living reality!” Geek was never one to pass up an opportunity to spread the word.
Elliot didn’t speak, because, really, what could he have said? It was hard to believe he had come at all. Phoenix was standing next to me, glaring murderously. Lilith was doing likewise. Will barely acknowledged him with a nod, and Cass ignored him completely. Elliot stayed in the background and tried to catch my eye, and when the graveside ceremony drew to a close and the mourners dispersed, he intercepted me. Poo was getting heavy, so I set him down on the sod. Elliot took my hands.
“I’m sorry about your father,” he said.
I pulled away. I didn’t want to be standing there by Lloyd’s newly dug grave holding hands with Elliot.
“Yummy, I know this is a hard time, but we have to talk.”
“Now . . . ?” I could see Cass looking over at us with her arms folded. The kids were already in the car.
“No. I’m at the motel. I’ll call you. Or just come.”
“Please don’t call. It’ll only upset Phoenix. He’s furious that you’re here.”
“I know. I’m sorry. Listen, Yummy, I have to tell you. I’ve . . . left my job.”
I didn’t know quite what to say. “That’s good, I guess. Is it?” I looked around for Poo.
“It’s amazing. I feel, I don’t know, reborn or something.” He took a deep breath. “Yummy, a lot has gone wrong between us, but it’s time for a fresh start. Will you come tonight? So we can talk?”
Poo had crawled back over to the edge of the grave. His fists were deep in the freshly dug dirt, and his face was smeared. I knelt down next to him and pulled his hands away, scooping around inside his mouth with my finger and bringing out clots of grass and mud. I wiped his face with the sleeve of my coat, and he began to whimper. Elliot was standing above me.
