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katherine enos |
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My father has been hemorrhaging for two days now. The bedsheets are stained with droplets of blood and the towels which have borne the bulk of his red, wet life fluid lay in a discarded heap in a hospital hamper outside the room.
My father stirs, his eyes open dully. We fear he is in pain and I go to inform the nurses. A shot of morphine is administered. His breathing is louder, more ragged. But slower, slower. His eyes, my mother informs me later, seem transfixed on the gold wedding band on the left hand which rests near his head. He stops breathing. I go to inform the nurses and they follow me back to the room. They tell us we'll have to leave the room so that a doctor can see him. We don't. A young doctor, the unfortunate on call, enters the room without a word, places a stethoscope on my father's frail body, then turns away, moving to leave the room as abruptly as he came. I stop him with a question. "He's dead," the doctor brusquely says. "That's what we thought," I retort. The night nurses ask my mother where to send his body. She begins to riffle through the Yellow Pages. |
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