The Next to Die

face against his. “Thank you for waiting up and getting dressed, sweetie. You’re a sight for these sore brown eyes.”

The constant whosh-whosh of Dan’s respirator was like a clock ticking. Depending on the night, it could keep Sean awake or lull her to sleep. Tonight, she was awake. She’d been up forty-five minutes before, working the suction tube to clear Dan’s mouth of excess saliva and phlegm that might obstruct his breathing. When she was done, she read his lips: “Go to back to sleep, honey. I’m fine. Good night.”

Sean kissed his forehead, then crawled back under the sheets. The respirator machine separated his hospital-type bed from her single. Sean was so anxious and desperate for sleep, she couldn’t nod off. Finally, she threw back the covers and climbed out of bed. At least Dan was asleep, thank God.

Tiptoeing into the family room, Sean opened the cabinet where they kept the videos. She found the one she wanted, and popped it into the VCR. Switching on the TV, she turned down the volume so not to wake anyone. Sean sat back on the couch, and watched her handsome, young husband playing on the beach with their two kids. Phoebe was four at the time, and Danny, nine. They were on vacation here in Malibu. Sean watched Dan swimming with Danny, and building sand castles with Phoebe. He had such a beautiful, tan body, strong arms and a hairy chest. Dan’s brother must have taken the next shot, because Dan was picking her up and carrying her into the water. They were cracking up. With the volume down, she could only imagine his laughter—a sound she hadn’t heard in over a year.

At the moment, accompanying their old home video was the constant whosh- whosh of Dan’s respirator machine down the hall.

At first, they’d thought Dan had arthritis or carpal tunnel syndrome, because his hands kept cramping up. Why else would a healthy, athletic thirty-seven-year-old man find it hard to hold on to things? As a chef, it became utter misery. He’d drop utensils and pans. So many of his culinary creations ended up on the floor, and he’d have to start over again—at the price of an expensive cut of meat, fowl, or fish. Customers often complained about having to wait forever for their dinner.

The evening before his doctor’s appointment, he and Sean were talking in bed. “I know what’s wrong with me, honey,” he whispered. “The muscles are going. It’s like Gary Cooper in Pride of the Yankees.”

“Lou Gehrig’s disease,” Sean said quietly, stroking his arm. “ALS, I looked it up last week.”

“I did my reading in the library a month ago,” Dan said.

Sean held him tighter. “We don’t really know yet. Both of us are being melodramatic. Let’s not drape the black crepe yet, honey.”

“Yeah, let’s hope we’re wrong,” he said. “We’ll laugh about this later.”

After a barrage of tests, when the doctor diagnosed his ailment as ALS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, they nodded and said the initials in unison with him. Dan’s body had already started wasting away, and would continue to deteriorate in the coming months. The ironic cruelty to this disease was that his mind would remain clear.

Sean and Dan had prepared themselves for the worst, and they got it. He wouldn’t be around to watch Danny and Phoebe grow up. At the most, he had two more Christmases with them.

Sean silently watched her handsome, athletic husband slip away. He needed to feel independent as long as he could. So while she longed to tie his shoelaces for him, she’d pretend not to notice his frustration as the simple task took him nearly ten minutes some mornings. Later, she let Dan decide for himself when he was ready for a wheelchair. And Sean sat beside him as he told Danny and Phoebe that he wouldn’t be getting any better.

Dan could no longer work at the restaurant. They went in debt experimenting with expensive drugs and holistic remedies. Dan began having difficulty speaking and breathing. Sean spent many nights waking up to the sound of him choking on his own phlegm. She’d drag her husband out of bed, plop him into his wheelchair, then push him into the bathroom and turn on the hot water full blast. The steam helped clear Dan’s lungs, so he’d eventually cough up whatever was choking him. With all the nightly interruptions, Sean had to function regularly at the office on an average of three hours of sleep. The ordeal harkened her back to those days and nights with the kids when they were babies. It had been easier then, because there would be an end to the nocturnal feedings, and Dan was helping her.

Now, the only end in sight was Dan dying.

They put him on a respirator and a feeder. Machines did his eating and breathing for him. Yet all the while, those eyes of his were so alert. He could communicate with her and the kids—not as an invalid, but as a husband and father. The kids still turned to him for advice or praise. Danny and Phoebe were able to read his lips almost as well as their mother could.

Sean missed his voice, and his touch.

In the silent video, she and Dan emerged from the surf together and kissed for the camera. Phoebe ran to him, and Dan hoisted her in the air. Danny jumped up and down in front of them, making a goofy face.

For a moment, she thought Phoebe’s faint cries were coming from the nearly muted television. Then she realized the screams emitted from her daughter’s room downstairs. Sean switched off the video, then raced down the steps. She found Phoebe sitting up in bed. Except for her Little Mermaid night-light, the room was dark.

“Honey, it’s okay, I’m here.” She sat down on the edge of her bed.

Phoebe immediately hugged her. She was trembling. “There’s a man looking in my window!”

Sean glanced over at the window across the room. This part of the house stood at ground level, with the ocean view blocked by shrubs. The leafy branches shook in the wind, occasionally scraping at the windowpane.

“It’s just the bushes outside, that’s all,” Sean assured her—and herself.

“No, I saw a man,” she whined. “I did.”

Sean kissed the top of her head. “Well, I’ll just sit here with you for a while and chase him away if he comes back. In the meantime, don’t you worry about it, honey. I’m here.”

Sean gently stroked Phoebe’s head and listened to her breathing grow more steady. All the while, she stared out the window—just in case Phoebe wasn’t dreaming.

Ten

Dayle had a great respect for the stars of yesteryear—even the ones long ago forgotten by the public. She’d revived the careers of several veteran performers by campaigning for them to play pivotal roles in her movies. Months before Maggie McGuire had found herself back in the limelight and on the cover of People with her gay son, Dayle had approached her to play the mother in Waiting for the Fall.

The crusty old actor set to play Dayle’s long-lost father had recently suffered a minor stroke, and they needed to find a replacement. Dayle had promised the director she would review applicants, “the Geritol guys,” Dennis called them. She sat with Dennis at a conference table—along with the casting director and his assistant.

“Our next old-timer did this commercial earlier in the year,” the casting director said. A handsome man with silver-black hair, he wore a blazer over his gray silk shirt. Leaning back in his chair, he popped a Tic-Tac in his mouth. “Check him out. His name’s Tom Lance.”

The casting director’s assistant, a pale, thirtyish blonde with a bad perm and too much rouge, slipped a tape into the VCR. A McDonald’s ad came on. A kindly looking, bespectacled old man shared some french fries with his grandson. A real heart-warmer. It was a shame that Dayle, with her reverence for forgotten stars, didn’t recognize the actor in that McDonald’s commercial.

“So—what do you think?” the casting director asked. “Name’s Tom Lance. Want to meet him? He’s right outside.”

Dayle nodded. “Fine. Show him in.”

The assistant opened the door, then called for Tom Lance. He looked younger than the grandfather in the ad, but not as gentle and sweet. The old man had an embittered, edgy quality to him. He hobbled through the doorway, trying to stand tall. He wore a tie with a powder-blue blazer and madras slacks—pro-shop clothes, the colors a bit