put the contents of the tray together. This was the night of her departing, the dwindling minutes of her existence, but she didn't look unhappy. As he sat down on the edge of the mattress, she told him she felt blessed. She was, regardless of the disease, content with herself — and him — and the life they had built. Beneath the comforter and the sheets the lower half of her body was hidden, naked, like a bride nervously anticipating the beginning passion of a honeymoon; where she was going, she had joked, it didn't matter whether she wore clothing or not, and he was inclined to agree with her.
“I guess it's that time,” she said, eventually.
Hollis bowed his head, saying, “I don't think I can do this.”
“It'll be all right,” she said, squeezing his wrist. “We'll both be all right.” Then she added, with the trace of a smile: “We ‘ll survive this one, too.”
For several seconds they stared at each other awkwardly; yet her thin face conveyed no obvious emotion, even as his expression trembled — his mouth curving downward, his eyes wide and scared; his face stayed like that as she ate the toast, and drank the tea, and swallowed the Dramamine pill in order to ward off nausea. She took her meal slowly, silently; afterward, they talked for about an hour, and the severity of his expression lessened as they discussed the unusual weather, the Discovery Channel program she had seen earlier on the Ice Age, various minor topics which steered clear of what would soon transpire. Then they hugged; her cheek was cold but her lips were warm, her breath smelled of tea and sickness.
“I'll miss this,” he said, while embracing her. “I'll miss just talking to you, Deb.”
“You can always talk to me, you know.”
“But it won't be the same.”
“No,” she said, pulling back to look at him, “I guess not.” They gazed at each other a few seconds more — before she nodded resolutely, insisting, “It's time, dear. I'm ready, I really am.”
“Okay,” Hollis said, suddenly numbed. “All right then,” he uttered, rising from the mattress while realizing, in that instant, there was nothing left for them to discuss, nothing left to be said which might alter the outcome of that night. He opened the vials on the tray, shaking out some of the capsules — and then glanced at Debra, very seriously, as she extended a hand to accept the drugs; but he didn't hesitate, nor did she: One at a time the capsules were slipped past her lips, each chased with a swig of Glenfiddich, until there was nothing more to swallow or drink. He promptly gave her the pudding, in which the rest of the dosage had been mixed as a powder, and she ate it quickly, licking chocolate from her lips when finished.
Once the contents of the tray had been mostly consumed, Hollis helped Debra ease down from where she had sat upright, tucking the comforter around her, adjusting the pillow underneath her head. She turned on her side to face him, her eyelids appearing leaden, languidly blinking open, staying shut at longer intervals. Within a couple of minutes, she had already fallen asleep, becoming inactive. But right before sleep fully subdued her, she had said she loved him, and he had responded in kind — massaging her neck, holding her hand, staring directly at her and nowhere else; and when he thought her consciousness had ebbed from this world, she surprised him by speaking again with eyes closed, saying in a voice which had grown impossibly tired and hoarse, “Don't forget to breathe, okay?”
“I won't,” he answered.
“Good,” she mumbled, and was silent thereafter.
And while Debra approached her mystery ride, Hollis undressed completely, climbing into bed beside her, pressing himself against her body — listening as her life dissolved in his arms, as she slowly faltered and ceased. Then her passing, like so much about her, had an effortless quality. She didn't gasp, and her chest didn't heave; no long, labored breaths struggled from her throat. She just proceeded — as if she had crossed from one room to the next, as if she had stepped away for a little while. But the many tears he had wept over the months while fearing this very moment didn't immediately come — nor was he yet shaken by expected waves of panic or overwhelming sadness. He was, upon experiencing what he had dreaded the most, much calmer than he thought possible, relaxed even. Must be shock, he decided. Of course, it hasn't hit me, it hasn't settled in. Or, perhaps, it was because she was with him, resting there; she was slightly warm, and she was present somehow. With her eyes shut and her head on the orthopedic pillow, she could easily have been sleeping. “Deb,” he whispered, taking her compliant right hand into one of his hands. “Deb,” he repeated, awed by the simplicity of her passing, the ease with which she went; yet her dying felt so singular to him, so unique, as if no one else had experienced such a personal loss — the fact that most others had or would couldn't help but amaze him.
Then how appropriate, Hollis thought, for his final act of love to conclude with a touching of hands, just as the first act had begun so long ago. For now they had reached the end of touching, of mutual contact; they had reached the end of shared hours and conversations and togetherness; beneath the painted bluebird on the bedroom ceiling, they had reached the end. Still, for a while, he moved his palms along her face, her arms, her breasts — those actual finishing touches; and with his chest pressed firmly against her spine, he gave her body his heat even as she grew colder and colder. Somewhere else, he imagined, she was readying to be born again. Somewhere else on the planet, far away, a brand-new Debra was bound to arrive at any moment. Even so, he wanted her to remain like this for now, resting under the sheets; he wanted her to stay — a few hours longer, maybe a day — until he was sure she had truly gone from him.
Sometime later, Hollis would take himself from their bed — leaving her behind with the comforter pulled to her neck, the orthopedic pillow covering her head — shutting the bedroom door as if he were respectfully closing the gates of a mausoleum. In the kitchen, he poured himself some of the Glenfiddich — and then, in the living room, he stretched across the couch with drink in hand, grabbing for the Tom Clancy novel he had left open on the coffee table. But while reading he fell asleep, eventually dreaming of animals and people — that recurring procession — while snow continued raining as if the heavens had been wrung in the hands of God, spilling down upon an unsuspecting desert. When waking from his nap — the novel resting against his chin, the half-filled cup of Glenfiddich sitting nearby on the floor — he felt strangely at peace inside the house, comfortable there on the couch and kept snug by a beige terry-cloth bathrobe. Lifting the novel, he began reading where he had left off, although his attention wasn't really held by the writing; his eyes scanned paragraphs, failing to absorb sentences, until, at last, he set the book aside, turning his gaze elsewhere as the cup of Glenfiddich was absently retrieved, the liquor seeping warmly past his lips.
On the other side of the living room the front curtains were drawn, revealing the picture window and what existed just beyond it: a torrent of snowflakes wavering to the earth, some pattering at the glass like moths before dissolving into clear drops of moisture. Soon Hollis was standing there in his bathrobe, resting a palm against the window, sensing the cold while buffered by efficient central heating. There, too, he caught a glimpse of himself as an obscure, diaphanous man reflected on the glass; his transposed image was cast amongst the wide residential street — the adjacent and similarly designed homes, the xeriscaped lawns — backlit by a table lamp but also illumed in that frozen vapor which brightened the night, that curious downpouring which smothered the gravel-laden property and changed his Suburban Half-Ton LS from sandalwood metallic to an almost solid white.
20
Except for the sound of water drip drip dripping from the thatched roof made of palm leaves, it is quiet both inside and outside the tiki hut. Hollis sits there now — in a corner, down on the floor — listening as water drips above him to the earth, dripping, too, around the backyard and off the overhead gutters of the house. Everything is melting, he thinks. Everything melts. An itinerant wind blows across the desert into Nine Springs, but it doesn't stay very long and, instead, dissipates somewhere along the empty, messy streets. Drops patter upon his jacket and seem to be absorbed immediately by the fabric, seeping through to his clothing. He stares up at the leak-proof ceiling. His hair and face are damp but it is dry inside the hut. So the water continues to drip elsewhere, nearby, not touching him and yet, he believes, soaking him all the same. Presently the wind returns, this time with more resolve — howling for a moment, rolling over Nine Springs, shaking palm trees and dazzling the air with fast-swirling currents of fine snow particles and moisture — and then, as if stopped by the flipping of a switch, it isn't there anymore, the airy howl receding and the currents settling in its wake.
Hollis lowers his head. Lon's mitt is on his left hand. His bare right hand is grubby, the fingernails brown with soil. Before going to the hut, the spade had slipped past his fingers, sailing to the ground and throwing mud at his
