Terminal

This week's short story is an excerpt from my first novel, The Last Word.

Owen settled back in the chair under the fluorescent lights and tried to catch his breath. The seven concrete stairs in front of the building might as well have been a steep mountain trail. Even though he had bypassed them in favor of the ramp, the walk into Dr. David Keegan’s office had been an exercise in endurance. By the time he had reached the door he was exhausted. 

It almost seemed ludicrous to call him Dr. Keegan since Owen had practically known him since he was born. For God’s sake, he had been Davy Keegan’s Boy Scout troop leader about fifty years prior. He supposed, though, that when someone is sitting across from you saying that you likely only have a couple of months left to live, perhaps an air of authority lent some solemnity to the situation. An appropriate and necessary professionalism. Even more, though, Owen felt a deep sadness, although surprisingly not for himself. He knew better than anyone that he hadn’t been getting any better. He knew how impossible this news must have been for Davy to deliver, grown up and medically trained as the young man was. He vividly remembered the strain of emotion in Davy’s voice when he had delivered the initial diagnosis of congestive heart failure, and that was nearly 12 months ago. They had both sat across from each other at the same desk, looking at each other and each trying not to see the other as they had been so many years earlier. Green bandannas around their necks. Merit badges. Campfire stories surrounded by a ring of tents in the dark. 

The young doctor cleared his throat and the sound yanked Owen’s mind back into the present. Much of what Davy said next didn’t register at first. He was distantly aware of some pamphlets on hospice and palliative care being placed gently in front of him like an unfortunate hand of cards, and even though he knew his time was limited, there seemed to be time to think about that a little later. He closed his eyes for a moment, breathed deeply, and thought of his father. 

Owen had just received a death sentence, and as horrible as it was, it brought a feeling of balance to him that he had been waiting a long time for. Some murderers get the electric chair, or a lethal injection, and in the back of his mind he had thought there should be some suffering in his eventual death to put things right. He felt he’d be getting off too easy if he slipped away in his sleep one night, safe and drowsy, tucked away in his warm bed next to his loving wife. Davy spoke on, and Owen nodded with mock attentiveness in what he hoped were all the right places. For more than sixty years he had been haunted by the horrors of what he had done, and the memory of his father’s desperation in the moments before his death never faded in his mind, as many of his other memories had. Recollections of holding his children as babies, of little league games and Christmas mornings were pleasant if a little blurred around the edges, but his father’s last moments were as sharp and unforgiving in his mind as they had been over sixty years ago. He could still hear his ragged last breaths. He could still see the blood that stained his own skin and his clothes after the thing was done. He could smell the coppery tang that hung sickeningly in the air.

His father had begged. His father had struggled. He nodded absently as the doctor assured him they would manage the pain of his last days as much as they possibly could.  

He thanked Davy politely, took the pamphlets, and nodded when the young doctor said he’d be in touch in the next few days. Owen stepped out into the late autumn afternoon and paused to catch his breath as he eased into the driver’s seat of the old blue Ford pickup. It wasn’t a long trip home, and Owen almost wished for a longer drive to gather his thoughts. When he turned into the driveway, he saw Sarah at the sink through the kitchen window, her eyes just visible over the little violets that stood like a well-behaved row of soldiers on the windowsill. She met him at the door, and as she walked behind him to slide his coat off his shoulders, she asked the question he didn’t want to answer.

“What did Davy say?” she asked slowly, her expression a mix of hope and defeat. 

Owen paused, his mind grasping for the right words to say, but his demeanor said everything Sarah needed to know. He drew his little wife into his arms, and kissed the crown of her head.  

He felt her small frame tremble with unsuppressed sobs, her face buried in the soft red flannel plaid of his shirt. It was not as if the news was a great surprise to either of them; they had both known since the initial diagnosis almost a year ago that Owen’s heart wasn’t in good shape; but they had both tried to keep living life as happily and normally as they ever had. Neither of them were young anymore, but until Owen’s diagnosis they had both been spry for two people in their eighties. There was no pretending anymore, though. The past six months in particular, Sarah had been unable to ignore her husband’s decline. The end was closer now for Owen than either of them had dared to let themselves imagine, and the raw reality was not any easier to bear because of their advanced age. 

Sarah kept her arms wrapped around Owen’s waist and looked up at him before replying. 

“I’ll make the calls.”