The first time I understood that Roy and Sandra had been waiting for their father to die, Roy was standing in my kitchen with a tape measure.
Arthur was still alive.
He was upstairs, asleep after a brutal night of pain, his breathing uneven enough that I had carried my breakfast to the bedroom because I was afraid to leave him alone for more than a few minutes. When I came downstairs to rinse the plate, I heard the metallic snap of the tape measure before I saw Roy.
He had one end hooked against the wall beside the pantry. The yellow strip stretched across the room to the cabinets Arthur and I had refinished ourselves seven summers earlier.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
Roy looked over his shoulder. He did not appear embarrassed. That was what unsettled me most. “Checking the dimensions.”
“For what?”
“The renovation.”
I stared at him.
Morning light lay across the kitchen floor, catching the dust beneath his expensive brown shoes. Arthur’s pill organizer sat beside the sink. A half-empty mug of tea had gone cold near the toaster. Everything around us belonged to the ordinary business of keeping a sick man comfortable, yet Roy was speaking as though we were discussing a property he had just purchased.
“What renovation?”
Roy retracted the tape with a sharp click. “Eventually this room will need to be opened up. Dad always hated how cramped it was.”
“Your father likes this kitchen.”
“He tolerated it.”
“No. He likes it.”
Roy gave me the patient expression he used whenever he thought I was being difficult. He was fifty-one years old, broad through the shoulders like Arthur had once been, but he carried himself differently. Arthur had entered rooms as if there might be work to do. Roy entered them expecting someone to notice him.
“You know what I mean, Helen.”
“I’m beginning to.”
He slipped the tape measure into his coat pocket.
Then Sandra walked in carrying one of my silver serving trays.
I recognized it immediately. My mother had given me that tray when I was twenty-three. It had survived three apartments, one failed engagement, two interstate moves, and more holiday dinners than I could remember. There was a small dent near one handle where I had dropped it during my first Thanksgiving with Arthur.
Sandra held it beneath one arm as casually as a magazine.
“Where are you taking that?”
She glanced down. “This?”
“Yes. That.”
“I thought I’d put some of Dad’s valuable things somewhere safe.”
“That isn’t Arthur’s.”
Her eyebrows rose.
“It’s mine.”
Sandra looked at Roy, and something passed between them. It lasted less than a second, but I saw it.
Then she smiled.
“Of course.”
She placed the tray on the counter with unnecessary care.
Sandra was three years younger than Roy and better at disguising contempt. Roy became loud when challenged. Sandra became polite. Her politeness could make you feel as though you had committed a social offense simply by remaining in your own chair.
“We’re all under stress,” she said. “Nobody is trying to take anything.”
I looked from the tray to Roy’s coat pocket.
“Then perhaps nobody should be measuring my kitchen.”
Roy exhaled.
“Your kitchen?”
There it was.
Two words, quietly spoken.
I felt them harder than if he had shouted.
Before I could answer, a faint bell sounded upstairs.
Arthur.
I turned immediately.
For the past seven months, we had kept a brass handbell beside his bed. He hated using it. The first time the hospice nurse suggested it, Arthur had scowled and said he was not a hotel guest ordering room service.
But eventually his voice became too weak to carry downstairs.
I climbed the steps quickly.
Behind me, I heard Sandra murmur something to Roy.
I could not make out the words.
I remember thinking I would ask later.
There were many things in those final months that I planned to ask later.
Death teaches you that later is an unreliable place.
Arthur lay propped against two pillows, his face pale beneath the gray stubble he no longer had the strength to shave himself. Once, he had been a firefighter who could carry a grown man down a ladder. Now lifting a glass sometimes made his hand tremble.
His eyes, however, were clear.
Always clear.
“You took your time,” he said.
I smiled despite myself. “Eleven seconds.”
“Slipping.”
“Terribly.”
I adjusted the blanket across his legs.
His fingers closed around my wrist.
“Roy downstairs?”
“Yes.”
“And Sandra?”
“Yes.”
He studied my face.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Helen.”
Nine years of marriage had taught him exactly how I lied.
I sat beside him.
“Roy was measuring the kitchen.”
Arthur became still.
“Sandra had my mother’s serving tray.”
His thumb moved once across my wrist.
“Did she put it back?”
“Yes.”
“Did he say why he was measuring?”
“He called it a future renovation.”
Arthur turned toward the window.
Outside, bare branches moved against a February sky. He watched them for a long moment.
Then he asked, “What day is it?”
“Sunday.”
“The date.”
“February twenty-sixth.”
His gaze returned to me.
“Good.”
I frowned. “Why good?”
He released my wrist and pointed toward the nightstand.
“Top drawer.”
Inside were reading glasses, cough drops, a flashlight, several receipts and an old photograph of Arthur in his firehouse uniform.
Beneath them lay a cream-colored business card.
KATZ & LEVINSON.
ATTORNEYS AT LAW.
I picked it up.
“Mr. Katz?”
Arthur nodded.
“I want you to call him tomorrow.”
“About what?”
His mouth tightened.
“Tuesday.”
I waited.
Arthur had always enjoyed making people drag answers out of him. Illness had not cured that habit.
“What happens Tuesday?”
“You take me to his office.”
“Arthur, you can barely make it to the bathroom.”
“I can make it to a lawyer.”
“What is this about?”
He glanced toward the closed bedroom door.
For the first time, I saw something in my husband’s expression that frightened me more than the cancer.
Not weakness.
Not confusion.
Wariness.
“Close the door,” he said.
I did.
When I returned to the bed, Arthur reached for my hand.
“They think I don’t hear them.”
“Who?”
“You know who.”
My stomach tightened.
He told me about the conversations outside his hospital room. Questions about the house. Questions about accounts. Questions about what would happen to his business interests and whether certain belongings had been promised to anyone.
He had heard Roy ask whether the property was still in the family trust.
He had heard Sandra wondering which jewelry had belonged to her mother.
And he had heard my name.
More than once.
“What did they say about me?”
Arthur looked away.
“Arthur.”
“They called you the nurse.”
I almost laughed because the alternative was letting the words hurt.
“I do spend half my life handing you medication.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. My technique is excellent.”
“Helen.”
His grip tightened.
“They said when I’m gone, you won’t have any reason to stay.”
The humor left me.
For nine years, I had avoided forcing Arthur to choose between his children and me. Roy and Sandra had never welcomed our marriage, but I had understood part of their resentment. Their parents’ marriage had ended badly. Their mother had died years later. Then Arthur met me.
To them, perhaps, I had arrived in the chapter where their mother should have remained.
So I tolerated the cool birthdays.
The shortened visits.
The Christmas invitations declined at the last minute.
I tolerated Sandra introducing me as “Dad’s wife” rather than her stepmother, and Roy speaking over me whenever Arthur’s health came up.
I told myself adulthood did not require affection.
Only civility.
But something had changed when Arthur became terminally ill.
They had stopped treating me like an outsider.
They had begun treating me like a temporary employee.
Arthur watched my face.
“They’re wrong,” he said.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
I looked at him.
He struggled upright, grimacing until I helped adjust the pillows.
“You keep trying to make this easier for everybody.”
“What would you prefer? Sword fighting?”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
He almost smiled.
Then the expression vanished.
“When I die, they’re going to come after you.”
A coldness settled beneath my ribs.
“Arthur—”
“No. Listen.”
His breathing became shallow from the effort of speaking.
I reached toward the oxygen tubing.
He stopped me.
“My children think being my children gives them the right to decide what my life meant.”
“That’s not fair.”
“It’s true.”
“They’re frightened.”
“So am I.”
The simplicity of that silenced me.
Arthur rarely admitted fear.
Not during chemotherapy. Not after the first surgery. Not even when the oncologist finally stopped using the word treatment and began using comfort.
Now his eyes were fixed on mine.
“I’m afraid they’ll turn everything into a fight after I’m gone. The house. The money. You.”
“I’m not property.”
“That won’t stop them from treating you like an obstacle.”
Downstairs, a cabinet door closed.
Arthur listened.
Then he said, “Call Katz tomorrow.”
I looked at the business card.
“What exactly are you planning?”
He settled back against the pillow.
“Housekeeping.”
Despite everything, I laughed.
Arthur smiled.
For a moment he looked like the man I had married instead of the man cancer was taking from me.
Then his fingers closed around mine again.
“There’s one more thing.”
“What?”
“From now on, count my pain pills every night.”
My smile disappeared.
“Why?”
Arthur looked toward the door.
He did not answer.
He didn’t need to.
Click here to continue reading: PART 2: Arthur Asked Me to Count Every Pill, Record Every Visit, and Tell No One Why He Suddenly Needed a Lawyer
Before Arthur Was Buried, His Children Were Already Measuring the House and Deciding Which Pieces of His Life Belonged to Them
Part 1 of 35
