Thumbprints by Sargent Pamela

Author:Sargent, Pamela [Sargent, Pamela]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Published: 2014-03-31T16:00:00+00:00

Amphibians

The nurse opened the white curtain around the bed as two orderlies wheeled the gurney out of the room. Lillian stayed in her chair, keeping out of the way.

“Mr. Haynes,” the nurse murmured, leaning over the bed, “you’ve got to stay flat for the rest of the day. Understand? You can’t lift your head.”

Lillian’s father did not reply.

The nurse said to her, “You make sure he doesn’t sit up. Don’t raise his bed, either, or he’ll have an awful headache.”

“I’ll make sure,” Lillian said.

“He’s got to stay flat until tomorrow.”

“I understand.”

The nurse lingered near the bed. She was a stocky gray-haired woman who always addressed Lillian’s father as “Mr. Haynes” and never lapsed into the artificial heartiness and familiarity of many on the hospital staff. “I think he’s asleep,” the nurse murmured. “Remember about not raising the bed.”

“I will.”

The nurse left the room. Lillian got up and went to her father’s side. His eyes opened slowly, as though it was an effort for him to lift his eyelids. The skin on his face was taut against his skull; the hands folded over his chest were like claws. His elongated face and bony body made her think of an El Greco painting. He allowed only Lillian’s mother to feed him or to help him on with his robe, and he accepted even this assistance with a scowl.

“Hello!” a white-haired woman called out from the door. She was dressed in black, with a cleric’s collar; a large gold cross hung from her neck.

Lillian moved toward the intruder, ready to head her off. “My father’s asleep,” she said in a low voice. “I don’t want him disturbed right now.”

“Could you give him one of these?” The woman handed Lillian a pamphlet with a picture of Jesus Christ on the cover. “I’ll try to come back later.”

Lillian shook her head. “He’s really not up for visitors today. He just came back from a myelogram.”

“Well, you tell him that all our prayers are with him. I’ll say a special one for him tonight.”

“I’ll tell him.”

The woman smiled warmly at Lillian, then left. Lillian moved a chair toward the head of the bed, setting it down next to her father’s night table, and said, “She’s gone,” as she sat down.

Her father opened his eyes. She was prepared to see anger in them again, helpless rage at all of the people willing him to live, but his brown eyes were calm.

“Thanks,” he said as she dropped the pamphlet into the wastebasket. “Let that be a lesson to you, Lilly. When you check into a hospital, don’t say ‘none’ when they ask for your religion or you’ll get them all trooping in trying to win you over, all the priests and ministers and Holy Joes.”

“I’ll remember.” Whatever her father expected to find after death, he would approach it without a spiritual guide. Death, he had told her not long ago, was a plunge into the unknown, a leap into either another existence that would have its own laws, or into nothingness.

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