“Cremation would be best,” I say. “Is that okay, Mom?”
“Yes, yes. I suppose so.”
“I’ll make all the arrangements. Does Dennis have any family?”
“I don’t know. A mother, I think.”
“Have you met her?”
“Yes. A couple times. They aren’t close.”
My mother isn’t making a lot of sense. I’m hesitant to cremate a body without her actual consent, but I’m not sure what to do.
“How long can the…body stay here?” I ask the doctor.
“As soon as someone from the morgue gets here, it’ll be moved down there. Once you decide on which funeral home to go with, we’ll contact them, and they’ll come and take care of things. I’m here because I need to know whether you want to donate his organs.”
“Mom?” I ask.
“I don’t know.”
“He was a young man. His organs could help many people.”
My mom hiccups into a sob. “I don’t know…”
“Please, Mom,” I say. “Let him help people who need it.”
“All right.”
“Thank you, Mrs. James,” the doctor says. “I’ll send someone in with the paperwork.”
“More paperwork?” Mom says.
“It’ll be over soon.” I rub her shoulders.
“Just when I found…” She trails off, her voice no longer colorless. It’s gray now, as I imagine Dennis’s body is underneath that white sheet.
“I’ll leave you two alone to say your goodbyes,” the doctor says.
Goodbye? I barely knew the man. I wish I had something to say to offer my mother some comfort, but try as I might, nothing comes to me.
“Would you like some time alone?” I ask my mom.
“I should do that,” she says. “Yes, I should do that.”
“All right. I’ll be right outside in the hallway.” The idea of leaving my mother alone with a dead body freaks me out more than a little, but I close the door behind me and stand in the sterile hallway. A nurse in green scrubs walks by. Then a doctor in a white coat.
Phones buzz at the station.
A patient walks by with a walker. Isn’t this the stroke ward? Or the cardiac wing? Why does that patient need a walker?
Why am I thinking about—
My phone buzzes.
Dale! Finally!
“Hey,” I say into the phone.
“I just got your text, baby,” he says. “What’s going on?”
I sigh. I couldn’t tell him someone died in a text. I said only I was heading back to the hospital for an emergency.
“He’s gone,” I say.
A pause. Then, “What?”
I sigh again. “Dennis. He had a heart attack. Apparently he’s had high blood pressure and high cholesterol for years and didn’t know it.”
“And that led to the stroke?”
I feel nothing. Words exit my mouth without thought or feeling. “And the heart attack. Yeah.”
Another pause. Then, “I’m two years older than he was. I can’t wrap my head around this.”
“Join the club. I want to comfort my mother, but I don’t even know him. Shit. I mean, I didn’t even know him. Heck, she barely knew him.”
“I’m on my way.”
“I’m so sorry, Dale.”
“For what?”
Indeed, for what? I’m not sure why I said that, except, “Our life together isn’t starting out on the greatest foot.”
Silence.
I guess that means he agrees with me. I was hoping he wouldn’t.
His silence looms, almost like a premonition.
And I find myself frightened.
“Dale…?”
“Yeah?”
“There’s nothing you can do here. We’ll be coming home. I’d like… I’d like my mom to stay with us for a few days.”
“Of course. Whatever you need. Whatever she needs.”
“Thank you.”
“What are the plans for…well, for a funeral or whatever?”
“I have no idea. Mom says they never talked about that stuff. Why would they, at their ages?”
“I can have one of our assistants take care of it.”
An anvil seems to slide off my shoulders. “Could you? That would be amazing.”
“Does she want cremation or burial?”
God, that question again. “I don’t know. She agreed to cremation, but I’m not sure she knew what she was saying. She’s donating his organs. They have to get to that quickly, and then he’ll be in the morgue until we make the arrangements.”
“Got it. You take care of your mom. I’ll take care of the rest.”
“Thank you so much. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
I end the call, but something niggles at the back of my neck.
I’m not sure what it is, until it dawns on me.
Dale’s voice.
It was colorless.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Dale
I should go.
Go to the hospital. Be with my wife.
Get out of my own head for a damned minute.
But she’s on her way home. With her mother.
And I’m a fucked-up mess, as usual.
How the hell do I live with the fact that I may have destroyed my vines?
Do I even tell Ryan? The rest of the family?
I married Ashley. I married her for the fucking wrong reason, and now… How do I end it?
How do I do what’s right for the woman I love when she’s going through her own crisis?
And her mother…
God, her mother…
A bride and a widow in less than a week.
How does shit like this happen?