The ecosystem of each armpit.
He pulled our father upwards.
They stood, then swayed, and steadied.
* * *
—
When we walked, we walked at Penelope pace, so pale in every movement. We turned a few more corners, onto Gloaming Road, where the pub sat calm and shiny. The tiles were cream and maroon.
Inside, while the rest of us looked for a stool, our father went to the bar. He said, “Two beers and five ginger beers, please,” but Penny had loomed behind him, all sweat and shown-off bones.
She put her hands on top of the beer mat.
She dug deep, through barren lungs.
She seemed to be reaching around down there, for something she knew and loved. “How about”—she called the question up, piece by piece—“we just make it seven beers?”
He was a young barman, turning already for the soft drinks. His nametag said Scott. They called him Scotty Bils. “Excuse me?”
“I said,” she said, and she looked him square in the face. His hair was going missing, but he wasn’t short of nose. “Make it seven beers.”
That was when Ian Bils came over; the pulse of the Naked Arms. “Everything all right here, Scotty?”
“This lady,” Scotty Bils said. “She’s ordered seven beers.” His hand in his fringe like a search party. “Those boys over there—”
And Ian Bils—he didn’t even look.
He kept his eyes firmly on the woman in flux, who was bracing against his bar. “Tooheys Lights okay with you?”
Penny Dunbar met him halfway. “That sounds great.”
The old publican solemnly nodded.
He wore a cap with a galloping mustang.
“Let’s make it all on the house.”
* * *
—
There are victories and there are victories, I guess, and this one still didn’t come cheap. We thought she might let go that night, when finally we got her home.
Next day we all stayed in with her.
We watched her and checked for breathing:
Her naked arms and the Naked Arms.
She stank like beer and disease.
* * *
—
In the evening, I wrote the absent notes.