Writing an ending

Mom and the others left, and Tim and Ed and Jenny and I sat in the sunny room with Dad’s body while we waited for the funeral home man to arrive. Dad was covered with the cotton jungle animal quilt made by the volunteer ladies that had been given to him when he arrived at the hospice home on Sunday evening. Now it was Friday afternoon. Someone remarked that it was good, finally, to see him lying still and peaceful after his struggles of the last days and months.

The driver came in an unmarked blue minivan, not a hearse, and we watched as he gently moved the body from the bed onto the gurney. Tim and I walked behind Dad as he was pushed through the back garden, past the sleeping rose bushes and the rock labryinth walk where I had earlier paced, phoning David, Joe, Adam, Aunt Mel. The driver slid the gurney smoothly into the back doors of the minivan, the legs collapsing in some clever mechanical way, and we both patted the end of the blanket before the doors closed Dad in.

We hugged Ed and Jenny, and Tim climbed into my car and he unwrapped the Radiohead CD that he had been purchasing for me at the moment Dad finished breathing. He slid it into the CD player and we turned it up loud and I drove through the evening commute traffic to the market closest to home. I picked up the makings of a spinach salad – the greens, and a red onion, walnuts, and blue cheese, and Tim chose the liquor: scotch and tequila, splurge brands. I slid a bottle of champagne into the basket. At the checkstand, the clerk said, “It looks like a party,” and I nodded in agreement. “We’re celebrating our Dad’s 76th birthday,” Tim said. I somehow couldn’t bring myself to add the rest.