As always, the room smelled. Of old perspiration with an antiseptic gloss. Above, the ceiling lights flickered as if tired, in need of care themselves, worn out by years spent in this hospital.
Her father, Sam Nihill, rested against the bed’s railing, fever-eyed in a thin blue gown.
“I’m through with sunsets,” he said. His voice was still strong and clear, as if not yet exhausted by his own existence.
For the past ten years, there had been this slow slipping away. Parkinson’s had crumbled his body, and now it was coming for his mind with a vendetta.
How many times had she heard this Declaration of Independence? This verbal DNR “Do Not Resuscitate” only to find him breathing the next morning?
“I’m through with sex,” he continued. “I’m through with life.”
She adjusted his pillow.
“Sex. Yuck,” he said again. “I’m through with it. Through with everything.”
Her hand moved to the IV drip. Her hand straightened the blanket. Her hands kept busy. They needed to.
She listened the way she always had—back when she was younger, sitting on the back porch beside him catching sunsets.
“I hate to see the sun go down,” he’d say in passing. “Another day done.”
She had always preferred sunrise. That pink stretch of hope across the sky.
Early mornings, she’d catch glimpses of him heading to work in a suit and tie, always on the move, rarely looking her way as she stood in her school clothes. But he’d always stop to kiss her mother, long and wet, pinning her to the wall until she stopped laughing and gave in.
Her mother died in a car accident eleven years ago.
The timing. How closely her death synced up with his diagnosis always struck her. As a daughter. And now, as a caregiver.
“Through.” This was something she would get through.
She was all he had left.
And when there was nothing else in the room to adjust, she sat by his side.
His breathing was shallow now. Slow.
Machines beeped, consistently, faithfully.
She breathed, too, for the first time in a long time—and felt a version of peace.
That word: through. Over, under, up, and down. Life was something to get through.
And in this moment, she understood everything.
Allison Whittenberg, of Philadelphia, is an award-winning poet, novelist, and playwright. They Were Horrible Cooks is her collection of poetry. Her novels include Sweet Thang, Hollywood and Maine, Life is Fine, Tutored, Sane Asylum, and Killing the Father of Our Country. Her plays have been performed at The Festival of Wrights (New York), Downtown Urban Arts Festival, The Secret, Hedgerow Theatre, Theatre in the Round, Interact Theatre, and Equity Library Theater of New York.
Modern Flash Fiction 