Daily Allowances

The pill organizer sat on the bedside table like a verdict, each compartment filled with the colored capsules of her father's survival. Sarah smoothed the blanket over his legs, her palm lingering on the fabric where his knee used to jerk when he was nervous—before the stroke took that small tell from him.

"You're hovering," he said, eyes still closed. "I can hear you hovering."

"I'm not hovering. I'm straightening your blanket."

He opened one eye. "That's what they call hovering now."

The dog—a rescue beagle who'd attached herself to Sarah the moment she walked through the door—shifted at the foot of the bed, sighing dramatically. This was, apparently, too much drama for seven in the morning.

"Your dog hates me," her father said.

"She doesn't hate you. She's just not used to your oxygen machine making that Darth Vader sound."

He laughed, then coughed, a wet rattle that sent Sarah's hand automatically to his glass of water. He waved her off. "I'm fine. Stop hovering."

The vitamins were next—a handful of supplements the doctor had prescribed when they both pretended they might matter. He dry-swallowed them without looking, the motion practiced, automatic. How many times had she watched him take pills? First for blood pressure, then for cholesterol, then for the things that came after.

"Your friend called," he said, apropos of nothing. "The one with the appalling taste in men."

"Lila called?"

"Sounded like she'd been drinking. Or crying. Both. It's hard to tell over the phone."

Sarah sat on the edge of the bed. "What did she want?"

"To know if you're still seeing that architect. The one who looks like he'd choose granite over people every time."

"I ended that three months ago, Dad."

"Good. He had weak hands." He held up his own hand, trembling slightly. "Like this, but worse. A man should have hands that know how to hold things."

He reached out, palm up, and Sarah placed her hand in his. His skin was paper-thin, mapping veins like rivers seen from above. The beagle crept up the bed and rested her head on his feet.

"There," he said. "Now we're all hovering."

Sarah felt the laugh before it came—a sharp, painful exhale. "Daily recommended allowance of hovering."

"Something like that." He squeezed her fingers weakly. "Don't forget your vitamin."

"I took it."

"Take it again. Can't hurt."

Outside, the neighbor's palm tree swayed in the morning breeze, and for a moment, she could almost believe this fragile equilibrium would last—that the pills, the hovering, the terrible small jokes would continue indefinitely, and she wouldn't have to learn what came next.