The Seventh Inning

Ellen sat beside her father's hospital bed, the rhythmic beep of monitors keeping time with the baseball game murmuring on the television. The Mets were down by three, and David would have cared—would have cursed at the screen, would have explained exactly where the pitcher's mechanics had failed. But David was mostly gone now, his breathing shallow, his eyes fixed on something Ellen couldn't see.

Her iphone buzzed in her pocket. Sarah again. Ellen ignored it, as she had the last twelve calls. Some conversations couldn't be postponed, and this one—about who deserved to be here, who had earned the right to witness their father's last hours—would wait until the dying was done.

She reached for the orange she'd brought from the breakroom, peeling it mechanically. The scent should have reminded her of childhood Christmases, of the way David would always slip orange segments into their stockings while they slept. Instead, the citrus smell just felt like acid.

"Water," David whispered, his voice like rust.

Ellen jumped, nearly dropping the fruit. She reached for the cup with the bent straw, her hands trembling. The first sip missed his mouth entirely, spilling onto his hospital gown. "Sorry, Dad. Sorry."

He tried to smile, but the expression kept slipping. His eyes drifted back to the television where a batter swung and missed, strike three called.

"Your sister," he breathed. "She's not coming."

Ellen's throat tightened. "She wants to be here. She's—"

"No." David's gaze sharpened for a moment, terrifyingly lucid. "She chose. Just like you chose, staying with your mother when she got sick. Choices. That's what life is. The things we don't do." He coughed, a wet, terrible sound. "The water's too cold."

Ellen stared at him. Sarah had been furious when Ellen moved back to care for their mother three years ago. They hadn't really spoken since. And now David, in his half-awareness, was laying bare the arithmetic of their family's resentments.

The orange peel in her hand looked suddenly grotesque, like torn flesh.

"I should have called her," Ellen said.

"Should have." David's eyes closed. "Should have many things."

Her iphone lit up again. Sarah's name. Ellen answered without standing, without leaving the room.

"I'm at the airport," Sarah said, her voice hollow. "I couldn't get on the plane."

"I know."

"Tell him—I'm sorry."

"He knows," Ellen said, watching David's chest rise and fall, each breath a smaller victory than the last. "He already knows."

She hung up and ate the orange, section by section, while the baseball game continued toward its inevitable end, and her father continued toward his, and somewhere above the clouds, Sarah continued toward neither.