o 7d2acff2003a9b7d by Unknown Read Free Book Online

Dad and Aunt Morgan and I sat with Mom until she fell asleep. Then we tiptoed into the living room and sat there for a long time. I am looking at Aunt Morgan with new eyes. So she was a troublemaker when she was a kid. And she had a sense of humor. I’d never have guessed it. She seems so stodgy and stiff and controlling. Then again, since she lives in Atlanta and we’ve lid in California all my life, how often have I seen her? Six or seven times? And two of those times have been since Mom got sick. Maybe this is just how Aunt Morgan deals with stress. Maybe she’s really a very nice, funny person after all.
    Maybe I should get to know her better.
    9:17 A.M.
    Dad knocked on my door a little while ago, after the doctor left.
    “Come in,” I called.
    “Sweetie, can I talk to you?” he asked. He sat on the bed.
    (Oh, boy. Pounding heart, cold hands. That fear.)
    “Sure,” I said in a tiny little voice.
    “The doctor thinks Mom won’t last the day.”
    I didn’t know what to say. All I could think was, yesterday you said she might have three more days. But I knew that was a foolish, childish thought. Nobody knows anything for sure, not even the doctor. I stared out my window. At last I said, “Then I guess I should come
    downstairs.”
    “Whenever you want.” Dad paused. “And Sunny, you don’t have to come downstairs. You
    don’t even have to say good-bye to her — although I know she wants to say good-bye to you.”
    “No, I’m coming.”
    “Okay.” Dad left my room.
    I looked at my journal. I want to record EVERYTHING in it. That means I want to have it with ne at all times. I wonder if Aunt Morgan will understand.
    9:29 A.M.
    I think she will understand.
    10:16 A.M.
    Mom is in the worst shape I have ever seen her in, and that’s saying a lot. She’s in SO MUCH
    pain. Usually when the pain becomes too great, she tries to find a way to fall asleep, but now she’s trying to stay awake. She keeps thinking of things she wants to tell us, things she wants to say. Also, I have a feeling that she doesn’t want to miss anything. Doesn’t want to sleep through a single second of the time she has left.
    10:42 A.M.
    Dad and I are in Mom’s room. A funny thing. She just asked us to open the curtains. It’s a very bright and sunny day today, the kind of light that ordinarily hurts Mom’s eyes. But Mom said, “I want to see outside.”
    At first it was horrible. When Dad pulled back the curtains Mom had to hold her hands over her eyes. But very, very slowly she opened her fingers a crack, like when she used to play peekaboo with me, and then very, very slowly she pulled her hands away from her face. Mom could see a tree outside and the house across the way, a couple of cars in the street. Not a while lot more, but it was enough to make her smile.
    “I always love when the sky turns that color,” she managed to say. “That’s the best blue. The best blue in the world.”
    “Do you want me to close the curtains now?” Dad asked after a few moments.
    “No. Leave them open,” said Mom. But not more than ten minutes later she said weakly, “Okay, could you close them, please?” She had put her hands to her face again.
    I jumped up. “I’ll do it,” I said.
    11:25 A.M.
    The phone started ringing a little while ago. One call after another.
    “Honey,” Dad said to me, “could you be on phone duty for awhile [sic]?”
    I was glad to be on phone duty. Aunt Morgan and Dad were sitting with Mom, and I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. Still …
    “What do I tell people?” I asked Dad.
    He looked at me for a few moments. “The truth, honey. That she doesn’t have more than a day or two.”
    “And what if people want to come by to see her?”
    “If you think they are people she’d want to say good-bye to, then tell them to come as soon as they can, and to be prepared to stay for only a few minutes.”
    “What about the others?”
    Dad frowned. “Tell them … I guess … tell them that we’ll