Interruption of Service

Naomi never quite knew what to do with her hands on an elevator.  The sudden lift always left her feeling a little off balance, but clinging to the railing along the back made her feel cowardly.  So she leaned her hip against the wall, arms crossed, and concentrated on the steady march of the floor indicator lights.  The older couple occupying the cab with her were wrapped in the suffocating blanket of grief, the same one that had cocooned her for these last two weeks, and across the silence, their eyes met in an exchange of loss and sympathy.

The bell dinged on "6," and the doors whooshed open.  She waited for the couple to step off first, and then followed them into the brightly lit hallway that reeked of disinfectant.  Her feet remembered the way, and moments later she stood in the doorway of his room, watching his frail chest rise and fall, hearing the wheeze of the ventilator as it accordioned air in and out of his helpless lungs.

The nursing assistant was rinsing out a square plastic pan, and the room smelled like soap and baby powder.  He was cleanly shaven, hair combed smooth across his forehead, fresh Micropore tape holding the feeding tube in place.  Someone had turned the television on, a low-volume background of financial reports and business news.  She supposed they wanted to make sure that he was up to date in case he decided to wake up and call his stockbroker to do some last-minute trading.

She stepped to the side to let the aide out of the room, nodding thanks as they passed each other.  It was warm enough that she didn't need the sweater she had worn, so she slipped it off and hung it in the flat little closet beside his bed.  The armchair had been moved aside to allow the nurses to reach his telemetry equipment, and she slid it closer, settling in comfortably and reaching between the rails for his hand.

"Tom?" she said, and her voice broke on the single syllable.  She cleared her throat and tried again.  "Tom, it's Naomi.  I've been out for a little while, but I'm back for the rest of the day."  She patted and stroked the thin, translucent skin that stretched taut over the bones of his knuckles.  Fading blue and green bruises dotted the yellowed flesh where needles had been inserted and removed more often than seemed necessary to her.

She glanced up at the television, and reached for the remote control that hung by a clip from the railing.  Thumbing the channel selector, she stopped when she found an old black and white cowboy movie—"shoot 'em ups," he had always called them.  Gene Autry had been his favorite, the white-hatted hero who knew right from wrong and always had a song for every situation.

What would he sing for Tom, she wondered.

"I saw your friend Richard today, from Western Motors.  He said that they've added a new rental department over there, and the manager thinks it'll be a cash cow, but he said you would have had enough sense to put the kibosh on the whole thing.  Said people don't take care of things that don't belong to them, so half the profits will end up going toward repairs.  Thought you'd get a kick out of that."

He lay still, eyes closed and sunken.  He seemed to be shrinking, a fraction of himself worn away by the vicious, ravenous cancer.  The arms that had rippled with sinewy muscles were thin and flaccid,, his legs little more than dry sticks ending in white socks.  As she cradled his hand in hers, the fingers of her other hand glided gently up and down his forearm, caressing it lovingly.  When she reached the big scar on the inside of his arm, the skin felt different, thick and shiny, and something deep in her belly turned over slowly.

                                          ************************

"Come on, Naomi, we gotta get back home before Mom gets lunch ready or she'll whip us for sure!"  He stood at the other end of the log bridge, holding his hand out to her.

"No, I wanna pick buttercups!"

He huffed impatiently.  "You know she'll be waiting on the front porch.  Come on!"

The tiny girl tossed her red pigtails and began to head back up the mountain, stopping every few yards to bend and pluck a handful of shiny yellow blossoms.  The seat of her panties that showed under her dress was grimy from sitting in the grass, and there was something that could have been either mud or cow flop between the toes of her left foot.

"Naomi, you come here right now!"  He started back across the bridge, whispering his three Bad Words to himself since no one could hear him.  She ignored him, straightening up to arrange the flowers in her pudgy hand.  "I mean it!  I'll tell Papa when he gets home!"

She turned and pulled a pout at him, eyebrows knitted in petulant defiance.  "You leave me alone, Tom.  You're not my daddy!"

One strap of his overalls slipped off his shoulder as he stomped toward her.  Grabbing her by the hand, he started back down the hill, towing her behind him.  It was like dragging a sled full of boulders, her little feet digging into every mound of dirt to pull against him with all her strength.  When they reached the dirt road at the bottom, he stopped and turned toward her, bending down so they were eye to eye.

"If you'll just be quiet and come home, I'll let you play with my slingshot, okay?" he whispered, a conspirator in the forbidden.

She stopped wailing and looked up at him with puddled eyes, weighing the truth of his offer.  "Can I shoot at cans like you and Carl do?"



"Sure," he nodded.  "I'll teach you how.  Just come on to the house now so we don't get in trouble, alright?"  He started back down the road, but this time he didn't hold her hand.
Resisting the urge to look behind him, he kept marching until he swung open the iron gate.  He could hear the soles of her bare feet slapping against the stepping stones behind him, and he smiled to himself.

After lunch, their mother sat them down on the bench in the kitchen, and handed each of them a rag.  "Now, I have to go up and weed the tomatoes, and while I'm gone, I want you both to dust the furniture in the living room.  Don't touch the glass flower vase, but I want everything else to be shining when I come back.  If you listen and do a good job, I'll give you both a nickel."

"Yes ma'am," they said in unison, eyes wide in mercenary wonder.

"And you stay away from the washing machine.  If I catch you touching it, I'll tan your britches, you hear?"  She wagged a slender finger at them, and when she did that, it meant she was serious.

"Yes ma'am."

She tied on her straw bonnet and apron, and headed across the creek to the big garden.  They worked together, wiping and polishing, and when they agreed the job was done, they went to the back porch to put the dirty rags in the laundry basket.

It sat next to the kitchen door, the new electric wringer washer from Sears and Roebuck.  The man had come out last Friday to deliver it, chugging up the gravel lane in his flatbed truck, and Mama had been so excited you'd have thought it was Christmas.  She stood watching him hook everything up, fingers laced across her bosom, blue eyes twinkling with delight.

He stayed long enough to walk her through the steps of washing, rinsing, and wringing out.  Tom and Naomi sat on the steps, more fascinated with their mother's happiness than with the big white machine.  But now, with Mama in the garden, it began to look like something out of  a book, some fantastic creation that Little Orphan Annie might spend a whole episode trying to figure out.

Tom's curious fingers were tracing the silver logo plate on the front before he realized he was even standing close to it. 

"You better get away from there," Naomi said in a singsong voice, stroking the hair of her bedraggled rag doll, Emma.  "Mama catches you, she'll beat your hiney."



                                              ***************************

She had fallen asleep in the chair, lulled by the infomercial that followed the movie.  Her head rested on her arm, which in turn was draped over the bedrail and was also asleep.  Peeling the tender skin away from the polished chrome, she saw the deep pink ravine pressed into the underside of her arm, in the same place as Tom's scar.

The knock on the door startled her, still half dozing, and she looked up to see Dr. Rhyne pushing the curtain aside.

"Afternoon, Naomi," he said kindly, in his deep, resonant voice.  "How you doing today?"

"Oh, fine.  I found the jersey sheets I was looking for—they're over there on his night stand.  They do feel soft, I have to say.  Think I might go back and get me a set."  She rubbed the smooth groove in her arm absently, feeling the dent with her fingers.

"That's fine.  I think he'd appreciate them," he said, pulling the folding chair over beside her.

Her hands stopped moving, and she felt a chill creep up from the tips of her fingers as he lowered himself into the seat and turned toward her.  He laid Tom's chart on the bed, and his head bowed as he folded his hands between his knees.  She thought for a moment that he was praying.

"Naomi, this is difficult to say.  You know that Tom's blood pressure has been creeping up over the last few days, and that's a part of the kidney failure.  We got the results of the EEG back this morning, and it looks like he's had several strokes in the last 24 hours, small ones, but in his condition, they're—well, they're very serious."

"How bad?" she asked, and her mouth had gone completely dry.

"Well, he's not showing any brain activity anymore.  We don't see any kind of reaction to stimuli, so that means he isn't in any pain.  But without activity in the brain..."

"It means Tom's not really here, doesn't it?"  Her own voice sounded thin and reedy, as if it were carried by the wind from far away.

He laid a ham-sized hand on top of hers.  "I'm afraid it does," he said softly.

For a moment, she considered the weight of his words.  "How long?"

The doctor swallowed.  "It's hard to say, exactly.  With the respirator, we could keep his heart and lungs active for maybe a week or so.  Technically, his body would be alive, but it wouldn't do anything except prolong what we know is going to happen."

She was silent, her thumb gently stroking across Tom's smooth forehead.  Finally she sighed, her eyes drifting closed.  "And without it?"

"Probably no more than a few minutes," he said, as though it were a reassurance.

Her head was tilted to one side, and a wistful smile touched her lips.  "He wouldn't want to stretch it out."


                                                 *******************************


The handle on the side lifted the rollers apart, or closed them tight.  Once closed, the electric motor would rotate them quickly, pulling the wet fabric into the tiny gap between the cylinders, squeezing the water out and into the drum below.  The panel on the side contained a pair of buttons, labeled "Run" and "Stop," but the red and green of the plastic would have let him guess anyway.

Naomi was humming, braiding Emma's yarn hair placidly.  His boy-soft fingers reached up hesitantly, wanting to touch the rough canvas surface of the rollers to see how they performed their magic.  Straining to lift himself to his tiptoes, his flat belly pressed hard against the cool metal front.

Suddenly a deep-throated humming sound startled him, making him jump.  He instinctively tried to back away from the machine, but something was tugging at his fingertips, mashing them painfully.  His heart was racing, and cold sweat popped out on his forehead and between his shoulder blades.

He looked down to try to find the "Stop" button, but it was beneath his body, and his ribs were pressed firmly against the other, green one.  He tried to wriggle his other hand under him, but he was being lifted off his feet, slowly but surely.  His hand was fully caught now, swelling behind the pressure and turning red, then purple.

"Naomi, help me!" he yelled, trying to keep the panic out of his voice.  "Turn it off!  Push the red button!"

He twisted to try to see where she was, and saw her standing beside him, two fingers in her mouth, Emma lying forgotten on the floor.  Her eyes were huge and terrified.

"Hurry, turn it off!"  He was almost screaming now, the bones in his wrist groaning and grinding as the rollers relentlessly went about their work.

"I can't!" she cried.  "Mama told us never to touch it!"  Her head swiveled back and forth, confirming her memory of their mother's warning.

"It's got me, Naomi, you have to make it stop!"  Tears were leaking out of the corners of his eyes, and the skin of his forearm was huge and tight, as if it was ready to split.  He began to scream in earnest now.  His arm could go no further, and the rough surface of the rollers ground inexorably into the flesh of his inner arm.  The canvas was turning pink, then red.

"Naooommmiiiii!"  The terror in his voice was a tangible, electric thing.  The last shred of thought he could muster he directed toward her in desperation.  "Pull the cord out!  Reach down there and pull the cord out of the wall!"

She looked from him to the plug, torn and frightened, but the sound of his screams chased her fear of punishment away.  She bent down and grasped the big black cord and yanked, and the thrumming died away instantly.

The door slammed open, their mother white-faced and panting, and as she raced to the machine to lift the handle and open the rollers, Tom fainted in her arms.


                                              *************************


"He's got his living will in order, and the ventilator can be disconnected without violating it.  If it's what you want, Naomi, I'll get the paperwork and come back here in a few minutes."

She nodded, silent tears sliding down her cheeks.  Her eyes tried to drink in every line, every wrinkle, every curve of his face, etching it into the granite stone of her memory.  There was no urgency, there was no one to call since it was only the two of them left, and so she simply sat with him, watching the last of his measured breaths.

Minutes later, or it could have been hours, Dr. Rhyne returned with a clipboard and pen.  She grasped it in her fingers, wrote her name on the lines, added the date that meant nothing to her at all.  The charge nurse had joined them, and stood quietly on the other side of the bed, her eyes soft and sympathetic.

"If you're ready, I'll go ahead and turn it off," he said, his hand resting on her shoulder.  "You'll have two or three minutes, and if you want to talk to him, to say your goodbyes, he may be able to hear you."

She wanted to wrap her arms around herself, to keep her heart from falling to pieces inside her chest.  But she kept holding his hand, gazing into his gentle face, the memories of sixty two years fluttering through her mind, butterflies that she couldn't quite catch.  Finally, she nodded again, and the doctor lifted his hand to the ventilator to press the "Off" button.

She caught his hand before he could take the last step, and looked up at him through a blur.  "Wait.  I owe this to him.  He'd want me to do it," she said.

Leaning over to kiss his forehead, she whispered into his ear, "Tom, I'm going to help you.  Can you hear me?  It's Naomi and I'm right here with you."

She bent down, and reached for the big black plug behind the bed.