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I waited outside the house sobbing for two minutes before peeking through the door again and walking in. The first thing I looked at was the menacing hospital bed. There was blood on the sheets. I tried to call to Will down the hall to see if I could change the sheets for him. I was crying again and grateful he wasn’t in the room to see me. I looked for Rebecca. She wasn’t in the kitchen or the living room or sunroom, and I didn’t want to walk down the hallway. Maybe she was helping her husband use the bathroom in their bedroom. I looked around the smaller guest bedroom for sheets and found two paper bags with the Hospice logo on them. Looking inside I found what looked like pads for bedding. They reminded me of my babies I left at home, only the pads we used to put over their bedding were to keep the sheets dry in the case of a leaky diaper. These were for an adult who was somewhere in the house listening to a very loud clock winding down. Next to the bags, I saw some sheets. They had flowers on them, but looked like twin sized sheets. I took them out to the hospital bed and changed the sheets, balling up the old ones around the blood stained spots. Just as I was tucking the last top sheet in, Rebecca walked in from the kitchen.

“Hey there, honey, how ya doin’ this mornin’?” She asked me. She seemed bright eyed and happy, while I was falling apart inside and out. “I’m a bit surprised Will even letcha in here. He’s been quite the grump today. Didn’t want any of his meds last night.” Rebecca stopped talking for a moment, grabbed my arm and pulled me into a tight hug. “Oh, honey, I’m sorry. I’m rambling. This is hard on all of us. He has friends come and go, but he won’t see them, he doesn’t want to; he’s pushed everyone away. But those of us allowed around, we cry. We cry a lot. We go outside, let it all fall down our blubbering faces, and then we come back and do what’s needs doing. He needs us. He needs you too, doll.” She walked me into the kitchen where she had a tea kettle starting to whistle on the gas stove. “I was just sitting in the boathouse doing my own crying. He yelled at me this morning. He still doesn’t want to take his meds every few hours like he should, so when he wakes up, he’s in pain and gets mad because he thinks the drugs aren’t working. I can’t get him to understand how it all works and all that stuff Wendy said about it building up in his system. He just doesn’t get he needs to be on a schedule. You know, so he’s not in so much pain.”

“We’ll just keep telling him, Rebecca, we’ll just keep trying. Okay? I’m here. I don’t want you to have to do all this alone. I’ll talk to him too. Maybe I can be the bad guy here.”

“Hell, honey, maybe he’ll listen to you.” Rebecca poured me a cup of tea.

“I didn’t know where you were when I got here, but there was…there was blood on the sheets. Will saw me come in, asked me to wait outside, then he walked down the hall. When I came back in, I saw blood on the sheets. So I found some sheets in the guest room,” I stifled a small giggle. “They were pink with flowers all over them.”

“Oh, yeah, those pretty sheets. We have to make sure Will has the pretty sheets on. He’ll like them, honey. Oh, he’ll like them indeed.” Rebecca started laughing too. The two of us sat at the kitchen table and giggled like two little school girls. Neither of us knew exactly what was so funny, but it brought out emotions we hadn’t felt in days at least. So we laughed, laughed some more, then hugged, grabbed our coffee cups filled with hot tea, and walked into the living room.

“Yep, they sure are purty, Nikki Jay, purty they are!” Rebecca whispered and put her hand up to her mouth to silent the giggle that almost escaped. I put my hand on her back and agreed with a nod. Pretty sheets. That’s what Will needed.

It took almost an hour for Will to come out of his bedroom. In that hour, Rebecca and I took turns walking down the hall and listening for him through his almost closed door. It was clear he wanted not only privacy but also independence, so we left him alone to do whatever it was he needed to do. With his pace slow, he walked back down the hall wearing pajama pants and the same robe he’d been wearing earlier, only it was inside out. I looked at Rebecca, smiled in an attempt to keep a tear from finding my cheek, and then said to Will, “Well there you are.” As soon as the words left my mouth I realized I sounded like he was just late for a movie date and felt instantly silly. I tried to fake a smile but knew I’d failed when yet another tear escaped.

“It’s time for that crap, isn’t it?” Will asked.

“Your medicine, Will. Yes, it’s way past time to take your medicine. We need you to take it every few hours like Mary says to do, doll baby.” Rebecca was very tender, but I could see the lines showing frustration in her face.

“Just go get it, Bec.” Will returned her loving and tender care with a short statement. He was changing. For the first time ever I saw a deep true anger in him.

I stayed with Will for about an hour. Will even asked me about Chris and the girls. I wasn’t sure if he heard my response, but it was the last time he and I had a coherent conversation. My mind kept going back to all the other things we could have talked about, but he started the conversation about my family, and I answered with no enthusiasm but instead in a very matter of fact manner. I told him about a project Chris was working on in Atlanta, preschool for Emily, and Bella’s new words and cute phrases, like “Mommy, I want to carry you.” I told him Emily had gone through that phase, too, when she would say ‘carry you,’ or ‘hold you’ when she wanted me to pick her up, and I told him Bella’s new favorite food was potatoes, which she calls ‘toepees.’ It all felt very mundane, but comfortable because it was all about my daily life. Once he was ready to rest, I realized he probably didn’t truly hear much of what I had said, but I still wished I had told him all the things I never got to say.

Will asked me to leave him alone after I told him all about my family. He was polite, but I could tell he was tired. Feeling groggy myself, I went into the guest bedroom where I found Rebecca changing sheets on the bed.

“Is he sleepin’?” Rebecca asked me as she was pulling the corners of a crisp fitted sheet onto the bed.

I walked over to the other side of the bed and pulled the other corners around the mattress, then helped her pull the top sheet up over the bed. “He looked like he was getting pretty sleepy there for a while, but I just kept talking. I guess I couldn’t stop. But yes, I think he’s out for a while.”

“Well, we’ll have to wake him in two hours. He has to take this stuff on time.”

I could tell Rebecca was feeling something not good. Overwhelmed, angry, sad. I wasn’t sure which, or all and more, but her speech was slower, and her responsibility was starting to show in her face. It hit me again the burden she’d been carrying for so long, and much of what I had focused on was me and how I was feeling, what I had lost so long ago, and what I was losing again so many years later.

“I’ll go get a blanket, and then I think you should have everything you’ll need in here to sleep. You’ll need to sleep, you know. I also put a notebook in here and a couple a pens. Will said you like to write. Songs and such.” Her voice faded again, and I could see tears forming in her eyes.

I put my arms around her. “First of all, I had no idea you were in here making a bed for me. I could have done that. I’m sorry you felt you had to make any accommodations for me. I appreciate it, but I think it’s time someone care for you….you know, for a change. Have you had breakfast, coffee or tea? What do you need me to do around here? Is there something…I’m talking too much and not giving you a chance to answer.” I paused, still hugging her. I could feel her relax and begin to sob against my shoulder.

When she pulled away, she sat on the edge of the bed and said, “Mary came by early this morning. She said she wasn’t planning on it, but decided to stop by on her way home from her shift. We’re not exactly on the way to anything out here, so I think she just wanted to check on me and Will. She said after today she’s off for the next three days. She also told me if Will is still here by the time she comes back on shift, his time will be short. Then she said, he might not be here by then. I think she stopped by to say good-bye to him.” Rebecca paused again, sobbed a few times, then started again. “She told me I have to care for myself. She knows you are here, too. She sat me down and told me we, you and me, we need to take breaks, remember to sleep and to eat. I realized I don’t really have anything much besides morphine and ginger ale in this house. What is wrong with me? Morphine and ginger ale!” She started laughing an almost sadistic laugh, but instead of cruelty in her, I only saw love and care for Will. Of course she had everything he would need in those days, but no one had been around to care for her. So her needs had gone by the wayside. She continued just as I was about to tell her I would go grocery shopping for the house. “I think Mary is right. Not only do you and I need to get Will through this, but we need to get each other through this, too. We need to be here for each other, you and me. And we need to make sure the other is eatin’ and sleepin.’ If you don’t mind, doll, I think I might make a quick run to the market and pick us up some things.” Her head lowered, and she watched her toes for a few minutes. I felt like I was watching one of my children ask if they could have three snacks, knowing the answer before the question even came out.

I sat on the bed next to her and put my arm around her. “Rebecca, I think it might do you some good to get out. But before I agree, please know you don’t have to. I will be happy to go get some groceries. You can just tell me what you need, and I will stock this house with more than drugs and soda. But, if you want to get out, it might be good for you, and I will be right here. Will is napping and won’t be waking soon. We will be fine. And I can call you if I need anything.”

***

Will woke before Rebecca returned from the store. She had given me his medicines before she left and asked me not to wake him at the two hour mark, but if he woke on his own to give him his morphine and pills. The pills were stacking up. One was for nausea, one for sleep, one was a diuretic, and I couldn’t remember what the last pill was for. I didn’t remember so many the day before. It seemed Mary added some while she was visiting. Will was open to talking about taking the meds, and I got him to take the morphine, but he argued about the rest. Probably because some were new, and he wasn’t aware there was a new regimen in place for him. I couldn’t imagine someone making so many decisions for me and understood his need for independent decision making about his care. I was able to talk to him about the timing of the morphine to control his pain.

“Will, I didn’t get to meet Mary, but she said you really need to take your morphine every two hours. It needs to stay in your system to work all the time.”

He interrupted me his voice rising, “I don’t want to wake up to take anything. I finally get to sleep, and someone is waking me up right away to take something to make me sleep. I don’t get it. I don’t want to wake up to take some damn medicine!”

“The morphine isn’t to help you sleep, Will, it’s to help with pain. If you let more than two hours pass, then it starts to wear off, and then when you take it again, you are already in pain. It has to build back up in your system before the pain goes away. So can we try to take it every two hours now? Today. Will you try today?” I felt myself begin to get defensive, my tone went up an octave, and I felt like I did when disciplining my daughters. I caught myself before I spoke again. One thing I did at home with my girls was lecture until I thought they “got it” or until I’d heard myself talk long enough. Will thought about it and told me he would take the medicine then, at midnight, and at 4 o’clock in the morning. I wasn’t sure how he came up with those times, I wasn’t even sure what time it was while we were talking, but I thought it was maybe early afternoon, and Will’s times didn’t make much sense. I agreed as if it was the best plan ever, noting he wasn’t quite agreeing to every two hours.

Will sat up in the hospital bed. It took him several minutes to maneuver himself into a position where he was comfortable, or where he’d at least given up moving around so much. He took a shaky hand and reached out for the medicine. My hand was shaking as well. Will grabbed the syringe with the dyed blue morphine inside. I almost dropped it before he had a hold of it. With conviction, Will put it in his mouth and then struggled to push the plunger down the barrel, but after a long minute, he had all the morphine in his mouth and changed his struggle to swallowing. Before he got it all down, I had a can of ginger ale with a straw threatening to bob out of the top in my hand. He gave this awful taste look and took the can of ginger ale from me before dropping the syringe to the floor. Like a small child, he made several noises letting me know just how nasty the medicine tasted. We sat in silence for a few minutes before he looked like he was going to lay down with the soda can in his hand, and without taking his other pills. I started to say something to him, but the sound of my voice made him jump, and he reached out to the TV tray near the hospital bed, grabbing recklessly for the pills. Ginger ale was sloshing out of the can onto the carpet. Will seemed out of control, angry, and not quite…all there.

“Will?” Tears were streaming down my face, and I was having a hard time finding my voice, but I tried again. “W-Will? Will!”

“I got it, Nikki. I got it, but I took these today. I know I took them already. Didn’t I just take these?” Will was confused, and confirmed for me what I had been thinking. I needed to create a schedule with what meds he needed and what he actually took and when.

“Will, I think you did take them earlier,” I put my right hand on his arm and my left reached out for the can of ginger ale. I noted to myself to empty some of the can next time before I gave it to him. I was stumped; I didn’t know what to say. I felt like the first time I was home alone with Emily after she was born. I was away from doctors and nurses who knew exactly what to do if something happened, if I dropped her, if she choked or swallowed something, if she couldn’t be consoled. I was alone with Will, responsible for his care, for giving him his medicines, the correct doses, at the right time. He wasn’t exactly willing, and I didn’t know what to do about it. I didn’t want to argue with an adult who should be able to take some simple pills.