Good Grief

I doubt thirty minutes had passed since they rolled the gurney down the hall and out the door and I ran back to see why they hadn't taken him, only to find the bed empty. Skin and bones. Who knew the phrase could be so literal? The skin and bones they wheeled past me hadn't even made an impression in the heavy blanket that covered his full length.

Everyone else cleared out. We went from the thirty to five - one short of what we should have been. Mom collapsed into her chair at one end of the dining room table. My brother, sister, and daughter took side seats. I eased into the chair opposite Mom, thinking I might die if I sat anywhere else and had to stare at that empty chair.

For a while, I wished some of the others had stayed. We seemed to be ghosts, with no words or focus, maybe destined to solidify in our empty positions if no one from the outside returned to stir our emotions. I wished the phone would ring, or a car horn would blow, or someone would cry. Anything to break the silence.

My brother came through. "I think Rosy killed him with that holy water." The words shocked me, not because they were so absurd, but because his voice sounded so much like my father's I had to look up to make sure my brother's lips were moving.

"She probably drowned him," my daughter agreed, biting her cheeks.

My sister giggled. "I wanted to choke her with the rosary."

Without looking up, my mother added her part. "I was ready to throw her out when I saw that. Guess he didn't want to hear it either."

By the time my brother delivered his next line, he was laughing so hard he could barely get it out. "No, that's what did him in."

My sister grabbed a box of tissues off the hutch and plopped it in the center of the table. We laughed until the tears poured.

My mother wiped her eyes and caught her breath. "What would anyone think if they saw us right now? Someone should pull the drapes."

Good grief. A second phrase became literal.