Lindy took a seat in the chair beside his bed, grabbing his free hand and holding it in hers. His skin was so cold, feeling like death against her own cozy warmth.
"I'm so sorry I'm late," she apologized. No matter how hard she tried, her voice was cracking.
"Don't be sorry. You don't ever have to show up on time for me, Linds. Not after everything."
"That's silly," Lindy chastised, but inside, it was shredding her heart to hear Lee talk in such a way. His life was balancing on a tightrope and yet the man still found time to repent for the way that he had once treated his children.
"I'm just glad you're here, sweetheart," Lee said. Even his vocal chords sounded like they were struggling to push against the solid black wall of dissolution. Lindy knew there was no time left. Lee had remained his stubborn self and held out until the very last minute, preferring to live out his final days in his home rather than in a foreign place.
Lindy could not blame him. Looking around his room, there was nothing that would have made this transitional state into the afterlife easy on him. There was no comfy recliner. No photographs of her, Trae, or either Hannah. The room was nothing but a blank slate, easily wipeable for the next patient that would inhabit Lee's bed once he was gone.
This thought alone pained Lindy more than anything.
"Does it hurt?" Lindy asked, moving closer to her father's shriveled body. Her tears were coming fast.
"Not as badly as it did earlier today," Lee enlightened her. When he breathed, the sound grew raspier. It was getting hard for his lungs to function.
"I hate that I wasn't there for you."
"But you're here now."
As much as it physically hurt to do so, Lee managed a smile on his decaying face. He held Lindy's hand a little tighter and raised it to his white lips, kissing her knuckles. She let out a strangled cry, mentally begging for more time. Even if it were only an hour. She needed more time.
"Have I ever told you that you're beautiful?" Lee asked playfully, a clear attempt to lighten Lindy's perturbed mood.
"You have. You said it three times on the phone last week."
"Good. You look like your mother, and she was the most beautiful of them all, so it makes sense."
"Dad," Lindy said, rubbing Lee's hands between hers in order to distribute some warmth to his skin, "You know that I forgive you, right? That everything bad between us is in the past? You'll always be my dad and I love you for that."
Lee sniffed, his chest jerking upwards as he did so. His lower lip was out and it was quivering.
"I won't ever deserve your forgiveness. I'm just lucky to have a gracious daughter, that's all."
"Everyone deserves forgiveness. Mom would have wanted it this way. I wanted it this way. Maybe a little earlier of course, but I'm thankful that it even happened."
"I think your mother is going to give me a good chewing out when she sees me," Lee wheezed, averting his eyes to the ceiling as if expecting Hannah to be lingering there above him.
For all Lindy knew, she was. Lee was drifting so near to the end that she didn't doubt that he may have been seeing his dead wife, arriving for him at last.
"At least you'll be together," Lindy said. She watched as Lee laid his head back into his pillow, closing his eyes. This seemed to relax him, to coax him closer to accepting that it was almost time for him to go.
Lindy felt a sudden flutter in her lower belly -- she looked down, expecting something to have fallen into her lap, but there was nothing.
And then she realized what the universe was doing, nudging her in reminder of the last thing she must tell her father before he was gone.
She could not let Lee die without knowing the truth. She would have to tell him that he was going to be a grandpa again, even if there was now no chance of him ever meeting his second grandchild. If Lindy did not tell him then, she knew in her heart that there would never be another opportunity.
Lee needed to die at least knowing that if he had lived to meet Lindy's child, she would have trusted him to be the best grandfather in the world. He had earned her trust back in those dwindling months.
"Dad," Lindy whispered. Lee did not open his eyes, but he let out a mumbled 'mhm' that let her know he was still listening, no matter how faintly. She moved closer, now sitting on the edge of her seat with her knees pressed against the bedside. She wrapped both hands around Lee's
again.
"I need to tell you something. It's important."
"You can tell me," Lee said, breathing heavily. His eyes still weren't opened.
"Dad, I lied to you when I said that Kurt was out of my life. You remember him? The guy you thought I moved to California with? We're still together. We have been for awhile now, but . . . it's complicated."
Lee had not even twitched an eyelid, but by the way he exerted pressure on Lindy's fingers made her guess that this was his display of approval.
"I knew you would end up with him."
"That's not it though," Lindy continued. She kept her cries at bay as she wrenched Lee's hand closer, desperately wanting to finish her sentence without screaming out in tears.
"Dad, I'm pregnant. I'm going to have a baby."
Once again, Lee did not part his eyes to stare at his daughter. It was like they were sewn shut already, sealed away from the world and done doing their job of taking it all in. But the expression on his face was still one of easily readable joy. His mouth broke into a smile and he laughed a gravelly laugh that shook his body. From his closed eyes ran tears, trickling from beneath his eyelids and cascading down his face. Lindy wiped several away.
"A baby? That's wonderful, really wonderful Lindy. You will be such a good mother. Just like your mother. You're so . . . so much like her . . ."
Whatever struggle that Lee had braved to express his happiness to his daughter had markedly weakened him, thrusting him closer towards the finish line of his fight. He coughed, a wet sounding noise that quaked throughout his body and caused him to moan in pain.
He was hurting so badly.
Crying harder now, Lindy placed her face closer to Lee's. She wanted him to be able to hear every word she said. If he was going to go, she wanted her voice to be the last thing he heard.
It was their final goodbye.
"It's okay Dad," she whispered, her tears falling onto Lee's hospice gown. "If you want to go, you can go. Just let go. It's okay now. Go be with Mom."
Lee's chest rose with the air of his last inhale, a scratchy wheeze that rattled his lungs. When he blew the air out from his mouth, it was followed by one word -- his last word.
"Hannah."
And then Lee Clayton was gone.
eighty-seven.
Start from the beginning
