Cold Metal




Feelings of impending doom whoosh through my mind and settle on my chest. I automatically check my carotid pulse and mentally run through the other cardinal symptoms of a heart attack. My pulse is fine, I'm not short of breath, and although my heart aches, it isn't from a heart attack.

My gray Honda putters west on Highway 10 towards a hospice client's home. It's year's end, and the skies match the color of my car. The radio plays country, not my favorite, but a habit from when I was married, and the mournful music matches my mood. Windshield wipers swipe back and forth.

The blame adds up like beads on an abacus in perfect time to the wipers. He was messy. I was rigid. He wanted more spontaneity. I liked routine. I was a workaholic, obsessed with my work as a hospital chaplain. He felt trapped.

And then the whole baby thing. It was nobody's fault. The doctor was emphatic about that. Sometimes it just doesn't work. Lots of couples adopt. Not us.

A homeless man stands at the end of the exit ramp as I brake for the stop sign. When the temperature drops, the highway will become a skating rink.

Mom says I should remove my wedding rings and start over. But I don't feel ready yet. We love each other. Maybe Kevin will reconsider and agree to more counseling. As I pull up into the client's circle driveway, I decide to phone him later.

Mrs. Herman is thinner than when I saw her at the hospital a few months ago, before her husband gave up on chemo. Heavy velvet shades darken the formal living room and it takes a moment for my eyes to adjust. A hospital bed angles in the corner beside an antique red-velvet couch. Everett Herman lies in bed with white blankets tucked under his chin and a bright blue afghan folded over his motionless legs. An unpleasant odor permeates the room.

A humidifier purrs next to a bookshelf filled with leather-bound classics. She plops into a black recliner, crosses veined legs, and dangles a high-heeled slipper from her foot. Diamonds dangle from droopy ears beneath a blonde wig. Wrinkles prune her cheeks. She doesn't invite me to sit down.

"Do you mind if I sit down?"

She motions to an antique loveseat, the velvet smooth from years of wear. Kevin would love its clawed feet and ornate carving. We spent our honeymoon visiting antique shops and planning how someday we would own an old farmhouse and fill it with history and a bunch of kids. Neither happened.

"I watched him die." Mrs. Herman's tongue catches in teeth too large for her mouth. "I didn't mind."

She stands abruptly and lays a preening hand on her husband's forehead. I wondered if she notices the coldness, if she thinks only of good things from their sixty-six years of marriage. It's easier to remember the good things.

"I laid by him and we breathed together." She strokes his waxy cheeks. "We breathed in and out, every breath together."

She inhales deeply and exhales slowly. "For hours we breathed." She speaks softly, never taking her eyes off his face. "And God was in every breath."

I hear the tick of an ancient clock.

"And now they want him out!" Her voice shrills and she straightens abruptly, glares at me with fists clenched and plants her feet like a bumblebee positioning for attack.

"But he's gone."

"So what!" She rests a protective hand on the blanket. "It was beautiful." She reaches over and picks up a photograph framed in black velvet, dusts it with her sleeve and thrusts it into my hands.

"Here's a picture." Her breath smells like peppermint and sour milk. "Everett said he had never seen anyone with such beautiful hair." The black and white photograph shows a smiling young couple, his adoring eyes on her flowing hair.

"I was fourteen with no one to help me in the middle of the Great Depression." She lowers herself in the chair. "We married when I was sixteen."

"The Lord gave me a twenty-four hour sign." She picks at the doily. "I was upstairs when a deep moan came out of me—the deepest moan." Her glance challenges me to contradict. "And just when I almost figured out what it meant, it happened again. A second long moan—and then a short one."

"Then what happened?" I want to run away from those beading eyes, the smell of death, and the empty commode. I want to make her realize that there comes a time to let go, even if something was once beautiful.

"I told the nurses to get out."

"They were only trying to help."

"I took care of him myself." She folds her arms in a smug expression. "Like always."

"You took care of him?"

"We breathed together—until he had a big moan— just like I had upstairs." She leans forward in the chair, her eyes lock on mine. "It had no more come out of him, then he did it again." She bites her lips, smears lipstick across her teeth and into the lines around her mouth. "I said, ‘O Lord, there's a little one left,'—and there was." The words rush out and her voice cracks. "Then it was over." She leans forward and weeps into arthritic fingers. "I lay beside him and breathed alone."

I rub her arm. "I've never heard anything so beautiful."

"Two shall become one!" Her voice sharpens as she looks up. "And now the part that was one with him is gone." She pulls pink tissue from the bedside stand and blows her nose.

"Have you called the mortuary yet?" I know she refused to release the body, had threatened to kill herself if anyone stepped inside the door.

"Not yet."

"It's time." The weight of the statement settles on my bones.

I phone the mortuary and dial the number of her son who waits outside in his Lexus. The smell is definitely from the bed.

"Wipe your feet," Mrs. Herman says as her son walks through the door. He keeps his eyes down, as if he were a boy again. He settles in an antique chair in the far corner, as far away from the hospital bed as he can get.

"I want his ring." She gently tugs at Everett's wedding band and finally pulls it from his finger. "It's stone cold," she says. "Funny." She cradles the narrow gold circle against her mouth.

The mortuary attendants arrive and we watch them push the gurney out of the house. The son opens windows and turns on a fan.

She walks with me out the door. The air blasts fresh and cool. "It was a beautiful thing." Mrs. Herman lowers her voice and clutches my arm, her eyes pleading. "Wasn't it?"

As I drive away, I pull up beside the homeless person standing by the side of the road, twist off my wedding rings, and thrust them into his hands. The light turns green and I click the radio station to NPR as I step on the gas.