“Sing what?”
Anything, he said, in the slush that passed for speech these days. Just…stay here with me. And don’t stop.
So she crawled over the busted bed rail that they never could get to go down, and curled carefully around him and all his tubes and wires, placed her head on his shoulder and sang. Gospel, lullabies, rockers and nursery rhymes rolled out of her mouth without conscious thought. He was flat on his back, gaunt profile taut, eyes closed. On the second song, the corner of his mouth quirked up and his body relaxed like a sigh. She sang and didn’t stop, even when his pained spasms returned, the bed rocking like remembrance of good times. She fumbled for his hand, the one without the IV that was pressed between their bodies. His fingers clenched around hers as his rasping breaths hitched, slowed, and finally gurgled away like a drain unclogging. She kept singing, finished the song, whatever it was, and then lay there feeling like an out-take from the kind of movie she never watched, the kind where someone died, and someone else watched while the music swelled and then the credits rolled. This was quiet, though, like all the sound had been siphoned out of the world, leaving her empty.
