Kill Floor

I needed a tampon. My father was dead. I called my mother. She gave the phone to my sister. “Dad died,” I said. I wanted my sister to accept our father not as a father but as a person. I wanted him to have been a better father to both of us. I wanted us to be a family who united in grief. I wanted coffee. “Okay,” she said.

We ended the call. I put my hair up, packed a shitload of tampons and ibuprofen. My mother arrived. I broke in two. Half went to my mother: a man who ruined her life was gone. Half went to my father: a victim of his own poor choices. A smoker. Lung cancer. My mother used to smoke too. I told my husband I was ready to leave, told my mother I’d check in on my daughter later in the morning. My husband drove. I called my father’s brothers and sisters, some of whom answered and who were sad with me. I needed the sadness.  

The caregiver shift change at my father’s house happened at 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. He died at 5:45 a.m., and the new caregiver arrived unaware. She’d been a regular. She knew my dad for the three weeks of his dying, when his entire personality was a raspy voice and card games to pass the time. She hugged me. I peeked around her. The hospice nurse held his wrist and took his non-pulse. My aunt walked in the door—I’d left it open. More hugs. Quiet. My father was stretched out on his hospice bed in a stained white t-shirt and underwear, one stiff knee up in the air, eyes closed, mouth half open, head cocked back, chest up as though someone had tied a string around his upper body, tried to pull but failed.

Funeral home bodies are prepared and painted to be alive but asleep. Palatable. This was real death with no cover. His skin was white as the bedsheets.    

“Honey,” said the hospice nurse. “Do you want a moment?”

My aunt dabbed her eyes. My husband leaned against the counter. Do I want a moment? With my father’s dead body? No, I don’t want a fucking moment with my father’s dead body. My cramps went to an 11. “I’m good,” I said, turning my head. “I’m good. I’m good. Good. Good.” The nurse asked if I was sure. “Good,” I said.

I went into the kitchen. Hospice, i.e., your project coordinator, wants a funeral home on file so they can make the call when the time comes. The funeral home staff shows up with a gurney on which you will load your dead father and take him to the crematorium. The hospice nurse let me know that the Waverly Brothers were on their way. I put my hands on the counter and squeezed my eyes shut. Cramps. Cramps. After my daughter was born, my period was casual, light. Friendly. After I turned forty, it got nasty and unpredictable again. Everything swelled. Cramps became a three-ibuprofen-every-four-hours event. It was a kill floor.

I stood at the kitchen counter and then I felt it. A subtle yet obvious gush. A fuck you. I crossed my legs, grabbed my bag, excused myself to the bathroom, but not the hall bathroom because my dad had collapsed there last night. Bad energy. You can’t change your tampon in the bathroom where your dad fell off the toilet and into the tub because the mass in his chest probably exploded. My mouth dropped. I had bled all the way through the tampon, all the way through the pad I’d put in my underwear in case the tampon failed, all the way through my underwear into my shorts. I peeled off my underwear, shoved them in my purse pocket, and swapped out the tampon. The last time I’d bled through to my shorts was in high school when I moved into my dad’s house to get away from my stepfather. High school was when my dad had thousands of beers in his fridge that he let me drink once in a while. High school was when my dad and I sort of got okay for a bit. Then I noticed the laundry basket.

My dad had lost so much weight, I’d purchased several pairs of sweatpants and shorts for him. My 6’ 4” father who once topped off at 210 was now in a baggy men’s medium. I picked up a pair of clean black sweatshorts with a drawstring. I keyed in on a box of disposable underwear compliments of hospice. Heavy absorbency. Running short on time, I put on the disposable underwear and my dad’s shorts and went back into the living room. The Waverly’s had arrived.  

The Waverly’s were the tallest men I’ve ever met. I pulled my drawstring up on the cheap pants. We chatted about how their dad was a funeral home director and now they run the funeral home. Their voices were calming, low, as if the living room, now full of bright sunlight (why, my dad often asked, would a person spend money on curtains when the natural cycle of the sun was a curtain) was theirs. All four of them—the hospice nurse, the caregiver, and the two men—lifted my dad off the hospice bed and onto the gurney.

The Waverlys asked me if I wanted to walk out with the body. They asked if they should pull the sheet back so I could see his face. Like, please everyone, stop asking me if I want to gaze upon my dead father. The sun was up now. People in my father’s retirement community were out walking. Garage doors were up, golf carts packed. The Waverlys closed the van, nodded. My husband and my aunt and I, in my father’s disposable hospice underwear and his black drawstring shorts, stood in the driveway watching the van go until it turned the corner. My husband gave me a funny look. “Did you change?” he asked.

“Nevermind,” I said.

Back inside, I peeled the DNR off his refrigerator and opened the door like it was time for breakfast. Yesterday, less than 24 hours ago, I filled new droppers with morphine and Ativan. Caregivers were not allowed to set meds, just administer them, and we’d gotten a new shipment. My dad was in good spirits yesterday. We sat at the table. The hospice nurse listened to his breathing, wrinkled her nose a bit. After she checked his vitals—which other than the gurgling lungs were good and normal—he stood up, said he was tired, and laid down on his hospital bed. I asked her what she thought. She said weeks. Maybe two. But she used the word weeks, not days. Not hours. Not minutes. Weeks. Hypervigilance when one’s father is dying is exhausting. Weeks. I let that roll around in my brain.

From his hospice bed, he called out. The caregiver said she’d check on him. I stood in the kitchen, filled the droppers, made notes on the med chart in case whoever showed up that night was new. My father was to receive his morphine and Ativan through his feeding tube because he was refusing to take it orally. I filled droppers with Ativan. Night reports said he wasn’t sleeping so they told me I could fill the syringes to the max dosage for night. I counted the vials, double checked all the amounts were correct. When I left for the night, he was dozing in his bed, and an hour after I got home, I got the call he collapsed in the hall bathroom. Now hospice was telling me that they wouldn’t take back the meds. I’d touched the meds. Handled the meds. Dosed the meds. Also, don’t throw meds in the trash. Also, don’t flush the meds. One trick is to use a chuck (an absorbent pad). Empty all the vials into the chuck, the hospice nurse told me with her bag over her shoulder. She wished me good luck. She told me again she was sorry.  

I pulled everything out of the fridge, all the vials I’d fixed up yesterday. I put gloves on because you don’t want the morphine touching your skin—God forbid you get any pain relief yourself—and started emptying all the liquid into a chuck. One after another. Open, pour. Open, pour. The caregiver left. I promised I’d make sure she got paid for the day. Open, pour. The morphine would take away my cramps. Ativan for the crushing anxiety of this entire day, week, month, life. My phone rang. I answered. He’s dead, I had to tell them. His remaining friends he hadn’t alienated. An old girlfriend. Dead, dead. Open, pour. Phone. Dead. The Ativan teased. Just a little, it said. Just, take the edge off. Pour, pour, pour. I poured the last one.