Ruth didn’t go to Chicago.
Catherine called the hospice herself and canceled the transfer. She called her husband and told him to bring the kids down for the weekend. She moved into the hotel across the street. And she sat in Room 214 every day, right next to the window, holding her mother’s hand.
Grandma came every day too. I drove her. Twenty-eight miles each way, every morning at six-thirty. She’d bring a loaf of her homemade bread for the nurses and a thermos of coffee for Dr. Hale. She’d sit by the bed and talk to Ruth for hours. About Michael. About Frank. About Grace. About the cherry tree.
Kayla, the receptionist, met us at the front door the second morning. She looked like she hadn’t slept.
“Mrs. Walker,” she said. “I am so sorry. I had no idea. If I had known…”
“You were doing your job, honey,” Grandma said. “Rules are rules.”
“Not that rule,” Kayla said firmly. “Not anymore.”
She’d already added Grandma’s name to the visitor list. And mine. And under “Relationship to Patient,” she’d typed one word.
Family.
Sarah came on the third day. She was nervous. She stood in the doorway holding her belly, not sure if she should come in. Ruth saw her and held out both her thin arms.
“Come here,” Ruth whispered. “Let me feel.”
Sarah sat on the edge of the bed. She took Ruth’s hand and put it on her belly. Right where the baby had been kicking all morning.
The baby kicked.
Ruth’s whole face lit up. She laughed. A real laugh. The first one I’d heard from her.
“Oh,” she said. “Oh, he’s strong.”
“She,” Sarah said, smiling. “It’s a girl. We just found out last week.”
Ruth looked up at me. Her eyes were shining.
“A girl,” she said.
On the fourth day, the sun came out for real. The rain finally moved off to the east, and the sky was a clean, washed blue. And in the courtyard outside Room 214, on the bare branches of my grandfather’s cherry tree, little green buds had started to show.
Ruth could barely talk by then. She was sleeping most of the time. But when she was awake, she looked at that window.
That afternoon, Grandma leaned close and whispered something in her ear. I didn’t hear what it was. I’ll never know.
Ruth smiled. With her eyes closed.
Then she opened them one more time. She looked at all of us. Catherine holding her right hand. Dr. Hale holding her left. Grandma sitting by her head. Me standing at the foot of the bed, next to the window.
“Will somebody sing?” she whispered.
Nobody moved. Nobody knew what to do.
Then I started to whistle.
I’m not a good whistler. My father was. I’m not. But I whistled it anyway. Slow and shaky. The same song my father whistled every single day of his life while he worked. The same song a scared nineteen-year-old girl sang to her baby in this same room, fifty-one years before.
“Here Comes the Sun.”
Halfway through, Dr. Hale started to hum along. Then Catherine. Then Grandma, softly, in her thin old voice.
Ruth closed her eyes.
She was smiling.
She died a little after four o’clock that afternoon, with the sun coming in through the little square window and lying warm across her hands.
Ethan Blake is a skilled Creative Content Specialist with a talent for crafting engaging and thought-provoking narratives. With a strong background in storytelling and digital content creation, Ethan brings a unique perspective to his role at TheArchivists, where he curates and produces captivating content for a global audience.
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