Hidden Treasures: A Collection of Short Stories
an excerpt

Janice got into the car slowly. It was the first time she’d driven the car since her mom’s death and she wasn’t sure what would happen when she sat behind the wheel. This is silly, she thought. It wasn’t as if Mom had died in the car or something. Actually, her mom had died in bed, in her arms, of the cancer and the horrible side effects that had been riddling her body for the last year and a half. It wasn’t necessarily a peaceful death, but it was as peaceful as one could hope for given the circumstances.

Mom had wanted to die on her own time, and not at some cold, antiseptic hospital where the people were caring but didn’t really care. Mom had also wanted to be in control of her own destiny until the end, and in that she was successful. She had enrolled in a hospice program and they’d done as they’d said: they’d kept the woman comfortable but lucid for as long as was possible. The last day or so, Mom couldn’t really communicate. She couldn’t talk, and she was constantly gesturing to the ceiling, pointing up, like she wanted to sit up. Janice and Dave, her husband, had worried about having her sit on the edge of the bed, as she’d done daily for the previous two weeks. Her leg was swollen horribly, and after only a few minutes she would begin shifting, trying to find a comfortable position. But Mom had been insistent. She wanted to sit up and work her crossword puzzles.

That last day, however, she couldn’t speak; could barely moan when the pain got bad. But she could point, and point she did. After dithering for half the day, Janice had finally told her mother that as soon as Janice and her father got back from the store, she would get Dave and help her sit up. That seemed to calm the woman. Janice had run her dad to the store and when she got back she found Dave sitting in her mom’s room, holding the woman’s thin, shriveled hand.

“I told her as soon as you got back we’d sit her up,” Dave had said apologetically.

Janice had smiled. “I told her the same thing,” she assured him.

Working together, they got Mom up with a minimum of pain to the old woman. Thinking back, Janice realized that it actually was sort of peaceful. The bedroom window overlooked the back yard and was big enough to actually see all of the trees and even a little bit of the mountains. The window was open, with the warm breeze of Indian Summer wafting in and the sound of the leaves like a soft caress. It was better than the view Mom had from the bedroom in her own house, which was of antennas and power lines. The late afternoon sun spilled onto the hardwood floor, burnishing the normally yellowish wood to a golden bronze. Birds were even singing softly in background.

Dave had made sure Mom was sitting comfortably, then he went to check on Janice’s dad. Janice was sitting on the bed beside and behind her mom, supporting the woman’s frail body. From time to time she would make a comment, but her mom wouldn’t respond. It seemed all she could do to take in a full breath. Her hands worked furiously on the small table they’d set up beside the bed, plucking nervously at nothing, brushing away invisible dust, or pointing. Always the pointing. At one point Janice said, “Mom, you are sitting up! You can’t stand right now. I’m not strong enough to hold you up!”

But it didn’t last long. After about twenty minutes, the labored breathing calmed and Mom had taken a few long, deep breaths. Those slowed and her entire body relaxed into Janice’s. Janice tightened her hold and pulled the once-stiff body toward her. Her mom came unresistingly. Then her smooth head, once thick with black and grey hair, lolled back. Janice quickly cradled the back of her mother’s head in her hand, not wanting to believe that this was the end. Dave came in then and Janice’s eyes filled with tears. He hurried to the bedside and took one of the thin hands. Mom took a few more breaths and then she just stopped.

It wasn’t like in the movies where she took the last breath and then collapsed. No, it wasn’t anything so definite. She just didn’t take that next breath. Janice watched for some time, willing the woman to take another, just one more breath. But it didn’t happen. That was when the sobs hit