The headlights picked out the dark dirt road as the car rumbled past the unlit cabins. She didn’t see the road, or the cabins for that matter. The smell of her father’s room at the nursing home, the lights that never turned off and the steady purr of the life support equipment; that was all she was aware of.

As her father’s breathing became more desperate in the small hours of the night, so did she. It was all she could think of. His death. The end.

She hated the dull eyes of the nurses who mechanically came and turned him, pouring more numbing poison into his veins. They couldn’t care. They had to perform the same tasks of mercy for five other patients in the ward.

The sound of the wheels churning the dirt changed to the softer grind of loose sand. She stopped the car and looked out.

She stared ahead at the silver light of the moon dancing a macabre tango across the lake. A few boats dipped and swayed, tugging at their moorings. It was the end of their line. Held to their position by an immoveable force, the boats would not depart. If only the tether holding her father to this earth were that strong.

The loss of her father was unthinkable. But it was happening. That had finally sunk into her stunned mind tonight, as she held his hand. The blue tint to his paper-thin skin and rattle deep in his chest had awoke a tiny persistent voice, “This is it. He wont be coming home anymore.” After listening to the voice for nameless hours, she had fled the Home and drove here.

The family cabin was only a half-mile from the beach. She had thought to go there to think. But, she hadn’t stopped, lost in the never-ending and losing argument,

“He’s dying.”
“He can’t die.”
“Of course he can die. He’s human.”
“He’s my dad…he can’t die.”

The eerie cry of a loon echoed over the water as a frustrated tear slipped down her cheek. She climbed out of the car. Blindly she began to walk the length of the sandy beach. The water lapped incessantly, dragging her mind from its battle of death to memories of sun and laughter.

It was here that he showed her how to hold her breath. It was here he picked her up when she twisted her ankle wrestling with her older brother. Here that they twirled sparklers during Fourth of July celebrations. Here that he had held her when her first boyfriend had found somebody new. Always here. Here with her and here for her.

Her feet crunched something, jerking her back to the present. She stared down and found the bones of a small fish under her heel. The white skeleton depicted in sharp relief against the darker sand of the beach. The single dead fish was alone on the vast beach. It had died alone. Alone.

Her thoughts wandered to the rest of her family. Her brother lived in Texas now. He had his two children and a demanding wife. His job had prevented him from helping much with her father’s illness. Dad’s brothers and sisters had all died during the past decade, from various age related reasons. Mom had left them all a very long time ago.

She looked up and saw a lightening of the sky over the tops of the trees. Dawn. The water had subsided from its night ripples, leaving only a grey glass top to the lake. Occasionally she would see the wake of a water skate in the shallows. In the black of the near-dawn shadows a heron launched, it’s feet trailing behind as its massive wings heaved itself from the reeds.

She watched the majestic bird disappear over the shadowed treetops and felt some of her forgotten youth depart with it. The loon cried again. A piercingly lonely call. No other loon called back.

It shattered upon her. Alone and lost she felt her heart let go. Sobbing, she sank to the sand as the grey pre-dawn slowly took on the brighter hues of daylight. She cried for the little girl that no longer had her Daddy. She cried for the summer nights that would never come. She cried all the tears she couldn’t while she held Dad’s hand.

Then, through the haze of her grief she felt the pager buzz. The night nurse had given it to her, just in case. Her heart stopped. As panic made her hands shake, she dialed the number five times. At last it connected.

“It’s time to come back, ma’am. His breathing is shallower.”

“I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

She closed the phone, sat back on her heels and considered. She might be alone, but her father would not die that way. As she walked back to the car, the thought became a vow.

Determined to be there in time, she drove with no regard to stop lights or speed limits. If she could do just one thing for her father, it would be this.

She ran back into his room. The machines still whirred, the lights were still on, and it still smelled of near death. A sigh of relief and pain escaped her lips.

She saw his eyes were open. Clouded with the mist of a dying man, they still saw her. A smile touched his lips. “I was worried about you,” he said.

She smiled back. A smile that reached her sore heart. “There’s nothing to worry about, Daddy. I’m here.”