For the third time in five minutes, I gave him the same answer: “You’re 87, mate.”
Under normal circumstances, I’d have said, “Fuck me” just loud enough for him to hear, then given him a gobful for not listening, but the gurgling rattle in his chest that hijacked each breath and overwhelmed every background beep and buzz from his bed meant I wasn’t so harsh on him this time.
“87, eh? That’s good enough for me,” he said again.
As soon as he’d wheezed those words out, his pallid, blue eyes froze and his hollow, sallow cheeks stopped still. Then the rattle disappeared.
Complete silence.
“Dad!” I screamed. “Dad!”
I was a man of 47, but I felt like a ten-year-old boy on the side of the road pleading for my father to wake up after he’d been crushed by a car.
“Dad!” I screamed once more.
Then the screen came to life again, covered by a bright pink finger, and a nurse looked into my eyes and said, “Sorry, Iain. Just a few wi-fi issues. I think we’re back on now.”
“Fuck me,” I said under my breath as I sat back down in my chair and tried to recompose myself.
My father had been poorly for more than ten years and bedridden for the last three, so I’d prepared myself for the inevitable time he passed away, but I hadn’t prepared for seeing it live through a 27-inch flat screen monitor.