Read Online Before I Wake by Robert J. Wiersema - Free Book Online Page A

the head of the bed and was tracing her fingers along Sherry’s face. Tears were running steadily down her cheeks, and she was biting her lower lip.
    â€œMrs. Barrett?” he asked again.
    She nodded, unable to speak.
    â€œI’m very sorry,” he said, stepping forward and reaching for the control panel.
    His fingers had just touched it when Karen whispered, “Wait.”
    Everyone in the room turned to her.
    â€œI can’t do this. I can’t just watch this.” There was no longer any pretense of control: her face was flushed bright red, eyes swollen almost shut with tears.
    â€œDo you mean you don’t want to—”
    â€œHelp me,” she said to me. “Help me turn her over.”
    I moved to help her clear away the tubes and wires so she could reach under them to roll Sherry onto her right side. “She always sleeps on her side,” she explained tearfully.
    â€œI know,” I answered, shaking as I held the wires and tubes away from my daughter’s body like a veil.
    Karen slipped her hands under Sherry’s neck and hips and turned her on her side. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the doctor lay a restraining hand on the nurse’s arm as she started forward.
    Karen carefully arranged Sherry’s legs, drawing them upward slightly, curling her like a comma, smoothing back her hair again and whispering, “I love you, baby,” into her ear.
    I hoped she could hear.
    I hoped she couldn’t.
    I was about to lower the weight of tubes and wires, the weight of my daughter’s life, when Karen touched my arm. She had kicked off her shoes. Instead I raised them a little higher as she lowered the rail and slipped into the narrow bed with our daughter.
    I draped my burden over both of them. Karen nestled herself around Sherry’s tiny, still body, cradling her, and buried her face in the soft, bed-pressed hair below the edge of the bandages. Her body was racked with silent sobs.
    I rested my hand on Karen’s shoulder more for my own good than hers and looked across the bed at the doctor.
    Our eyes met, and I nodded just once.
    He stepped to the machine and, with the touch of one finger, turned it off.
    KAREN
    She was so small, so light, it was like she wasn’t even there. Like I was holding, trying to hold, a handful of rain.
    I could feel her breath, the steady rise and fall of it under my hand, the steady warmth of her…
    Thou shalt not grow cold
    The smell of her, her shampoo…
    May God bless and keep you always
    Her breath…
    I whispered in her ear, where only she could hear me…
    Now I lay me down to sleep
    A breath.
    And then nothing.
    I pray the Lord my soul to keep
    I heard her saying it along with me, felt her arms around my neck as I kissed her good night, pulling the covers up to her chin.
    Felt her chest stop rising in mid-breath.
    And if I die before I wake
    Felt the soft rain of her heartbeat under my hand stop, like a passing summer storm.
    I pray the Lord my soul to take
    Nothing.
    It was as if I could actually feel the life pass out of her, a motion of breath, of wings, an actual physical presence I wanted to catch.
    If only…
    Was she cold? Already?
    It seemed so soon…
    Too soon…
    I tightened my arms around her, pulling her to me, trying to pull her back inside me, where I could protect her, where I could keep her warm and safe.
    I would not let her go.
    I would not let her go.
    I would like to start again.
    I wanted that moment back, the moment that the truck pulled her away from me, the moment that I let her go…
    In my arms, her chest fell, and I could hear the breath, her last breath, escaping from her.
    Could I catch it?
    No.
    Just let it go.
    May angels guide you
    And then her chest rose. There was a wheeze as she breathed against the pressure of the machine, against the tubes in her mouth and nose.
    I could feel her heart.
    Beating.
    Beating again?
    Another breath.
    And then