I’m sorry, Judy. I couldn’t help any of it ever since you’ve known me. Read my mind, Judy. I can’t tell you. I’m so worn out. They keep cutting on me and I don’t know what’s left. I punished you because I couldn’t reward you. I have figured that out too late. I wanted you to take care of me. Now look. Whose fault is it, after all? Not yours. I wish you would hold my hand.

Hammer sat in the same chair and watched her husband of twenty-six years. His hands were tethered to his sides so he would not pull out the tube in his trachea. He was on his side, his color deceivingly good and not due to anything he was doing for himself but to oxygen, and she found this ironically typical. Seth had been drawn to her because of her strength and independence, then had hated her for the way she was. She wanted to take his hand, but he was so fragile and inflexible and trussed up by tubes and straps and dressings.

Hammer leaned close and rested her hand on his forearm as his dull eyes blinked and stared and looked sleepy and watery. She was certain that at a subconscious level he knew she was here. Beyond that, it was improbable much registered. Scalpels and bacteria had ravaged his buttocks and now were fileting and rotting his abdomen and thighs. The stench was awful, but Hammer did not really notice it anymore.

“Seth,” she said in her quiet, commanding voice. “I know you may not hear me, but on the off chance you can, I want to tell you things. Your sons are on their way here. They should arrive sometime late this afternoon and will come straight to the hospital. They are fine. I am hanging in there. All of us are sad and sick with worry about you.”

He blinked, staring. Seth did not move as he breathed oxygen and monitors registered his blood pressure and pulse.

“I have always cared about you,” she went on. “I have always loved you in my own way. But I realized long ago that you were attracted to me so you could change me. And I was drawn to you because I thought you’d stay the same. Rather silly, now that I look at it.” She paused, a flutter around her heart as his eyes stared back at her. “There are things I could have done better and differently. I must forgive you, and I must forgive myself. You must forgive me and you must forgive yourself.”

He didn’t disagree with this and wished he could somehow indicate what he thought and felt. His body was like something unplugged, broken, out of batteries. He flipped switches in his brain and nothing happened. All this because he drank too much in bed while playing with a gun to punish her.

“We go on from here,” Chief Judy Hammer said, blinking back tears. “Okay, Seth? We put this behind us and learn from it. We move ahead.” It was hard to talk. “Why we got married isn’t so important anymore. We are friends, companions. We don’t exist to procreate or perpetuate endless sexual fantasies for each other. We’re here to help each other grow old and not feel alone. Friends.” Her hand gripped his arm.