When they finished feeding him broth, they changed his stained clothes by leaning him forward in bed. He was vaguely aware of what they were doing. But most of the time he was years in the past, with her. He could see her, standing beside a clothesline, smiling at him.

He felt jostled from his own memories.

It was Pete who rushed to him and embraced him. “I love you, Paul. I love you.”

Paul struggled with more words. He really worked at it this time because Pete had never showed this kind of concern before. He wanted nothing more than to set Pete’s mind at ease. To tell him it would all be okay. To reassure his family that he would pull through this and everything would work itself out. That life would go on, and nothing was ever as bad as it seemed.

But he couldn’t get any words to come out. He struggled to get his jaw open. His neck muscles trembled, and he leaned his head against the headboard. He became so frustrated with himself that he tried to writhe right out of bed. He was going to will himself to stand up by nothing but hardheadedness. That’s how he’d made it through life, after all. Stubbornness. But he couldn’t move anything in his body. Not a single muscle did what he wanted it to do.

“No, Paul,” said Vern. “Stay where you is, stay right where you is. We all right here. We love you, Paul.”

Ruth held his hand. “We love you so much, Paul.”

Miss Warner stood in the back of the room with her hands folded against herself, head down.

It was beginning to settle on Paul’s weary brain what was happening. He’d always known it would happen, of course. It happened to everyone. Paul had been thinking about it since his teens, when his father died. But he’d never thought about how it would feel. It felt ominous, and big, and kind. Whatever it was, it felt like it was washing over him like a spring rain. Then like a waterfall. Then like a landslide. Like acres of mud, grit, and earth falling upon him and enveloping him.

He tried to draw in a sharp breath but felt nothing in his lungs. He only felt hot. He decided to give it one last shot. He opened his jaw. “I-I-I,” he moaned.

One word down, fifty more to go, he thought.

“What do you need?” Ruth asked. “Do you need to use the bathroom?”

“Are you hungry?” said Pete.

Then he laughed. His laugh sounded awkward to his own ears, and all wrong. He couldn’t say what he needed to say. And there was no way it was going to happen. Not with the world falling upon him like it was.