I run my hand along the wall of the dark hallway. At the end is a dim light and a mostly closed door. I’m nervous as I peek inside, not sure what it is I’m hearing. The room is lit with just a single lamp beside the bed. And I smile when I spy Doris dancing in a long red scarf. She watches herself in the mirror and hums something like a two-step.
She is tethered by a long tube attached to a much bigger oxygen machine than what she uses in the living room. It bubbles and vibrates against the floor.
In the dark, she can pretend the tubes aren’t there. The dark hides her sharp shoulder blades and collarbone. Hides the clumsiness of her steps, how each sway is nearly a stumble.
She hums quick-quick, slow-slow.
I imagine the scene Doris might see in her mind—a smoky room at the old VFW before it closed down, the dance hall decorated with streamers, men leaning against the wall. Maybe Mr. Golden when he was still someone she could love. Maybe someone she overlooked.
I find I am swaying to her song in the hallway. My body feels good, loose. For a moment, Doris interrupts the rhythm to gasp for breath. I am about to intervene when she begins to hum again, flirting with the mirror. She grabs a strand of beads and pulls them over her head, still dancing. Quick-quick, slow-slow.
I step just inside the door. The room smells sour.
“You’re a beautiful dancer,” I say softly.
The humming stops, and I wish I hadn’t spoken.
“Too much wine,” she says, removing the scarf and letting it fall to her dresser.
“Maybe we should drink wine more often,” I say.
She rests on the unmade bed.
“Will you sit for a moment?” she asks.
I balance clumsily next to her. The cord that crosses from her nose to the machine is cold where it touches my skin. Her neck pulses, the two-step still moving through her.
“You’ll make me look pretty, I hope,” she says.
She touches the plastic beads on her necklace.
“I will,” I say.
“My hair used to look better than this,” she says and feels the frayed bangs sticking out the front of her knit cap. “It grew back as someone else’s hair. Dark and wavy. It was never dark or wavy.”
She removes the hat, which falls to her lap.
“I have curlers,” I say. “Blow-dryers, hair spray. A regular beauty salon.”
“You’ll see my scar,” she says. “I’ve always been ashamed of it.”
I hold her knotted hand.
“I should have danced more,” she says. “I should have worn my good jewelry. I kept waiting for a special occasion.”
She coughs, so little wind moving in or out. She touches her chest as if to find air.
“I should have stood up more for Robert,” Doris says, turning to me. “He was such a bright boy. He could have finished high school in Petroleum.”
“Except he ran away,” I say but regret sharing the gossip I knew.
“No,” Doris says. “I didn’t know how to protect him so I bought a ticket to the West Coast and drove him to Agate to board the bus. At the time it made sense.”
We sit, holding hands in the dark.
“I’m afraid,” she whispers.
I don’t tell her that I am, too.
The machine rumbles through my socks to my knees. I watch Doris work the fingers of her other hand into the green knitted cap. The wine has turned tart in the back of my throat.
“Ma? Mary?”
Doris places her other hand on top of ours and taps softly. Then she takes the oxygen from her nose and sets the end of it on the bed, where it wheezes against the covers.
Robert’s voice comes closer, down the hallway. “Is everything all right?”
“Yes,” I say.
I help Doris stand and replace the warm cap, adjust it a little. I leave the beads around her neck.
“I wonder if it will be like sleep,” she says.
We take slow steps through the hallway, back to the living room, my hand on her ridged spine. Out the window, snow falls like we’re inside one of those toy globes.
“I wonder if I’ll see the blizzard,” she says settling back into the chair.
Robert helps to connect her tubes. I put a pillow behind her. We do this without speaking. Only the sound of our breath together, the fire crackling, snow patting the window.
Robert settles back on his pillow in front of the fire. His leather jacket is thrown over the couch, and I lay my head against it. Inhale. It smells pungent, like mink oil. I pretend the jacket is his chest I’m lying against, that I’m sliding my fingers gently against him, feeling for the scar.
One by one, we fall asleep, me last of all as I blink about the room filled with burnt logs, wine, wet clothes, and the dark sweet smell of a life near its end.