That afternoon, Grandma leaned close and whispered something in her ear. I didn’t hear what it was. I’ll never know.
Ruth smiled. With her eyes closed.
Then she opened them one more time. She looked at all of us. Catherine holding her right hand. Dr. Hale holding her left. Grandma sitting by her head. Me standing at the foot of the bed, next to the window.
“Will somebody sing?” she whispered.
Nobody moved. Nobody knew what to do.
Then I started to whistle.
I’m not a good whistler. My father was. I’m not. But I whistled it anyway. Slow and shaky. The same song my father whistled every single day of his life while he worked. The same song a scared nineteen-year-old girl sang to her baby in this same room, fifty-one years before.
“Here Comes the Sun.”
Halfway through, Dr. Hale started to hum along. Then Catherine. Then Grandma, softly, in her thin old voice.
