Some Possible Solutions by Helen Phillips Page B

solid waste produced today: One marble-sized, green-brown.
    Description of liquid waste produced today: Two diaperfuls of dark yellow urine.
    *   *   *
    At the Vietnamese restaurant, ravenous, the four of us raise our water glasses.
    Gloriously we celebrate minuscule miracles: the consumption of over 200 calories, the emergence of a tiny turd, the upturn of half the mouth in a ghost of a smile.
    A spring roll. A vegetable pot. A peanut curry. Brown rice. All so easy to eat. We have no trouble chewing anything and no trouble swallowing it either.
    Then my father says: “No parent should have to prepare for the death of a child.”
    His head heavy in his hand, his elbows at odd angles on the table.
    A glass of beer, close to empty. The beer flat, ungolden, mostly saliva.
    My mother misplaces her expensive sunglasses at the Vietnamese restaurant. At a time like this, such a loss should be a matter of indifference, yet instead it contributes to the sensation that soon absolutely everything will be lost.
    *   *   *
    My husband and I insist on spending the night. My parents must be relieved; this is why we have come, to relieve them. The nurses wheel in a small bed. It has a pink polyester coverlet. We have to wear long sleeves to protect ourselves from the scratchiness of this coverlet. We have to sleep on top of each other. Every two hours they come in. They check the IV. They make sure she hasn’t fallen out of bed. Not that she could. It affords her a certain dignity, that they treat her as though she might be capable of propelling herself out of bed.
    Help : the lady across the hall stays up all night just to say it.
    My husband whispering: The sound of your sister’s limbs rustling against the sheet. That’s the same sound as anyone’s limbs rustling against a sheet. In the dark there’s no difference between her and you.
    This should be called the Death Care Center.
    God it’s hot in here isn’t it?
    Actually I’m cold.
    *   *   *
    The morning nurse says the night nurse said she’d never seen two such beautiful young people sleeping.
    *   *   *
    My husband and I escape to the grocery store across the highway, where we stand at the magazine rack flipping through shiny magazines, entranced by the glimmering faces. We have to rip ourselves away.
    *   *   *
    Upon our return we pass through the gauntlet of old people lined up in the hallway after breakfast.
    There go the young ones, the dead man says.
    The others nod; or perhaps they don’t. God it smells like urine.
    Maybe it is not that they are a gauntlet but rather that we are a parade.
    In my sister’s room, the sunflowers have blown over in a midmorning wind. Water all over everything. The floor treacherous. In bed, my sister kind of smiles.
    On the TV, the climax of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers . Come on, everyone! Milly—Milly’s havin’ her baby!
    *   *   *
    Helen! someone is saying out in the hallway. Helen! But this person, thank god, is not talking to me. Helen! Come back! This way! Your room is this way, not that way! Helen glides slowly past the doorway with her walker. Her head stooped over to rest atop her low breasts. She is wearing a tracksuit of forest green velveteen, a material that belongs in a fairy tale. This way, Helen! This way! I am comforted by the kindly, persistent nurse who keeps repeating my name. Bless that nurse, and bless Helen.
    *   *   *
    My father’s exhaustion expresses itself as a bony lump on each shoulder, his skeleton beginning to show.
    My mother’s exhaustion expresses itself via the capillaries in her eyes, which are, quite literally, bloodred.
    I wish they were my own two children. I would bake them pies, put them to bed.
    And the boredom. A half-teaspoon bite, wait forty-five seconds, watch for the swallow. A half-teaspoon bite, wait