The following morning brought a sudden, drenching rain that turned the ground between the house and the barn into a muddy quagmire. Robin smoked on the porch while Peter got his coffee from the kitchen. He chose not to penetrate the silence that grew between them, but stared morosely out the window and then went back into his mother’s room to sit with her for a while as she slept.

Peter accepted the inevitability of death. He had a dangerous job. As an Airborne Ranger he’d trained hard and his work required him to test the edge of his abilities and his luck all the time. When Peter pictured his death it came quickly, whether he was smashed at the bottom of a bad jump or killed by an enemy combatant. He never imagined the simple slowing of time and collapsing of reality until he would face it alone at the end of an oxygen tube, waiting as he died by inches.

Something about his mother’s fragile body made him want to hold her hand or sweep her hair back off her face; things he hadn’t done comfortably since he was in elementary school. With a shock he realized he was mimicking the way she’d touched him back then, when she sat at his bedside countless nights to read him a story or reminisce about his father. He pulled his hands back and wiped them on his jeans.

“Back in a bit,” he told her, uselessly. She gave no sign at all that she’d heard him. He left the door slightly ajar behind him and bolted down the stairs, meeting a surprised Robin coming up.

“Peter?” Robin pressed himself against the wall to let Peter go by.

Peter had momentum and he let it carry him past the startled man and through the kitchen to the back porch, stopping only to grab the keys to the truck off the hook by the door. Once he was in the cab he shook his wet hair and sat for a minute. He wished he’d brought his damned cigarettes.

The passenger door opened and Robin climbed in.

“Who’s taking caring of my mother?”

“Lyndee’s with her. She told me to follow you.”

Peter looked out the window. “Great.”

“She was worried about you.”

“It’s mom she should be worried about.” Robin offered Peter a cigarette, and he took it.

“Peter you know there isn’t anything—”

“I know.” Robin lit up and held out the flame.

Peter held Robin’s hand steady and took a drag. “Aren’t you afraid if you touch me people will see?”

“Fuck you, man.” Peter slouched behind the wheel making no move to start up the engine. “A lot of conditioning went into what I did last night. I didn’t even think. It was a reflex.”

Smoke filled the cab until Peter cracked the window on his side. Robin was silent for a long time. “I know that.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I hate that shit.”

“I said I’m sorry.”

“You going to run away again?” Robin asked, his hand on the door handle.

“No.” Peter sat with his arms folded. “But I wanted to be someplace where I could.”

“Come in. I’ll get you breakfast. One time only offer, lots of coffee.”

Peter looked up to see Robin’s eyes on him, and they made him ache inside. He longed to grab that shaggy head and pull it in for a kiss, to feel that hard body

next to his. Robin was oddly familiar, as if their shared history with his mother gave them a deep and meaningful connection and it comforted him.

“That’s twice you’ve made that one time only offer.”

“Trying to throw you a lifeline, soldier man.”

Peter ground his cigarette out in the truck’s pull-out ashtray. “Thanks.”

Peter watched as Robin re-entered the house by the porch door. He’d lost his chance to leave with no regrets the first time Robin smiled at him. He got out of the truck and palmed the keys, running between fat drops of rain back toward the very place he’d planned to run away from.

The rest of that day passed with Robin and Peter coming and going from his mother’s bedroom. She seemed further subdued than she’d been as recently as the night before. Robin kept the lights dim. No one spoke above a whisper.

At one point he got up to leave for a breath of air. She caught Peter’s hand in hers and gave it a squeeze. He looked down at her to find the familiar, intelligent light in her eyes.

“You guys are giving me the creeps,” she told him, quite clearly.

“What?” His heart slammed against his ribs.

“It’s as if you’re putting on a play. Like it’s my deathbed scene but none of it feels real to me.”

Peter sat down in the bedside chair, afraid his knees might buckle. “I’m sorry.”

“Why is everything so unnatural?” she demanded.

Peter looked up at Robin helplessly. He didn’t want his mother agitated.

Robin came to his side, leaning over her and grinning. “Are you giving Peter a hard time? He came here all this way to see you.”

“Did you jump out of the plane Petey? Did you land on Lyndee’s house with your parachute?”

“Sorry.” Peter swallowed the lump in his throat. “Maybe next time.”

After that exchange Shelley needed to rest for a while. She went back to fussing with the fabric next to her skin and trying to push the bedding off her body. Her mouth fell open again and her shoulders pulled up as her chest rose and fell.

“What’s happening?” Peter asked, watching her.

Robin pulled a second chair to Shelley’s bedside, leaning forward to speak into Peter’s ear.

“She’ll come and go, in and out of consciousness. Part of that is due to the drugs. Part is how her body is going to shut down. It will happen slowly, gradually, fading in and out.”

“I wasn’t prepared for this.”

“I know.” Robin leaned back. “I’m sorry, I know.”

Peter looked into Robin’s sympathetic brown eyes. Years of conditioning kept him from reaching for the physical comfort he knew he’d find in Robin’s touch.

Robin stood and drew the cool sheet up over Shelley’s chest for modesty’s sake, although Shelley tried to push it away. She fought everything that touched her skin and struggled for each breath.

“You need to talk to her, Peter. Hearing is the last of her senses that will leave her. She’d like to hear your voice.”

Peter was aghast. In the best of times he’d had little to say to his mother. He’d phoned her often and at great length, rarely going more than a few days without one of their marathon calls, at least when he was stateside, but he had hardly spoken the entire time. What was he supposed to say now?

“Hi Mom,” he ventured, surprised to see his mother physically drift toward the sound of his voice. Her mouth hung open and her chest worked. He tried

again. “I went to town yesterday for a battery and some tires for the Road Runner. Hadleyville hasn’t changed much.”

His mother’s mouth closed and she snorted through her nose. “Bet not.”

Encouraged, Peter sat on the edge of her bed again, wincing when she seemed to react to the dip in the mattress with a small cry. Robin sat down on her other side.

“Sorry,” he murmured.

“It’s nothing,” his mother got out. She wasn’t quick to speak, but it didn’t take long before he realized she was listening.

Robin spoke. “My Shelley is reenacting ‘Once Upon a Mattress’.”

Shelley chuckled. “The princess and the pea.” That seemed to cost her, and she took deep breaths for a while. “No wind.”

Peter picked up her hand, which seemed soft and impossibly fragile. “No worries.”

Shelley focused her eyes on him. “Are you shocked by my nudipants?”

Peter blinked. “Yes.”

She gave a thin chuckle. “Robin doesn’t mind.”

Peter looked up at Robin, who shrugged.

“I can’t seem to interest him.” Shelley sighed, and Peter didn’t know whether she was joking or not.

“How could I ever be worthy of you,” Robin teased gently.

“I see where your interest lies.” Shelley squeezed Robin’s hand, then Peter’s.

“Mom—”

“My deathbed scene. I direct.” His mother took a deep breath and Peter looked up at Robin, who frowned and shrugged again as though he didn’t know what Shelley was up to. “When the hell are you planning to tell me?” Shelley looked him straight in the eye.