Do you want his rings?

It was a question I didn't expect.

There are two of them, both gold. One, the wedding band, crosshatched with scratches. The delicate beading around the edges is almost gone, eroded away during the forty-three years of our marriage. The other is the ring I gave him for our twenty-fifth anniversary. Vous et nul autre is stamped into the bright metal in a Gothic script; old French for You and No Other.

“We can take them off,” the nurse said. “His fingers are a bit swollen, but it won’t be a problem.”

I felt lost. What was I expected to say? Don’t hurt him came to mind. Then, What will I do with them? I don’t need them. I have my own rings, that fit.

The nurses had been so kind. They’d rearranged his face, closing his eyes and settling his features into the gentleness of a peaceful death. They’d covered him with a crisp white sheet and a warm blanket of that shade of pale blue you’d wrap an infant boy in when he arrived in the world. They’d washed his body, folded his hands across his stilled heart.

“His rings?”

The nurse, a soft-voiced Nigerian man whose hair was beginning to gray, had waited like this with many others. I could see that in the way his head tilted and lines around his mouth lifted.

“Yes,” I said slowly, thinking again, Don’t hurt him. “If it’s not too much trouble.”

---

It was the second unexpected question of the night. The first was was even more disorienting.

“Is there something you’d like him to wear?” The three of us — wife, daughter, son — stared at the nurse as he stood next to the hospice bed.

To wear? To where?

“If not, we have clean pajama tops.”

“Just the tops?” It was inconceivable that my husband would go anywhere half-naked. “You don’t have any bottoms?”

---

There had to be bottoms.

For the five weeks he’d been in hospice, I’d shuttled his laundry from our house to his room. At night, I washed flannel pants, briefs, shirts and socks. I folded and stacked them, still warm from the dryer, into a paper grocery bag. Mornings, after a breakfast of coffee (with cream if I remembered to buy it) and toast with peanut butter, I’d set the bag on the passenger’s seat of the Subaru and buckle the seatbelt, securing it for the four-block drive. When I arrived, I’d lift it the way I once lifted my children, clutching it against my slippery parka along with a tote filled with whatever provisions he’d asked for the previous day.

His requests were specific: Bonne Maman apricot jam, decaf — not regular — chai tea, Ancient Grains crackers, Irish butter for the breadsticks the hospice served, chocolate and pistachio macarons. One day he might want ginger ale in six-ounce cans; two days later, it would be Sprite. It wasn’t easy to keep track of his shifting tastes and tolerances. I went from one store to another, sometimes resorting to Amazon. I looked around the room, thinking So much food. He didn’t have time to finish it.

Now that I think of it, it does seem that he was generating an unusual amount of dirty laundry. Maybe he wanted to make sure I would come back each day with soft, fragrant clothes. And the food? Perhaps he just wanted me to keep coming back.

Tops. That weren’t pajamas.

---

“How about one of his T-shirts?”

Our daughter, thirty-eight years old. Her decisive voice cut through the fog of my exhaustion.

“Great idea. Mom, why don’t you choose?” Our son, thirty-four, attuned to my fragility.

I’d brought T-shirts in rotation. He had dozens. Some were decades old. I sorted through the current stack. “This one.” I held it with my chin, and pulled out the arms so they could see.

On the front, words taken from the lyrics of “Subterranean Homesick Blues” had been arranged to form the shape of Bob Dylan’s face. Our daughter-in-law had given it to him for his birthday the previous October.

“How did you know that was my favorite Dylan song? Give me that.” I’d grabbed the shirt and began to sing. “Johnnie’s in the basement, mixing up the medicine, I’m on the pavement, thinking ‘bout the government . . .”

“Mom, stop.” They cringed — all of them! — and covered their ears. Was my voice that terrible? I knew it was. But, ouch.

“Only if you give me one for Christmas.”

My son and his wife looked at each other. Will she forget by then? Nope, was the silent conversation. Blackmail worked. I got my own.

That day, I was wearing it.

True love of mine.

We sometimes wore them on the same day, to the bemusement of the hospice staff. Did we call each other up, or were we just on the same wavelength? I held up Dylan’s face, in front of Dylan’s face.

“Now he needs bottoms. For dignity.”

I pulled a pair of black jeans from the closet.

---

He’d worn them in high school; I’d found them stashed in the basement with his senior yearbook. After three washings, the musty smell was gone. I’d brought them to the hospice and brought them out with a flourish. “Remember these?”

He set down his forkful of scrambled eggs. “I suppose you want me to wear them.”

“Not if you don’t want to.”

He heard the pleading in my voice, the Come on, it’ll be fun! that I’d heard so many times in his. I thought of how often I’d shut him down with a look.

“As you wish.”

I helped him move the bed table aside. He stood with his walker as I tugged up the jeans and buttoned them at his waist.

“They fit.” I stood back to look. “You just need a —”

I’d almost said the worst, the most thoughtless and heartbreaking thing imaginable, to someone dying of lung cancer. All you need is a white T shirt with a pack of cigarettes rolled up in your sleeve.

“ — comb and some Brylcreem.”

Had I caught myself in time?

“A little dab’ll do ya,” I added, as he pushed his walker back to the bed. I helped him sit, then sat next to him. He rubbed the back of his head, where his hair was growing back after chemo. It was coming in black and curly, where it had been light brown for most of his life.

“Think so?” His voice was serious. He seemed to be pondering. “Doubt it,” he finally said. I rolled the bed table back in front of him, so he could finish his scrambled eggs.

---

A second nurse came in, a sweet, tiny woman from India. She patted my arm.

“A good man. Very loving. We will miss him.”

I handed her the shirt.

“Oh, you two are the same today! So wonderful.”

I was grateful that she didn’t say, Did you know? That it would be today? I would not have been able to answer.

---

All morning and afternoon, the three of us sat near him in upholstered chairs as his body did the difficult work of dying. I stroked his chilled and mottled skin as he struggled. Leaning over him, I spoke directly into his ear. “It’s okay to go now,” I said, moving my hand across his shoulder. “We’ll be okay. Don’t worry about us. You’ve given us a wonderful life. We love you,” I repeated, again. Again. My daughter took over, and then my son. We took turns, each saying our words or sitting quietly, leaving the room, coming back.

Did he hear us? Medical research says that hearing is the last of the senses to go.

“Your body is doing what it needs to do. Don’t worry. You lived a good life. You’ve given us a good life. It’s okay to go. We love you.”

His face, contorted with sorrow, relaxed into as much of a smile as his pain allowed, then went back to the rigors of leaving us. So many emotions, behind his closed eyes. Fear, even terror, passed across his face. I touched his hands and feet. His soft cheeks. His forearms and legs turned increasingly blue and cold as the blood moved back to the vital organs that were keeping him alive as long as he needed them to help him complete this, his last task.

---

We took a break to order from Tea House, our favorite Chinese restaurant. The food was warm and wonderfully spicy and we were starving. We ate with chopsticks at a round table in the family lounge. How good it was to be shooed away from the suffering, as the staff brought Dilaudid and morphine and cleaned the secretions from his throat.

Back in the room, we scrolled through the family photos he’d scanned into his iPad. Look at that! Remember when? Was that at Grandma’s? Oh, my God, your hair was orange. Was that before or after it was purple? Zero. What a perfect name for that little scaredy cat.

He settled into what seemed like a calm stability. His breaths seemed lighter. Less shallow, more even.

“I think it’s okay to go home,” I said. They needed sleep, they had work tomorrow, my son’s wife was waiting for him. I walked them to the entry. Illuminated by the lights of the parking lot, angled to the west by a slight wind, a light snow was falling. It was late April.

“Can you believe it? Worst winter ever.” My daughter pulled her scarf tightly around her neck. My son did the same with his. They mimed hanging themselves.

“I’ll call if anything changes,” I said. The three of us embraced.

I strolled back to his room, three minutes after I’d left. As soon as I entered, the stillness confirmed what I knew. He was gone.

---

On the first night of his stay, I’d smuggled in an opaque bottle of premixed Old Fashioneds, with some disposable plastic glasses. It turned out that alcohol was not allowed for visitors. Patients could drink all they wanted. Old Fashioneds were his favorite. He chose not to drink alone.

My son poured. We raised our drinks.

To Dad.

Vous et nul autre.

It took about twenty minutes to pack his things into large white plastic bags. The clothing, still clean. Phone, laptop, iPad, books. School photos, framed. Slippers. I’d kept his coat there for him to wear when he recovered. When we’d leave through the hospice door, never to return. When I’d belt him into his seat, to keep him safe, even though home was only four blocks away.