The Name He Wrote on the Line

“My son does,” Ron said.

She smiled a little at that, the way people do when they have seen a lot of families in a lot of hospital rooms.

She set her bag on the windowsill and took out a record book and a stamp.

“Before we do anything,” she said, “I need to ask you some questions, and I need to see your ID. I’m not allowed to notarize anything unless I’m satisfied you know what you’re signing and that you want to sign it.”

“Fair enough,” Ron said.

His billfold was in my purse, where I had put it Monday morning along with his watch and his reading glasses. I got it out and handed his driver’s license to Kim, and Brian watched me do it.

Kim looked at the license and then at Ron, and wrote in her book. “Can you tell me your full name?”

“Ronald Wayne Larkin.”

“And where are you right now?”

“The hospital. Fourth floor. I’ve got a brand-new set of plumbing and a nurse who won’t give me any salt.”

“What’s today’s date, as near as you can tell me?”

He thought about it. “Thursday. It’s February. The nineteenth? Surgery was Monday, so it’s the nineteenth.”

“That’s right,” Kim said. She glanced at the rest of us. “Is anyone pressuring you to sign anything today, Mr. Larkin?”

“Just my cardiologist,” Ron said, “about the salt.”

Brian almost smiled. I saw it. Then it was gone.

“I’d be glad to step out,” I told Kim. “If you’d rather talk to him alone.”

Ron shook his head before she could answer. “No. She stays. He stays. Everybody can hear this.”

Kim nodded and took the papers from Brian, and Brian put them on the hospital clipboard and handed it to his father, and Ron settled it on his lap over the blanket, propped up against the pillows in his gown.

The afternoon light came in low and white through the window. It was the flat kind of winter light you get in Oklahoma in February, a hard pale blue over the last of Tuesday’s snow, with a wind that never stops.

The heart monitor kept up its little green line beside him. I remember that I could hear it, every beat, and that I counted them without meaning to.

Kim went through it page by page in plain words. “This is a durable power of attorney. Whoever you name as your agent can handle your money and pay your bills, and act on your property, including your house, if you can’t. It doesn’t change who owns any of it. It stays in effect even if you become incapacitated. Do you understand that?”

“I understand it.”

“The agent named here is Brian Larkin.” She turned to the first page and pointed with the cap of her pen. “Is that who you want to act for you, Mr. Larkin?”

Ron did not answer right away.

He looked at the page for a long time. Then he looked up at his son, standing at the foot of the bed in his quarter-zip with the folder and his spare copy, frowning down at the blanket the way he used to frown at math homework.

Then Ron looked at me.

I did not say anything. I did not nod. I did not shake my head.