Her Long Illness

Daybreak until nightfall, he sat by his wife at the hospital while chemotherapy dripped through the catheter into her heart. He drank coffee and read the Globe. He paced; he worked on poems; he rubbed her back and read aloud. Overcome with dread, they wept and affirmed their love for each other, witlessly, over and over again. When it snowed one morning Jane gazed at the darkness blurred with flakes. They pushed the IV pump which she called Igor slowly past the nurses' pods, as far as the outside door so that she could smell the snowy air.