“Treeline”

Treeline by Glenn Sloves

Copyright 2021

For Wally, July 9, 1933 to February 5, 2020.

“I wish you a long life, Glenn. Not 96 years. I’ve lived too long – 86 is a good number,”  Enid Charen

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

Routine. This whole damn place was one big routine. Wake up, eat, take medicine, watch CNN, eat, take medicine, play cards, eat, take medicine, watch CNN, sleep. Oh, and go to the bathroom. How could he forget about going to the bathroom? Albert hated being predictable. Life was in the unexpected. Grey hair and hemorrhoids were the expected, if you lived long enough.

Albert wasn’t normally this bitter. He didn’t typically view life through an abraised lens, but his daughter Audra was coming in from California today, and that put him on edge. Under normal conditions, Albert had a funny humor about him. People often noted the smirk on his wrinkled face, an old man having a humorous conversation with himself. Walking past him with their walkers or canes, residents often wondered if he was alright in his head.  His smirks, though, were just self-contained humor. That’s what he told people when they asked what he was smirking about. “If I have to explain it to you, you won’t find it as funny as I do and then it won’t be funny to me either.  It’s better that you don’t know,” he’d say. His wife stopped asking about his smirks when they were dating, and after 59 years of marriage Beverly figured she knew what his smirk meant maybe three times. Three out of five million, she figured. But that was under normal conditions. Nothing was normal about today.

Routines had advantages too, though, he had to admit. Albert stood behind his apartment door. The door was cracked open just an inch. He was waiting for Phil, his across-the-hall neighbor, to leave his apartment for the morning. Phil would be going up to the 3rd floor to spend the rest of the morning watching CNN with his ‘special lady friend’ Betty, as he did every morning.  That’s what they called it here at Evergreen.  ‘My special lady friend,’ or ‘my special gentleman friend.’ Albert figured they were more like substitute teachers. They had their lesson plans from years ago, but weren’t comfortable and familiar with any of the students in the classroom, weren’t committed to their long-term success.  They were just keeping one another in their seats until the bell rang at the end of the school day.  After 59 years of marriage, Albert couldn’t imagine for a second, not even for a rapid tachycardia heart beat, getting involved with another woman. He just wanted Beverly, even if he could only have her for another couple of seconds.  

Phil exited his apartment and left the door unlocked, as he always did. D’ondra, the cleaning woman, wasn’t expected until after lunch. Albert stepped out of his apartment, looked left and right, even though he knew damn well no one would be walking down this hall at this moment, and walked into Phil’s apartment.

It was a mess, “a pigsty,” Beverly would have called it. And it was dark. Phil kept his window shades closed all day long, even though his side of the building got the morning sun. What a waste, Albert said to himself. What’s the point of living on the eastern side of the building if you’re not going to enjoy the morning sun? Blocking out the sun was the same as moving the hour hand forward on a clock, just pushing the day forward into night.  Phil’s dining room table was scattered with a week’s worth of The Denver Post. An unfinished bowl of Cheerios left a soggy milk stain on yesterday’s edition. Drops of Sanka instant decaf coffee trailed from the newspaper onto the table, the dining room chair, and then disappeared. No doubt in Albert’s mind that those Sanka drops continued onto whatever stained shirt Phil was wearing today, like brown drops of blood. Old blood, depleted of oxygen. Decaf blood. What was the point?

He walked into Phil’s bathroom, snatched a 20-pack of adult diapers, and then hurried back to return to his own apartment. A quick glance left and right. No one was expected down this hallway, though, not this hallway, not at 10:17 a.m. Not on a Tuesday. Monday, Tuesday. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. What difference did it make? Every day was the same here at Evergreen Senior Living Center. He’d be as surprised to see someone rolling along down this hallway clutching their walker for dear life, same as he would if he saw the Colorado Rockies World Series parade coming down the hallway. Routines. He stood for a moment inside his own apartment and put the package of diapers on his kitchen counter.  He went back into Phil’s apartment and threw open the living room window shades. Sunlight bounced into the room. He walked back to his own apartment.

Phil’s family arranged for Amazon to send monthly supplies of Tena ProSkin Protective Underwear For men. They came in packages of twenty, and Phil received ten packs a month.  Two hundred diapers a month. Amazon delivered in a 24-inch cubed box, and Phil’s wasn’t the only monthly delivery of diapers to Evergreen. Damn, Jeff Bezos could be a billionaire just selling diapers to old people, Albert figured.  At roughly one dollar a diaper, Phil’s family was in for $200 a month. Call it $2,500 a year. That, multiplied by the number of incontinent people.…  Well, you can do the math. Albert smirked every time he saw one of the those 24-inch cubed boxes at someone’s apartment door. It was one of those private smirks that Beverly would have guessed at incorrectly. Yup, Bezos could be a billionaire just by peddling adult diapers.

But Albert would be damned if he was going to spend dime one on diapers. Tena ProSkin Protective Underwear For Men. For g-d’s sakes, he thought. It’s a damn diaper! Call it what it is. Albert just had a few drops of urine leak out when he sat down, or when he coughed, or when he sneezed. Or when he laughed, which these days wasn’t very often at all.  There was no way he was going to help Bezos get rich and have his delivery boys leave a 24-inch corrugated cube in his doorway. Not like half the people in this place. His bladder was no one’s business but his own. Bezos may as well attach July Fourth sparklers to the boxes to announce what was inside. Albert had lived 86 years without stealing a penny from anyone. I guess swiping a 20-pack of Tena ProSkin Protective Underwear For Men from Phil every couple of weeks wasn’t going to amount to much in the grand tally of things, he figured. They’re diapers, damn it.  Just call them what they are. We start off in diapers, and we end up in diapers, and that was the ugly truth of life. It was a circle, and if you lived long enough you caught up to yourself.  And as soon as you caught up to yourself, the first thing you did was put on a diaper. Unless you dropped dead in your fifties sitting behind your desk. But that was no good either. His son David was 54 now. It was heartbreaking to think of his own son not making it to the same age he was now. Eighty six seemed like a good number to Albert, diapers be damned.  

They were pull-ups. Albert sat on the side of his bed and untied his shoe laces. His feet were swollen and tight in his shoes because his legs were retaining fluid, a result of a recent diagnosis of kidney dysfunction. Dr. Marius prescribed a diuretic to help reduce the fluid from building up inside his body. “There’s only one way to get fluid out of the body,” Dr. Marius had explained. And that’s when Albert had become a diaper thief. Not exactly Bernie Madoff, but Albert did feel bad about stealing from his neighbor.  

Albert was proud of the fact that he could still tie and untie his own shoes. A lot of Evergreeners couldn’t do it. Either their spines were too stiff and painful and they couldn’t bend forward enough to reach their shoe laces, or their fingers hurt too much from arthritis. Or they had neuropathy in their fingers from diabetes and just didn’t have the fine motor coordination anymore. That’s what the physical therapists called it. Fine motor coordination. Or maybe their balance was terrible, even sitting down, and they’d just fall off the side of the bed and break a hip if they tried to reach their own shoes. Or cataracts and glaucoma fogged their vision and they couldn’t see all the way down to their own shoes. The list of reasons why Evergreeners couldn’t do something as simple as tie their own shoes was endless; not much got simpler with age. Albert had a mild case of cataracts, (who the hell didn’t at 86), but he could still see his feet.  

It was easy to tell who the residents were that could no longer tie their own shoes. They were the residents with the velcro shoe straps.  Everyone who lived at the Evergreen Senior Living Center was called an Evergreener, as if their last name was legally changed when they moved in.  “And this is Albert and Beverly Evergreener,” he could hear the activity director announce at the monthly New Move-In Meet and Greet. Like hell, Albert thought. We’re Albert and Beverly Bell. Have been for 59 years, and always will be.

Albert put everyone into sub-groups. Maybe everyone was an Evergreener once they moved in, but Albert had other names. These days, that’s usually what occupied his smirking. Everyone here was an Evergreener, but some people were also Velcros, some people were Diapers.  Others were Canes, or Walkers, or Wheelchairs. Some were Oxygens, some were Limpers, some were Droolers. Many were Forgetters. Still more were Nappers. He didn’t care what their real names were. He was 86. He and Beverly moved in five years ago because Beverly was too much to handle at home by himself, and he had no interest in making new friends.  

He stood at the side of his bed and pulled the diaper up. He pulled his pants up, and stared at himself in the mirror. The pants were too big on him. He had lost 14 pounds recently. The food they served at Evergreen was bland and over-cooked and he didn’t have much of an appetite anyway. Also, something showed up on a recent CT scan that he and David agreed not to talk about. And Dr. Marius agreed not to pursue medically. He cinched his belt tight and pulled his sweater down to cover the cinch in his waist. A smirk crept onto his face. Standing there in front of the mirror, he thought of his wife, the way she made herself up before a night out. In 86 years, Albert never stole a thing from anyone, that is until he got to Evergreen and stole a 20-pack of Phil’s diapers every few weeks. And in 59 years of marriage, he never stole a glance at another woman. He only had eyes for Beverly. “Why should I look at another woman?” he was proud to tell David.  “Your mother’s the most beautiful woman in the world, even if she doesn’t remember who I am any more.”

No one can tell, he convinced himself. The Tena ProSkin Protective Underwear For Men really was the best adult diaper on the market. It cost a fortune to get old, Albert figured.  Rent on his apartment was $4,000 a month, and Beverly’s care was over $6,000 a month. His hearing aides last year cost $5,263, but there wasn’t much he cared to listen to these days anyway. The list of expenses went on and on. But a dollar a diaper? It seemed like robbery. A dollar a piss. It added up. Even pissing cost money when you got older, Albert smirked. Crapping, too, but at least that wasn’t Albert’s problem. Not yet, anyway.

He walked out of his apartment and locked the door behind him. He really didn’t care if anything got stolen. All he really cared about were the family pictures on the wall. He thought David might want them. As far as he knew, he was the only Evergreener that could be convicted of stealing anything. But he doubted that anyone would steal his family photos.  Sometimes, though, some of the Forgetters walked into the wrong apartment and made themselves at home. They finally moved Stephen over to the Memory Care Unit in June, after Rose damn near had a heart attack when she found him taking a shower in her bathroom.

One hundred and ten steps to the elevator. Whenever he walked, wherever he walked in Evergreen, he counted his steps. It gave him an air of being distracted, which gave him a reason not to say hello to any of the other residents. No nods, no “Good mornings,” no “How’re you doing?” When in fact he wasn’t distracted. He was at all times focused on counting. He guessed it was a form of meditation, a way to occupy his mind and distract him from the aging reality all around him. Albert was a retired high school math teacher. He liked numbers. They were honest, black and white, apolitical. Numbers didn’t bullshit you, unless of course the numbers were jerry rigged into statistics. Statistics were the politicians of numbers; they can be twisted to mean anything a person wanted them to mean. That’s what he told his high school students for 35 years. 

But otherwise, numbers were honest. Five years ago, when they first moved into Evergreen, he was able to stride from his apartment to the elevator in 96 steps. Recently, though, it was taking him 150 steps, and sometimes closer to 175 steps because his kidney dysfunction caused fluid retention in his legs. It was like walking with five-pound weights strapped around his ankles. He was slowing down. Numbers didn’t lie. The additional fluid in his chest cavity and abdomen pressurized his vital organs. His heart rate had elevated, his respiration rate had increased.  His muscles had stiffened and weakened over the past five years, more so over the past several months. He probably could have run this distance in about 20 strides when he was on his college track team, but that was in 1954, a hell of a long time ago. He had run the 100, 200 and 400 meters. “Anyone that runs more than one lap around the track just isn’t running fast enough,” was his motto, and he always liked to poke the milers in their ribs with that one. All the young people these days talked about their 10,000 daily steps, as if that was going to keep them out of diapers some day. He didn’t care about 10,000 steps. He cared about 1,426 steps to Beverly’s apartment in the Memory Care Unit, which had been 1,005 steps five years ago. Ten thousand steps? They just weren’t walking fast enough.  

He got out of the elevator on the first floor; he started to walk and he started to count. It was a good day to distract himself from what lay ahead. He hadn’t seen their daughter Audra in over three years, well before Covid became a daily traffic accident on everyones’ way to work. A damn interstate pile-up. That’s how Albert thought about it. Some people were the cause of the accident, like the idiots that didn’t stay home from work or a party when they were sick. And some people were the victims of the accident; they did everything they were told to do by the doctors and scientists. They wore their masks, got their vaccines, didn’t go into crowded places, and they got T-boned by a drunk driver behind a Ford F-150 anyway. But everyone got stuck in the damn traffic, day after day after day. One road, and we’re all on it. Life was ticking away while everyone sat in traffic, tick tick tick, waiting for the traffic to finally clear. Albert’s clock was winding down fast. Numbers didn’t lie. Tick, tick, tick.

He didn’t miss her; that was the sad truth of the matter. He didn’t miss his daughter, Audra.  Her phone calls over the years caused him dread, caused him to lose sleep, caused him to lose his count. It was no mystery to him. He knew when this shift, this rift, this unalterable twist in his feelings for his daughter was born, the way an engineer knows when there’s too much weight on a bridge and it’s just a matter of time before it collapses into a mess of steal into the river below. Everything was just a matter of time.

Audra had pried a weekend out of her very important life in Los Angeles to help clear out the house in Evergreen. This was five years ago, when he and Beverly were getting ready to move into the senior living center. It was the house Audra and David had grown up in, the house her parents had created and crafted to be a warm house, a house filled with love and support, a house with beautiful memories of friends and neighbors, children and then grandchildren. Five years ago, Beverly still remembered. She couldn’t remember yesterday, couldn’t remember who had visited, what doctor she had gone to, or what she had eaten for dinner. That short term memory stuff was in and out of her head like water running from a faucet straight down into a dark drainpipe. There was no rubber stopper, no way to block the water from running down into oblivion. But back then, five years ago, her long term memory was still intact. Well, maybe not completely intact. She mixed up some names, mixed up some places, sometimes thought David was her husband instead of her son, but it was enough for Albert. It was enough for him because he was still able to enjoy the past with his wife. They could still remember together. Remember our first date? Yes, she’d answer. You wore those horrible red-rimmed glasses. Remember our vacation to the Grand Canyon when the kids were little? Yes, David was scared of the mule, and Audra just wanted ice cream. Five years ago, they still shared a life, and it was enough for Albert.  

“What, really, do you need?” Audra had asked him with exasperation. They were bitter words coming out of her mouth. They had hit Albert’s ears like a sledge hammer striking an anvil.  Metal on metal, and sparks flew inside his head. “What, really, do you need?’ she had repeated over and over and over again throughout the packing-up day. Every time she brought something over for her father to inspect, she repeated those five words. “What, really, do you need?” And then more words. “Do you want to keep it or throw it out? Keep it or throw it out?”  

“Damn it, Audra! Slow down,” he had yelled at her. “This stuff is our lives. Fifty-four years in this house!” he screamed, hoping that somehow, after all this time, yelling a few words would somehow pierce her thick skin, soften her cactus-like personality, warm her chilled heart. The sad truth of the matter was that he had no idea who his daughter was anymore. She had once been a sweet little girl, a warm young daughter.  And then one day during college she came home for winter break and she was gone, a stranger now wearing Audra’s clothes and sleeping in Audra’s bed. She left Evergreen to marry a man from California and start a life together, and two divorces later Albert had no idea who his daughter had become.  

But those five bitter words stuck in his head over the years; they rattled around inside his head like a marble clanking around in an old rusted coffee can. “What, really, do you need?”

Albert was a numbers man. You didn’t have to be a high school math teacher to know damn well that you can’t cram a three-bedroom house with 54-year’s worth of accumulated stuff into a one-bedroom apartment at Evergreen Senior Living Center.. “But damn it, Audra, slow down,” he had screamed. “If this is the last time I’m gonna look at most of this stuff, I want to really look at it. I want to try to remember everything, because everything in this house means something to me. It may just be a shoebox filled with useless crap to you, but to me and your mother every single thing means something. Or at least it meant something to us once upon a time.”

“Fine,” Audra finally relented. “I’ll make three piles. Dining room is for stuff you want to bring with you to the retirement home, living room is for stuff you’re ready to throw out, and den is for crap you want to look at before you agree to toss it out later.”  

What kind of man doesn’t love his own daughter, he asked himself. How can this happen?  What the hell happened to her? How did she go from my daughter, our daughter, who we loved every day of her life the best way we could, and turn into someone like this. Maybe he still loved her, he consoled himself, but he sure as heck didn’t enjoy being near her.

This wasn’t math. There was no equal sign preceding an answer. There was no damn answer, at least nothing he could figure out. This was the stuff for psychologists, psychiatrists, and shaman. Albert didn’t have the energy for it. He didn’t have the energy to argue with her, he didn’t have the energy to try to understand who she had become, he didn’t have the energy to bring her back to her little girl self, that sweet, affectionate daughter that he had been proud to call his own. Thank g-d he still had David.  

He lost count of his steps. It figures, he thought without a smirk.

He swiped his keypass onto the keypad to The Memory Unit, heard a click releasing the electronic lock, and walked in. The Memory Unit? It was anything but memories here, Albert thought, again without a smirk. The television was tuned to the Game Show Network, as always, and $10,000 Pyramid was playing. Ten residents sat on low, floral patterned couches arranged in a semi-circle in front of the television. The pungent scent of A&D Ointment filled the air as if someone had lit a horribly scented candle, Old Diaper Rash Scent. Most of the residents on the couches were taking their after-breakfast nap, chins on their chests.

David was in his mother’s room, sitting beside her bed. He was holding her hand. The nurses had said that touching is very important to people during End-Stage Alzheimers Disease.  Touching and sensation was about all they had left. No one needed to tell David to hold his mother’s hand. This was his mother. He was going to hold her hand until it turned cold and lifeless, and then he was going to hold it some more. He was a blessing, all the nurses admitted. He had been a fixture at the Memory Unit since the day Beverly arrived, and came most days after work and usually on Sundays as well.

David looked up. “She’s at the nurses station,” he said to his father, “no doubt telling them how to do their jobs.”

“No doubt,” Albert replied. “It adds up. Fly in once a year to tell everyone how to do their jobs.  Very endearing.”

Beverly lay in her bed. She moaned softly. The nurses had told them that she wasn’t in pain. “No,” Stephanie, the head RN had said. “She’s moaning to herself because the sound soothes her. Not really sound so much as inner vibrations. All she has left is what she feels on her skin and what she senses deep inside.  She’s not opening her eyes much these last few days, so feeling is most important to her. Talk softly. She won’t understand what you’re saying, but she can sense your tone, and she can feel your touch.”

Albert bent down and kissed Beverly on her lips. Her lips were dry; she hadn’t been able to drink anything for several days. The water had dribbled down the side of her face. 

“I’m sorry, Mr. Bell,” Dr. Marius had said. “I don’t think it will be long now. Maybe a few days.  Once they stop drinking…. If you like, we can have hospice see her. They’ll make sure she’s as comfortable as possible during her final hours.”

“I guess comfortable is the best we can ask for,” Albert had replied, and David agreed, a tear rolling down his cheek.  

Albert pulled a chair up next to David. He kissed his son on his head and sat down. David put his hand on his father’s thigh and gave a gentle squeeze. Albert put his hand on his wife’s leg, and caressed her calf. He rubbed her feet. Beverly always was a softy for a foot massage. He learned early on in their courtship that if Beverly responded well to a foot massage, the rest of her body was his. It was her spot, the arch of her feet, and this had been their special private love-making code. Beverly had always been a thrifty shopper, but Albert never complained when she went over budget on a nice pair of shoes.

“The hospice nurse will be here in a few minutes to start her morphine.” It was Audra. David turned his head, but Albert didn’t. He heard her, and the words pierced him like an icicle through his heart. He shivered. “Dad, the hospice nurse will be here in a few minutes to start her morphine,” Audra repeated, this time louder.

Albert turned his head to look at Audra. He nodded.  

“Are your hearing aides working?” Audra asked, and she looked at his ears. “You’re not even wearing them. They were $5,000 and you’re not even wearing them?”  

Albert’s hearing wasn’t that bad, not compared to a lot of the other residents of Evergreen. He could hear every word Audra said, but all he really heard were those five words “What, really, do you need?”  They cascaded around in his head, day after day after day, over and over and over again. A damn marble in a coffee can.

He continued to rub his wife’s feet. David held his mother’s hand, and Beverly moaned softly to herself. They each had a comforting role to play in her final moments. Audra stood behind them in the doorway, her pocketbook slung over her shoulder, waiting for the hospice nurse to finally arrive with the morphine.  

“When’s your flight?” Albert asked.

“It’s an open return,” Audra replied. “What do you think? I’m trying to rush her along? I’m not evil, Daddy. I just don’t want her to be in pain any longer.”

“She’s not in pain,” David told his sister. “She’s never been in pain. No bed sores, no falls out of bed, no joint contractures.”

“Then why is she moaning all the time?”

“It soothes her,” David told his sister. “It soothes her.”

Over the last five years, David had maintained a little more patience for his sister than his father had for her, but just a little. They spoke about once a month, though the calls were brief and factual, as if they were taking turns going down a shopping list.

1-How’s mom?

2-How’s dad?

3-How are your kids?

4-Any snow yet?

The answers didn’t matter to her so much, but asking the questions made her feel as if she had done her job as a sister and a daughter. “Her due diligence,” one of her divorce lawyers would have called it.

And then it was David’s turn to run down his list of questions, but he never did ask her the questions he really wanted to ask.

1-Why the hell did you leave Colorado?

2-Why the hell did you marry Barry?

3-Why the hell did you marry George?

4-Do your children know what their grandparents look like?

5-Is there a picture of them in your home?

6-What the hell is your problem?

But David was tired as well. What was the point in arguing, or in looking for answers?  She made her life. He was sorry it turned out so crappy, so full of drama and lawyers and alimony and child support, but it wasn’t his life, and he wasn’t losing any sleep over her any longer. He supposed after his father passed away, they wouldn’t have much to say to one another, and that was fine enough for him. David had remained local not out of a sense of obligation to his parents, though he certainly did fulfill a good son’s every obligation. No, he stayed in town because he couldn’t think of a good reason for leaving. He met his wife here, had three children, an accounting practice down the street, and they all loved the mountains. No reason to leave, no better place to go. Why did so many people feel the need to go find something else? Something else didn’t always work out to be something better. 

The hospice nurse arrived. Her name was Tina. She was wearing blue scrubs, and had pink Crocs with blue and yellow dogs and cats. She had a kind face, though no smile, the sort of expression you’d expect from a woman whose job it was to graciously administer death. She walked to the other side of the bed. Audra sat down next to Tina, leaving her pocketbook on the table next to the bedroom door.

For the last time, Albert kissed his wife on her lips and then he kissed her on her forehead. Her skin was cold and tacky. The thought of Elmer’s Glue, not quite completely dry popped into Albert’s mind.  He kissed David on his head, and David put his arm around his father’s shrunken waist. Then he walked to the other side of the bed and leaned forward to kiss Audra on her head, imaging she was still a little girl, his affectionate daughter. Surprised, Audra tilted her head back suddenly, and sent a jolt of pain through Albert’s front teeth.  

“Oh. Sorry daddy. You startled me,” she said, and rubbed the back of her head.

Albert walked to the foot of his wife’s bed. He pushed his tongue against his front teeth to make sure Audra’s hard head hadn’t loosened them, not that it mattered much anymore. He leaned forward and kissed his wife’s left foot, then her right foot, his final act of worship to a woman he had adored for 59 years.

“I’m going to put an IV into your mother’s arm, and then I’ll start the IV drip with the morphine,” Tina explained to them. She was focused on her work. David and Audra were focused on their mother’s arm. It wasn’t easy getting an IV started in a dying person’s vein because by this point in time the bodies were very dehydrated. Tina had been administering compassionate death for over twenty years, though, and she found Beverly’s vein with the first stick. Beverly didn’t flinch; she just continued to moan her soothing death moan. No one saw Albert as he grabbed Audra’s pocketbook and left the room.

He walked out of the Memory Care Unit, and with long strides walked out the front door of Evergreen Senior Living Center and into the parking lot. No counting steps now, just long strides, only one direction to go.  He left the A&D Ointment scent behind, and filled his stiff lungs with fresh Colorado pine. The noon day sun was bright, the sky cloudless. He reached into his daughter’s pocketbook and fished out the car keys. He knew she had rented a car at the airport. The parking lot at the Memory Care Unit was big enough for only twenty or so cars.  He clicked the open door button again and again as he strode around the parking lot, and within a minute found her rented Ford Taurus. He tossed Audra’s pocket book onto the rusted hood of the Pontiac Grand Am next to the Taurus, and got in the car.  

He hadn’t driven a car in five years, since they moved into Evergreen. He had had a 2009 Toyota Camry, the last year Toyota made the Camry with a key ignition start. He sat in the driver’s seat of the Taurus, key fob in hand, and stared at the fob. There was just a few buttons on the fob. Lock. Unlock. Trunk. Yes, and those were the same buttons that had been on his 2009 Camry key fob. But there had been a key jutting out of his 2009 Camry key fob. There was no key on the Taurus key fob. Just a fob, with three buttons.  

He pulled his eyes away from the keyless fob and looked at the dashboard for somewhere to stick the fob. Was there a place to stick the fob? He looked around to see if anyone was in the parking lot, not to ask for help, but to make sure no one was on to his escape plan. He checked the mirrors. The parking lot was empty. Deep breath, he told himself. Another deep breath. He coughed, no phlegm, just a dry dusty cough. It’s a damn Taurus, he told himself, not a rocketship. There has to be a simple way to start this damn Ford. He scanned the dashboard slowly from left to right. Nothing. He scanned again, this time right to left. And there he saw it.  Push Button To Start. Simple as 2+2. He pushed the button. Nothing happened. Damn Ford didn’t start. He looked around, and now he saw her coming. Audra, screaming, “Where’s my pocketbook?” Albert stepped on the gas and pushed the Start button at the same time.  Nothing. She was at the car now. He locked the doors. She pounded on the window. “Get out of the car, Dad. You don’t even have a license any more.” He stepped on the brake pedal, pushed the start button, and the engine came to life.

Reverse. Audra banged on the hood of the Taurus.  

“Where are you going? Mom’s dying. Where are you going?” she screamed.

Crank the steering wheel to the left. Put the car in Drive. Crank the steering wheel to the right.  Audra banged on the side of the Taurus.  

“Mom’s on the morphine,” she screamed.  

Gas pedal down. Albert lurched out of the parking lot. He glanced at his daughter in the rearview mirror, and then she was out of sight.

Albert put down the driver’s side window, and let the warm summer air fill the car. He smelled the faint hint of Audra, and decided to put all the windows down. Colorado pine filled the Taurus, and the wind felt cool on his wrinkled face. He filled his lungs, and coughed.

“What, really, do I need?” he said aloud. He said it peacefully, though, calmly, as if he had been staring down at an exam question for the past five years and the answer finally came to him in a flash of clarity.

He made a left turn onto Route 74 West. The town of Evergreen lay at 7,100 feet of elevation.  It was thin air compared to sea level, but Albert hadn’t been down to sea level in over 20 years.    Thick air, everyone in the mountains always said.  There was 21 percent oxygen in the air down at sea level.  He drove a few miles west, steadily increasing in elevation. He checked the rearview mirror often, fearing Audra was giving chase, but how could she? David wasn’t going to leave his mother’s side; he wasn’t going to let go of her hand. And David certainly wasn’t going to give in to his sister’s histrionics.  

Albert made a left turn onto Route 65 West. A horn blared close behind him. Startled, Albert jerked the steering wheel and the right wheels of the Taurus found soft unfriendly gravel on the shoulder. A Chevy pick-up truck raced past, and the teenager riding shotgun gave him the finger, the driver still leaning angrily on the horn. It’d been five years since he had been behind the wheel of a car. “Sorry,” he said to the driver in the Chevy. “Old man in a Taurus. Forgot to look both ways.” From there it was just a few more miles to Soda Creek Drive, going up, always up, at 9,000 feet now. The air continued to thin, always thinning, the oxygen content under 15 percent now. The Ford Taurus wasn’t exactly a best-seller in Colorado. Albert had to push down more and more on the accelerator just to keep his pace steady.  

Soda Creek Drive was a twisty, turny road, but Albert knew where he was going. He had driven this road dozens of times, Beverly at his side, sometimes the kids in the back seat, when they were young.  

Twisty turny. That’s how he had explained it to the kids when they were sitting in the back seat, so many years ago. “You can’t drive a car straight up a mountain. It’d flip over backwards and down to the bottom you’d fall.” “Like Shoots and Ladders,” little David had said. “Yes, exactly like Shoots and Ladders,” Albert confirmed.

He took his right hand off the steering wheel and rested it on the gear shift, where Beverly’s hand would rest warmly on top of his hand for a few miles; he could almost feel her warm hand, her slender fingers intertwined with his fingers. He turned his head, but she wasn’t there.  She was on her death bed, and their son David was holding her hand. Albert would have liked to have stayed until her final breath, but this was a better plan. She had been slipping through his fingers for five long years, a once firm grip on each other reduced to just an unconscious touch, thoughtless nerve fibers connecting to the nowhere of her brain.

Albert turned onto Squaw Pass Road, and continued the steady, twisty, turny climb to Echo Lake. He turned onto Mount Evans Road, now almost 11,000 feet, the oxygen content under 14 percent now. The warm valley air had given way to cold mountain air. Albert shivered, and coughed again. His old body was unable to keep itself warm, his body’s insulation recently robbed of 14 pounds, stolen in the dark of night while he lay awake, remembering. He kept the windows down, though. He craned his stiff neck as best he could to look up the mountain. The snow never completely melted this high up, not even in July and August. The black pavement of Mount Evans Road scratched through the eternal snow. Access to the peak of Mount Evans was open to the public only in July and August, depending on the avalanche risk each year.  

The twisty, turny gradual climb of Squaw Pass gave way to hair-pin turns of Mount Evans Road. The bright sun, now almost a mile closer to his eyes than it was just 30 minutes earlier, boomeranged off the snow on the face of the mountain and screamed into his cataract-fogged eyes. There were no guard rails this high up on the mountain. No room for error. If you misjudged a turn…. “Shoots and Ladders,” Albert mumbled to himself. “Shoots and Ladders.”

He slowed the Taurus to nearly a full stop and negotiated the first of eleven switchback turns, nearly a full U-turn up the mountain, 160 degree right turn, and then a half mile further, a switchback turn to the left. He had to lean his body into the turns to keep himself upright, and a few drops of urine leaked out of his bladder. Another right-handed switchback. More leaking.  

Parked on the side of the road was a black Subaru Outback. Three teenagers were loading snowboards onto the roof rack. They were taking turns snowboarding down the partial face of the mountain from one switchback to the next lower.  Then they would drive back up Mount Evans Road, and snowboard down again. Shoots and Ladders, but the snowboarders liked Shoots and Ladders.  

The evergreens and aspens laid down a thick canopy of lush green. They stood sentinel on the slopes of the mountain, and Albert stretched his stiff lungs as best he could and filled them with the thinning air, and he coughed again. The forest was still dense as he maneuvered the car carefully around the fourth switchback, coming almost to a complete stop to make the turn. No guardrails. Shoots and Ladders. Another switchback. He must be close to 11,500 feet, he figured. He negotiated another switchback, and he could feel his diaper getting thicker, fuller. He looked back down the mountain, and the green carpet had suddenly thinned significantly. He turned his head back to the road, cranked the steering wheel to the left and slammed on the brakes. The Taurus came to a rest, the right front wheel perched just inches from the edge of a plunge over the side of the mountain and certain death in a fireball of twisted metal. Several mountain goats stood in the middle of the road, three nannies and four kids. They gave little notice to Albert and the Taurus, and moved slowly across the road to ascend a steep pitch of boulders. Albert watched them for a few moments as the kids grazed on lichen from the boulders. He put the Taurus in reverse, then drive, and continued his climb. No plunge to death for Albert. No Shoots and Ladders. He had other plans.

He was at 12,000 feet now, the treeline. Down to his left he saw the green carpet of the tree tops, thin this close to 12,000 feet, but thicker as he gazed further down toward the valley, toward town, toward life. Up to his right there were no trees, no greenery of any kind other than some lichen on boulders. The oxygen content was just over 13 percent now, too low to sustain meaningful life. No trees, nothing to produce oxygen. No life could thrive here. He looked up over his right shoulder, and it was as if he were looking at a moonscape. His stiff neck ached, but he twisted it to look higher still, and the nothingness went on as far as he could see, straight up to the cloudless sky.  

He drove on, higher and higher – 13,000 feet now. The oxygen content below 13 percent. A few more switchbacks – 14,000 feet now, oxygen content just barely 12 percent, so low that even strong experienced hikers would need to slow their pace and rest often to continue their journeys. Albert was no young man.

At 14,260 feet he parked the Taurus in the parking lot of the Evans Crest House, an observation center. There were several other cars in the parking lot. A young couple held hands and took turns with a pair of binoculars. 

Albert let out a big sigh. He was here, finally. Not the top of the world. This was no Mt. Everest, but Mount Evans was the highest paved road in the United States. He turned the ignition off and got out of the car.  

It was cold. Very cold. It couldn’t be more than 40 degrees up here, and with the wind gusting at 30 miles per hour…. A Colorado state flag and a United States flag slapped fiercely on a flag pole. He ignored the cold. His body’s core temperature didn’t really matter any longer, not to him anyway. He walked across the parking lot towards the western-facing moonscape. He had to stop half way across the lot to catch his breath. 

“Nothing grows above the treeline,” he said aloud.

He continued across the parking lot, his small steps now dictated by his lungs’ capacity to exchange what little oxygen there was up here with the carbon dioxide building up in his blood stream. He and Beverly hadn’t been up here for at least 25 years; he really couldn’t remember exactly how long it had been, but he remembered it had been a very risky climb up over the highest boulder and down to their favorite spot. Albert wasn’t positive he could make it now, not without his walking sticks and hiking boots. It was a life or death situation, though, and to Albert there was no longer any difference. “Pancreatic cancer and kidney failure,” Dr. Marius had informed him and David a few weeks ago. “The chemotherapy will kill you faster than the cancer.” David had had a few questions for Dr. Marius, and Dr. Marius quoted some statistics about survival rates, but Albert had no questions and wasn’t going to start relying on statistics now. This was easy math. He’d be dead in a horrible, drawn-out month. He was sure of it.  

He approached the boulders and put his hands on the cold, grey rock. It wasn’t really a boulder, not the kind that a kid might leap across carefree. It was a chunk of mountain, tossed up here like a kids’ building block a hundred million years ago when the Rockies were formed.  He clambered up as best he could. His shoes stayed on his swollen feet only because this morning he had tied his laces as tight as he could possibly tie them. His feet had never been this swollen before. He had stopped taking his diuretic pills and all of his other medicine – the cholesterol pills, the arrhythmia pills, and all of the vitamins – the day the cancer diagnosis was noosed around his neck. He was sure this was the correct path, the boulder being directly across the parking lot from the flag poles. A few more steps…. Well, they weren’t really steps now. He was crawling up the boulder on his hands and feet. His back ached, his shoulders ached, his wrists ached, but it didn’t matter. 

Finally he scrambled to the top, where the boulder plateaued for a few square feet. He put his hands on his hips and forced himself to stand up straight. From here he could see as far as his cataract-clouded eyes allowed him to see, which was miles and miles. He turned slowly around, giving himself a full 360* panoramic view. The glare of the sun blasted into his eyes painfully. He wobbled, but steadied himself. The view of the Rockies in all directions laid out below him was dizzying. He took a deep breath, coughed and shivered. It was cold and windy, very cold and very windy. There was nothing up this high to impede the winds’ march across the tops of all the mountain peaks. Albert spread his stance to steady himself.

He stepped forward, and peered over the edge. The young couple with the binoculars focused on Albert for a moment, but then shifted their gazes elsewhere. Albert took no notice of them.  He inched closer to the edge and craned his stiff neck forward. There it was down below; their spot.

He turned and bent forward again, hands and feet now. Hands and feet backwards over the edge. It wasn’t a very steep pitch down, but there wasn’t any room for error. A slip now and it was a 30-foot plunge to the plateau, and he’d be lucky if gravity and inertia let his body rest at that ledge. Albert didn’t want to go in a fit of terror, didn’t want his final sounds to be a reflexive scream for help. He lowered himself down slowly, deliberately, carefully, hands and feet. No Shoots and Ladders now, he told himself. No Shoots and Ladders now.  

He made it, made it to the plateau, made it to their spot. He knew he could do it. This was their spot, where he and Beverly would sit once a year, each year when they had been a young, vibrant couple. They’d climb down here and sit on the ledge, their backs against the mountain wall, their feet dangling two thousand feet above the green canopy of life below, in defiance of the treeline, mocking death from above. He’d bring a backpack with a blanket, a thermos with hot chocolate, a package of Graham Crackers, and they’d snack victoriously.  Life was good.

That was a long time ago, though. Albert stood up. He steadied himself with his right hand against the face of the mountain and strained to kick off his shoes. He unbuckled his belt and let his pants fall to his ankles. He pulled his sweater over his head and let it float over the edge. Then he tore off the diaper. It was heavy with urine. He tossed it onto the canopy two thousand feet below. He sat down, his naked buttocks on the cold grey slab of mountain, his bare back pressed against the cold wall. The cold and the wind dropped his core body temperature minute by minute, second by second. The fluid that his failing kidneys hadn’t excreted from his body pressed against his heart and his lungs, suffocating him from within. He let his right hand drop to his side, and felt Beverly’s warm slender fingers intertwine with his.  

He turned his head to the right to look at his wife. “If I’ve got the math right, we’ll be going together any minute now. You’re all I really need.”