Paths

The dog is lying just inside the front door. He opens one eye when I come in. He doesn’t get up. He knows me. He is sad because the woman of the house is dying.

I say hello to her husband who is sitting alone at the kitchen table eating lunch. I offer my hand and remind him of my name. I ask if I can see his wife. He says yes and gets back to his sandwich.

The house is still like summer. Her bedroom is big. So is the bed. She looks so small for a woman over six feet tall. She is asleep on her back, barely breathing; but still she shines.

I pull up a chair beside the bed. She opens one eye, sees me and tries to sit up.

“Don’t,” I say.

She gives me her hand. Her fingers are elegant and worn. The hand I hold has been places.

I want to talk, but she is out of words; so I sit while she sleeps.

On the nightstand in a crystal dish is a gold whistle. I pick up her lipstick---plum brandy. There is a thick, double-sided emery board. I notice that her nails are done. A small glass cookie jar sits in the corner near the lamp, half full of yellow gummy bears.

Her daughters, Marsha and Lee, are smiling in a photograph. They have their mother’s natural beauty. A painting hangs above her side of the bed. Two little girls with their mother at the lake. The younger girl is barefoot, lying in the grass at her mother’s feet. The older is skipping stones.

There is one sentence of Scripture slipped under the glass on the table: “He leads me in paths of righteousness…”

Paths! It is plural. There is more than one way.