Category: The Final 4th of Sergeant Drummond

May 4 Ron’s July 4 Kim was at Good Yarn before the sun came up. She didn’t turn on the lights. Didn’t make coffee. She stayed in the half-dark and looked out the front window at Main Street, where the bunting hung still in the windless morning and the banners said 250 YEARS and the […]

May 3 Ron’s July 3 Kim closed Good Yarn early and walked Main Street alone. She’d sold more in the past three weeks than the previous two months combined, a fact she’d noticed but hadn’t told anyone, because it felt like the wrong thing to feel good about. She didn’t bring her phone. Didn’t bring […]

May 2 Ron’s July 2 The uniform was in the closet. Annie hadn’t known it was there. She’d been in his room many times and never once opened the narrow closet beside the bathroom door. It held two robes, a pair of slippers, and a windbreaker with a VFW patch on the sleeve. Behind everything, […]

April 30 Ron’s June 30 Carol sat at her desk in the early dawn light with her phone in her hand and a question she’d been rehearsing since the middle of the night. The question was for Dr. Searcy. The question was whether it was ethical to ask a doctor to let a dying man […]

April 29 Ron’s June 29 Annie took Ron outside after lunch. It was his idea. He’d been restless all morning, working the same crossword clue for twenty minutes, tapping his pencil against the armrest, looking out the window like the river owed him. When Annie showed up at noon, he said, “Get me out of […]

April 28 Ron’s June 28 Ron told her about the ELI. Annie hadn’t asked. She came in at her usual time, 2:00, with a butterscotch, a crossword book, and the low hum of guilt she carried every visit like a second heartbeat. Ron was in his chair by the painted window. The light was good. […]

April 27 Ron’s June 27 Kim didn’t open the shop. She sat in the back room with the lights off and Frank’s newspapers spread across the folding table. Her phone face-up beside her coffee, waiting for Annie to call back. Annie had not called back. Annie had not answered the three texts Kim had sent […]

April 26 Ron’s June 26 Ron was having his best day in weeks, and Annie wanted to throw up. He was out of the wheelchair. Standing, even, with one hand braced on the nightstand, but standing. When Annie came through the door of Room 8, he turned and smiled and she could see the man […]

April 25 Ron’s June 25 The Saturday sewing circle met at Good Yarn every week, rain or shine. Kim had learned not to schedule much else on Saturday afternoons. She had also learned to make extra coffee. She was filling the carafe when the bell above the door chimed and seven people walked in with […]

April 24 Ron’s June 24 Carol opened Ron’s chart at 6:30 a.m. Before the hallway got busy, before the aides started rounds, before anyone could see her sitting at the nurses’ station with a pen in her hand and a problem she couldn’t document. The chart was straightforward. Vitals stable. Weight down two pounds since […]