What was the book I read to Mom at the end?

Third day. She has not woken since yesterday afternoon. The breathing stops and starts; I have caught myself holding mine until hers comes back.

Walt sat with her this morning and read her the farm report out of the paper, milk prices and all, as he used to do for Dad. Pastor Lindquist came at two, and we sang, the four of us, without a book: Judy on the melody, Walt a third below as always, I somewhere between. "Children of the Heavenly Father," every verse, the last in Norwegian as far as any of us could get.

I do not know what I believe happens. I know that her face eased when we sang.

Tasha, the aide on evenings, came in after her shift was over and braided Mom's hair, because Mom would not like to be seen with it down.

She cannot hold a book up any longer, so I read to her. I asked what she wanted, expecting something improving, and she said "The Wind in the Willows," which she read aloud to the third grade at Stony Brook every spring for thirty years and has nearly by heart. I do a chapter a visit. She corrects my Toad.

Today was the river and the picnic. She had her eyes shut, and I thought she was asleep and let my voice drop, and she said, "You've left out what's in the basket."

Hal sits in the kitchen while I read and does not come in.

I finished the book this afternoon. Two chapters, straight through, because I was not sure of another Tuesday. She did not open her eyes. At the very end, when I had shut it, her hand moved on the blanket and I took it, and she said, quite clearly, "Is it Thursday?" I said it was. She said, "Then you ought to be sorting."

That was all. I sat until the light went.

I am writing it down tonight, exactly, because I think it is the last thing she will say to me, and it was a joke.