Parting Words

Hospice.

That was the word Dr. Franklin used when he explained it to Tom and Martha. It sounded like the right thing – no more pain, no more struggles.

But it only took a couple of days for Tom to realize that what Dr. Franklin really meant to say was “give up.”

By then, it was too late. Martha was sleeping, and the young nurse said she wouldn’t ever wake up. She was gone before dawn on the third day.

There was only one person to blame. And Tom wasn’t about to let anybody get away with giving up on his girl.

And so he hadn’t let Dr. Franklin get away with it.

It was the day after they found Franklin’s body that the chair on Tom’s front porch started rocking on its own.

That was Martha’s chair.

At first, Tom thought it was just the wind. But the chair began rocking every time he stepped outside. He swore the creaking and whooshing was actually whispering to him.

“Tom. I miss you,” the chair groaned on a cold October morning.

It was the lack of sleep making him hear things, Tom told himself. He’d hardly dozed off since Martha died.

A few days passed, and the chair merely rocked in silence.

Then, one night at dusk, it purred again. “I know you did it for me.”

Tom watched the chair, wide-eyed, sure he was hearing things.

It was only then that Tom noticed the cord draped out of the front window, trailing across the porch floorboards.

There, by one of the chair’s whispering rockers, was the handset of his telephone. A woman’s voice was saying something about “officers on their way.”

In the distance, a siren echoed through the countryside, and Tom noticed that Martha’s chair had finally stopped rocking.