I turn the chair around and pull it parallel to the bed so he can’t try to get up again. It’s too dangerous now. He was a large man in his prime, well over six feet tall, and though I can now measure the circumference of his thigh by encircling it with my hands, he is still too bone-heavy for me to manage alone.
Next to my sleeping father I simply sit with his hand in mine, studying him intently. The St. Christopher medallion he has always worn around his neck rises and falls with each breath. My mother bought it for him when he began to travel for work, protection from the patron saint of travelers.
I’ve never been permitted this close. Never been able to study his skin patterns, or the streaked gray in his hair, the tattoo on the web between the thumb and index finger of his left hand
