The sponge swab was a bit of gray foam on a thin white plastic stick.

I dipped it in the paper cup of tap water and pressed it to Frank’s bottom lip.

Behind his head, the vitals monitor gave three soft tones, paused, and sounded again.

Frank opened his eyes, but he didn’t look at the white ceiling tiles or the potted fern on the windowsill.

He looked right into my face.

His hand shot out from under the blue cotton blanket and clamped onto my right wrist.

His fingers were cold, but he gripped hard enough to pin my arm against the bed rail.

“Listen to me, kiddo,” he said.

His voice was raspy, like dry gravel scraped over concrete.

He pushed a little square of folded paper into my palm and closed my fingers over it.

“Everything you think you know about your mother is wrong,” he whispered.

His right hand balled into a tight fist against the sheet, let go, and balled up again.

“Frank, your vitals are spiking,” I said.

My professional voice came out before I could catch it, the same flat tone I used when a student burst into my guidance office in a panic.

“Things are only sacred if they help the ones still living, kiddo,” he rasped.

He let go of my wrist.

His arm fell onto the blanket, his right fist squeezing tight one last time before his fingers went slack.

The monitor slowed back down to a heavy, sluggish rhythm as he slipped into unconsciousness.