My brother Vince has always been a bit on the hysterical side. Good-hearted, caring, but prone to fly off the handle and break out in a bad case of nerves at the smallest provocation. He is the older of us two boys and was, without a doubt, Daddy's boy. That's why it's so hard to believe that Vince killed our father ...
Let me makes something clear at the very outset. Vince believes he murdered dear old Dad because he left the sick room for some reason he later refused to explain when questioned, or, shall I emphatically state, casually asked by some well-meaning but stupid, meddling aunt. Who really cares why he walked out of the room at the moment Dad decided to die? Have a smoke, take a leak, scream into the sky ... I couldn't have handled being a care giver. I would have found an excuse to break out of that depressing and smelly bedroom that our father made his final home. Every ten minutes I would've. I mean it.
Vince, the dutiful son, never lost his patience nor his tender touch as he lifted his beloved daddy out of bed, to help him get dressed and put him in his old, battered recliner. Every day. Every day. He said it gave the old boy something, however small, to look forward to. As far as I was concerned, Vince's precious charge had lived a long and, I suppose, useful life. People liked Mr. Wingate - Wingate, that's our family name - and not a few came by to see him and bring him news of the old neighborhood, which, of course, he was really not up to visiting anymore. I imagine the visitors left feeling pretty cheered up as the old man was a giver, like my brother. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Except Dad was the calmer and more emotionally balanced of the two. Anyways, Vince thought his father should be presentable for the guests; it was inevitable that they would come.
One day no one came. Vince's reason for living - his father - was all gussied up and waiting patiently, gazing out the window, hopeful. Vince apparently needed a break. Like I said, however much he loved and cared for his fading patient, he was raw-nerved and needed to go into his room and crash - just a few minutes, nothing more. I know that's where he was when his precious Daddy, the daddy who demanded all his time and attention, finally died. It was peaceful. So beautiful ...
It was time. The old man who was Vince's center of attention and object of affection had surely lived long enough. Out with the old. At last. After all, my brother needs his rest - his nerves are shot; he has to spend time with the young and the living. He'll recover, I know he will.
At last ... at last. I have Vince, my beloved brother, all to myself....