Free Nora and Liz by Nancy Garden

heavy, a dead weight. She could smell the cookies burning.
    “Father, you’re going to have to help me. I’m not strong enough to lift you. Try to sit up.”
    He made a feeble attempt and then fell back, groaning again. But that morning he had sat up, unaided, in bed when Nora went in to rouse him for breakfast, and he hadn’t seemed impaired physically despite all his demands.
    “Try again, Father, please. You sat up this morning.”
    “This morning,” he said angrily, “I hadn’t fallen. Oh! My back!”
    “Does it hurt? I’m sorry. Where?”
    “My back, I said, damn it!”
    “I meant where on your back does it hurt?” she asked patiently.
    “All over. I’m afraid something’s broken, Nora.”
    “Maybe strained, Father, or twisted; I’m sure it does hurt. But you were moving your arms and legs and head before”—again she stifled a giggle—“so I doubt that it’s broken.”
    The burnt smell escalated, then died away. There was probably nothing left of the cookies.
    “I think you’d better go for the doctor,” Ralph moaned, closing his eyes.
    “But Mr. and Mrs. Hastings; the cookies…”
    “Damn the cookies and damn the Hastingses ! Aren’t I more important? Let me have the urinal.” He fumbled at his trousers.
    Nora got the urinal and held it for him. “I don’t think you have to go,” she said after about three minutes. “Maybe the shock of falling, you know? Sometimes I feel I have to go, too, when something like that happens.”
    “I do have to go,” he whined. “And my back hurts. And”—he looked at her reproachfully—“‘it is sharper than a serpent’s tongue to have a thankless child’.”
    “Father,” she said tiredly, “Mr. and Mrs. Hastings will be here any minute. The cookies have burned. You are obviously not seriously hurt. You could help me get yourself up, but you won’t. I can’t get you up alone. I think the best thing for me to do is to leave you here until the Hastingses come, and then Mr. Hastings can help me get you back onto your bed or into a chair. Meanwhile, I’m going to go back to the kitchen, start the water for the tea, and cut some bread for cinnamon toast. The cookies are cinders by now.”
    Ralph’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m such a burden to you,” he moaned, seizing her hand. “You’re a good girl, Nora. You’ll see. You’ll miss me when I’m gone. I feel it won’t be long, dear. I feel so weak. I’m dizzy. I think I might have banged my head. Don’t bother getting the doctor. Just stay with me, sweetheart.”
    She studied him doubtfully. Could he really have hurt himself seriously? One other time when he’d fallen and she’d had to leave him for some reason (her mother had called, she thought), he’d gotten himself up by the time she returned to him. But this time, in her annoyance over the cookies and the impending ministerial visit, had she misjudged him?
    He squeezed her hand. “It’s nice sitting here with you,” he said dreamily. “You’re a good girl, Nora. I know it’s hard for you, seeing your old father so sick and weak. You work hard, taking care of your old parents.” He opened his eyes and smiled. “How’s your mother today?”
    “Sleepy,” Nora said. Then craftily, she asked, “Would you like to go and see her?”
    For a second he moved, lifting himself to a partial sitting position. Then, watching her face, he exclaimed, “Oh, ow ! No, I can’t.” And he sank back down.
    The hell you can’t, she thought. And then, mercifully, there came a knock at the door.
    “That’ll be the Hastingses .” She extricated herself, squeezing his hand and releasing it. “I’ll just let them in and we’ll have you up again in a jiffy.”
    She ran to the door.
    “Why Nora, what’s that smell?” Marie Hastings said immediately, pausing with one large hand still on the doorknob.
    “Cookies. I’ve cut bread for cinnamon toast to replace them. But I’m afraid Father’s fallen off his bed,” she