Only a breath’s difference separate the living from the dead, and in death there is always someone left behind.

Bette Porter stood near the doorway as the hospital’s medical staff placed a sheet over her father, the two staffers chatting with each other about lunch as they wrapped Melvin Porter and moved to transfer him from the bed and onto the gurney, to bring him to the morgue.

The morgue. Things always seemed so much more dreary and depressing when the words "the morgue" were brought into the mix.

If only there was a way that she could shake off this feeling of being completely abandoned by his death.

Beside her, her sister Kit Porter was talking to the nursing attendant, who was repeating to Kit things that the doctor had told Bette only moments before. Bette, of course, cannot remember anything.

The two staff members were discussing the weight of "the body", to which Bette wanted to scream out, that was her father.

Her father had been lying ill here in this room for weeks, his cancer having taken its toll on his body. Bette had stayed here, taken vigil at his bedside the whole time, and had relied on her friends and Kit for food and support. Work had taken a backseat, everything else seemed so unimportant and trivial.

And now she stood silently, her emotions in shock, as she watched them wheel her father out of the room and on the way to the morgue.

Bette swallowed the lump in her throat, and deciding that she could not deal with this, pulled out her cellphone and began to dial.

"Miss Porter," she heard vaguely, which she chose to ignore.

"Bette," Kit called out to her.

Bette turned.

"Miss Porter, you can’t use your phone in here."

Oh. Okay. Bette nodded mutely, and slowly made her way out of the room, touching Kit’s arm as she passed, to acknowledge her departure. Somehow, Bette ended up outside the hospital walls, and pressed the speed dial for entry number one.

"Hi, it’s me. I…" Bette took a deep breath, but quickly succumbed to her tears. "I need you. Please. I just… I need you."