when the deal goes down

I wonder lately about
my mother's
old husband, at ninety
and lashed
to his surroundings with
cancer.
crawling
from door to bed,
to the bath,
to a phone.
I wish him not a painful
death,
or misery, despite the decades
of abuse
he heaped upon
his wife, my mother for over
forty years.
never once calling her by her
first name, marie,
never
showing an ounce of tenderness,
or kindness.
he watched her
go mute with stroke
after stroke, letting her
sit there until she came to.
he laughed about it.
how quickly he got out the shovel
when she was in a comma
in the hospital.
the grave bought.
the deal in his mind had
gone down. she was never
allowed in a grocery store.
cheap to the core.
every pill and penny accounted
for.
he washed his car in the rain,
broke lightbulbs
if left on with a broom handle.
turned off the hot water
if you were in the shower too long.
never to a movie, or on a vacation,
never
far from his reach, his leash.
his wicked words of hate.
and now,
as he lives out his final days
alone, I wonder
if he thinks about her.
if he thinks about all the children
that never
stop to say hello.
does he think about the life
he led? is there remorse?