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Carl's father is revealed as a terminally ill bully murdered by his second wife shortly before Earth's collapse.
Twelve years after Carl last saw him, the recorded man lies in a hospital bed in his trailer. He has fallen from roughly two hundred twenty pounds to about one hundred forty, with jaundiced skin, gray wisps of hair, a white beard, tremors, and a nearly empty IV.
He remains lucid enough to curse a losing Seattle Mariners team and bully six-year-old Asher for hidden cigarettes. He demands attention and medication from his younger wife while showing no concern for her or the child.
The stepmother has hidden morphine outside. Wearing nurse scrubs, she returns with a syringe and new IV bag and administers a lethal dose while sending Asher away.
Carl tells the unhearing memory that two wives tried to kill him, that his shadow no longer matters, and that his only regret is the harm inflicted on Asher. The man dies alone without anyone hearing his final words.
A gaunt jaundiced man with sparse gray hair and patchy white beard propped in a hospital bed before a baseball game.
The father is the childhood monster reduced to a dying, isolated man whose continued abuse prompts his wife's murder.