Rolo follows, tail low.
I sip my coffee and stare at the wall, the seconds scraping by in slow, deliberate ticks. I imagine Nathan sitting in his studio, phone in hand, voice raw from repeating my name into the ether. I imagine his disappointment, his own coil of guilt andlonging, and for a moment I almost give in, almost reach for the phone and let the words tumble out, broken and graceless and true.
But I don’t.
Instead, I rinse the dishes, wipe down the counter, and reset the kitchen for the day ahead. Cassie disappears into the den, probably to call Amaya or play a game or just retreat into a world less complicated than mine.
It’s not even 7:30 a.m., and already I’m exhausted.
When I finally summon the nerve to check on Sara, I find Judy already at her post, bent over the edge of the old cherrywood bed like a priestess at an altar. She’s got a little ritual: check the lines of the oxygen mask, smooth the tangled hair back from Sara’s forehead, measure out the blue pills and the pink ones into a plastic cup. Her hands are astonishingly steady, but I can see the worry lines deepening at the corners of her mouth every time Sara’s breath rattles too long before the next inhale.
I stand in the doorway, arms cinched tight across my ribs. Sara appears smaller in sleep, the bones in her wrists sharp and moon-pale against the quilt. Her mouth moves, sometimes, as if tasting words she never got around to saying.
Judy looks up and gives me a small smile. “She’s resting. Vitals are low but stable. The morphine helps.”
I nod, like that means something to me.
Judy gestures at the cup in her hand. “She’ll probably drift for a while. You should get outside, Diane. Take a walk.”
I stay where I am, legs rooted to the floorboards, unwilling to leave. “I’m fine,” I say. “Do you need anything?”
She studies me a moment, the way a doctor might assess a patient with a wound they refuse to show. “No, we’re good here. But you should let yourself breathe, too.” Her gaze flicks towardthe window, where the morning is sharpening into brightness. “It’s not selfish.”
I don’t know what to say, so I just stand there, half in and half out of the room, counting the rasp of Sara’s breath.
The air is thick with the plasticky smell of hospital supplies and the sour-sweetness of whatever disinfectant Judy uses to wipe the IV pole and the bedside table. It’s a smell I know too well, one that’s always made my skin crawl, ever since the long winter of my mother’s decline.
The house is quiet, except for the rhythmic whirr of the oxygen compressor and the distant drone of a lawnmower, somewhere down the beach. It’s a silence that feels engineered, like a white-walled gallery designed to keep real noise at bay.
Cassie appears behind me, silent as a shadow. She hesitates in the hallway, then threads her way past me and into the bedroom. I watch her go, the set of her shoulders telegraphing a braveness she’s faking for everyone’s benefit. Rolo follows, his nails ticking gently against the wood.
Judy straightens, checks Sara’s pulse with a quick, practiced touch, then gestures for Cassie to sit on the bed. “She’ll like the company,” Judy says, voice softer now.
Cassie perches at the edge, careful not to disturb the tubes or the blankets. She takes Sara’s hand, her own so small and vital next to the translucent, trembling fingers of the woman who taught her to bake, to garden, to build the world out of words and story.
Sara’s eyelids flutter. She struggles up from whatever dream she was caught in and focuses on Cassie, a slow smile carving across her face. “My sweet Cass,” she whispers, the words thin as spiderweb. “You’re such a good girl.”
Cassie leans in, her hair falling forward, and whispers something I can’t hear. Sara nods, then closes her eyes, lips parting in a sigh that barely shifts the air.
Judy kneels beside the bed, her touch so light it’s almost a blessing. She looks over at me, and there’s a question in her eyes—whether I want to come in, to join this tender moment, or whether I’m content to keep myself stitched together on the threshold.
I’m not sure which would hurt less.
So, I stay in the doorway, watching the tableau: Sara, her chest rising and falling like the tide’s last attempt at persistence; Judy, sentinel and witness; Cassie, hand in hand with the woman who has already begun her slow departure from this world.
And in the quiet, I listen for the sound of my own heart, waiting for it to break.
28
Diane
Afternoon presses down on the house, slow and thick, the sun a pale disk behind a scrim of coastal haze. Most days I love this hour, the way light slants across the floorboards, but today it only amplifies the feeling of stasis, like time has stalled out between heartbeats.
The low whine of the oxygen machine seeps through the closed door. I linger at the threshold, not wanting to disturb what little peace Sara has left, but I hear her voice summon me in.
“Diane? Honey, you lurking, or just hoping I’ll drift off for good?”
I manage a laugh, but it’s more exhale than sound. I slip inside and find her propped on pillows, smiling as if she’s been expecting me for hours.