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I HATED THIS PLACE.
The smell of antiseptic hung in the air as I made my way through the bright-white corridors, the sound of my footsteps the only thing that I could hear. I was heading up to see my father, and I knew the time that he had left was running low.
Honestly, I couldn’t imagine what it was going to be like when he was gone. He had been around my entire life, had been the one to guide me through everything, had set me up with my life here.
And soon – soon, he wasn’t going to be around anymore. And I had no clue what my life was going to look like when he was gone.
We all knew where this was headed. As I turned into his corridor, I found it lined with a dozen guards. One or two would have done, but nobody wanted to be the guy who left a Salieri open for attack when they were at their most vulnerable. That, or they wanted to say their own goodbyes, in their own way. Protecting him one last time was their chance to do that, their chance to ensure that they didn’t miss out on the opportunity to see this through.
I opened the door into his room, and paused as I watched him on the bed for a moment. His heart was in the process of giving out, I could tell that just at a glance, and it made my own chest ache to see him like that. I had never in my life imagined my father in this sort of state, unable to so much as hold himself up under his own weight, and I would have been lying if I said it didn’t scare me a little. I hated the sight of a man so strong, so powerful, slipping under the failure of his own body right in front of me.
I took a step towards the bed and he lifted his head, looking at me for the first time. His eyes were blurry and distant, but I knew he recognized me.
“Son,” he rasped, and he reached a hand for me – I took it, crouched down beside the bed.
“I don’t have much time left,” he told me, and I shook my head at once.
“Dad, we need to see what the doctors say first, you can’t know that for sure—”
“I know it,” he told me, and he looked me dead in my eyes. “I don’t have time for you to dismiss me, Andreas. You need to listen.”
“I’m listening,” I replied, hoarsely. The reality of this was coming in hard, crushing down on top of me. He really didn’t think he was going to be able to make it out of this alive, and the thought of losing him was terrifying. He was the one who had run this business, he was the one who had shown me the ropes, and the thought of having to cope with that all on my own was painfully difficult.
“You need to take control of the business now,” he continued. “Make sure you keep moving it towards something more legit. But go slow. If we move too fast, then you’re going to leave gaps in the market, and there are people out there who will be all too willing to jump to cover those gaps.”
“I get that,” I agreed. I was trying to focus on everything he was saying. It wasn’t like I was going to have a chance to try and catch up with him on this later. If I missed something, then it was gone for good, gone with him, and I couldn’t let that happen. After everything he had done for me, the very least I could do in return would be to see this through. Make sure I provided everything he was looking for in the wake of his... I couldn’t even say it to myself. Couldn’t even think it.
“And that’s how you end up with a war,” he finished up. He coughed heavily, his whole body convulsing on the bed. He looked so weak, so weak in a way that I had never seen him before in my life, and that scared the shit out of me. How could this happen? How could he have so quickly turned into this husk of himself?
“I know,” I murmured. Nothing felt like enough. There was so much I wanted to say to him, but I knew if I started spilling it all to him now, he was going to guess that this was the end. He might have come to terms with it himself, but that didn’t mean I wanted to put him through it again with me.
I adjusted the pillows behind his head, trying to make him as comfortable as I could. I wanted him to be at ease in all of this – I knew it wouldn’t be easy for him to let go, but I needed to reassure him that he was leaving this business in good hands.
He leaned back against the pillows, and I could tell from the haziness in his eyes that he was starting to drift. I put a hand on his arm, but he barely even seemed to register it.
“It’s okay, Dad,” I told him, hoping he wasn’t in pain, at least. “It’s okay.”
I wasn’t sure how long I sat there before it happened. I just knew there was no way I could let go of him now. I had to be here with him while he went, the way he would have been there for me, if he could have been. He deserved my support right now, more than any other time in his life. He had been a great father to me, and I needed him to know that I appreciated that, more than anything. More than the businesses he had left to me, more than all of it. When it came down to it, we were in this together, and he had made sure I had everything I needed to get through it in one piece.
Time ticked on, and my father drifted in and out of wakefulness, his eyes opening briefly and darting around the room before they softened back into rest again. Even now, as he was slipping away from me, I could tell he wanted nothing more than to keep going. To push through. He had never been this ill before, though, and I doubted he was going to be able to hang on much longer.
“It’s okay, Dad,” I told him, as he closed his eyes for the last time. “You go. Just... go.”
And that seemed to be everything he needed to hear from me. I watched as he slumped back into the pillows one more time, and then, finally, watched as his breath started to slow, his chest softening, his mouth falling shut.
I could see the last vestiges of life leaving him, and I found myself oddly calm as I watched it happen. Even though I knew I should have been terrified, should have been fighting to keep him here, he seemed so peaceful – I didn’t want to get in the way of that, it didn’t seem fair. I wanted this to be easy for him. I wanted this part of his life to be simple, even though everything that had come before it might not have been. I needed this for him. The last gift that I could give him, a good death.
Finally, he was still, and I sat by his bedside for a long time. Waiting for something to happen, for him to move again, for something that might undo the loss I had just experienced, but nothing changed. I knew there was no way I was going to be able to bring him back. I just needed to accept this, accept that I wasn’t going to be able to save him. He was gone. It was his time. Not many men in his position got to live out their lives until nature took them, but he had been lucky enough to manage just that. I was glad for that, at least, even if everything else felt more horrible than I could put into words.
After a long while, I rose to my feet again, to find a small cluster of doctors outside the door – I had no doubt that they’d been kept out until I was ready to leave by the guards. They rushed in as soon as I was out, and I did nothing to stop them. Better for them to put my father to rest than for this to go on any longer.
I knew that, tomorrow, by the time this news had gotten out, chaos would be unfolding around the city. My father was one of the most powerful men in New York, and there was no way that was going to change just because he was gone now. The echoes his death would have would be impossible to ignore or deny, and there was no way I was going to let anyone take advantage of them.
No, it was up to me to step up to the plate and make sure that his legacy stayed intact. He was relying on me to make that happen, and I would be damned if I let it slip through my fingers. Right now, though, there was only one thing on my mind – his funeral. Making it the most impressive send-off that anyone in this city had ever seen before in their lives, and ensuring that my father still had all the influence he did in life, even as he passed on to the next one.
