Cohen’s walk turns gradually to a fast walk, then to a slow jog. Anxiety pushes him. He never should have left his father alone. He knows this now. There’s an aching sort of foreboding at the edge of his mind, something he can’t get a good look at, but it’s still there, still gnawing away. He shakes his head to clear the fog, the weariness. Sleep. He needs to sleep.
He jogs for a block or two and gets close to the hospital—he can see it rising, a shining tower, the white lights and layered parking garage—but he has to stop jogging. He’s not in shape. His lungs burn. He leans against the streetlight while waiting for the signal to turn.
Inside the hospital, Cohen walks the long, dim hallways and rides the elevator up. Ding. He walks out into the hallway and sees the night nurses on duty. They glance up, recognize him, smile or nod or look away. The same anxiety rises again as he gets close to his father’s room. What if he died while Cohen was gone? What if his sister came back and found him missing? What if the doctor was able to take his father off life support without the family’s permission? He never should have left.
The door to his father’s room is wide open, and he rounds the corner quickly. Where has the time gone? It’s two in the morning. Of what day? Wednesday. Or Tuesday? No, Wednesday. He’s almost positive it’s Wednesday morning. He’ll check on his father, and he decides if everything is okay he’ll go down to the cafeteria, see if he can dig up some coffee, maybe a donut.
He walks into his father’s room and stops. His heart races. There’s a strange red haze gathering in the corners of his vision, a humming in his ears that started far away and now resembles the approach of a crashing wave.
“Cohen?” a voice says, and he realizes it’s Kaye and she’s standing over by the window. But he cannot look away from the woman there in front of him, standing at the foot of his father’s bed, taking in his father. She looks old, but sharp and hard as he remembers her.
“Cohen? Where were you?” Kaye says, concern creeping in around the margins of her voice. “We were worried.”
He does not, cannot, reply. He must focus on breathing. Inhale and let the air out. He squeezes his eyes shut. Opens them. She is still standing there.
He’s tired. So tired. And the exhaustion moves through him like a chill.
When Kaye speaks again, there is a slight shaking in each word, the way teacups rattle in their saucers when an earthquake begins. “Cohen? Aren’t you going to say hello to Mother?”