Cohen goes back to his father’s room. The lights are out, and it’s in the middle of those morning hours when two a.m. turns to three a.m. turns to four a.m. His mother is still sleeping in the chair, back straight, mouth a flat line. His sister has fallen back to sleep as well, lying on the hard floor with various cushions and pillows tucked around her, supporting her neck and sagging stomach. He notices a boy in the corner.
His nephew sleeps in his baseball uniform. Cohen must have missed him when he peeked in earlier. His baseball cleats sit beside him, he uses his glove as a pillow, and one of the thin hospital blankets is twisted around him like a toga. His baseball hat is half on, half off, turned slightly to the side. His eyelids flicker, a dream passing.
Cohen realizes he has become callous to the situation. Maybe it’s because of the strained relationship he’s had with his father. Maybe it’s the endlessly repetitive nature of days spent in the hospital, days blurring in on each other, days and nights that seem not to move forward but round and round, one leaving, one arriving, always through the same revolving door. Maybe it’s because he’s a funeral director and death is an everyday occurrence. But Cohen feels numb.
An empty chair receives him. He sinks into it as far as it’s possible to sink into a shallow wooden chair with thin cushions. He wedges his elbow between the armrest and the wall, braces his head against the palm of his hand. The last things he sees before sleep takes him are the swirling prints and deep wrinkles in his palm, wrinkles that will only get deeper and longer until someday he is lying there in the bed.
Even in his sleep, Cohen senses the hospital waking around him. The sky brightens before the sun can lift up over the city. Kaye and Cohen and their mother wake without speaking, everyone staring at Calvin.
Time has stopped. Johnny sleeps on. The city wakes. The nurses come and go and still everyone in the room remains unchanged. Cohen wonders what it will take to rouse them from that strange stupor.
“I think it’s time,” Kaye says without moving from the floor, without moving anything but her mouth, which Cohen cannot see from where he sits. Her pronouncement might as well have come from someone outside the room.
“Certainly,” his mother says. “Certainly. Past time.”
Cohen takes in a deep breath and savors it as he exhales. This air. This breath. “When did Johnny come in?”
“I told the sitter to bring him. She’s been so good to us, but she needed a break. I could tell when we spoke on the phone. So he had a game and then he came in.”
Kaye doesn’t reply.
“I think you’re right,” Cohen says. “It’s time. I’ll tell the doctor.”
Kaye rises with monumental effort. The pillows fall away from her. As she straightens, she stops, grabbing her stomach with both hands. She turns gingerly away from their mother, and Cohen can tell she’s trying to hide the contraction.
“Are you having a contraction?” their mother asks.
“No. It’s only indigestion, Mom.”
“Indigestion?” She sounds offended at the idea that one of her children would suffer from a weakness like indigestion.
“Yes.”
“Are you sure? What have you been eating? You’ve never been a good eater.”
Kaye breathes out through pursed lips, closes her eyes. The contraction passes. She opens her eyes, turns to her mother. “I think I know the difference between contractions and indigestion,” she says.
“I’m rather sure you do,” her mother says with suspicion in her eyes and a charge of impropriety in her tone. But she is not able to follow that scent any further because at that precise moment the door opens.
Dr. Stevens enters. “Good morning,” he says, and Cohen wonders what it’s like to monitor so closely the mortality of strangers, to watch as death gathers them up, sometimes slowly, stretched out over days or weeks, and sometimes in a moment, before anyone can catch their breath.
Cohen yawns and stands up, Kaye nods her head, and their mother replies, “Good morning to you, Doctor.” She communicates simultaneously a deep respect and a profound mistrust.
The doctor doesn’t take his hands out of his deep pockets. He doesn’t move to look at his clipboard, the one tucked up under his arm. It seems there is nothing more to check, to monitor, to hope for.
“Have you come to any decisions?” he asks, sympathy heavy on his face.
“Yes,” Cohen says, glancing at Kaye and his mother. Johnny stirs on the floor behind him. “It’s time.”
“So, you’re ready to remove life support?”
Cohen nods, and the nod feels monumental to him, as if he has nodded to the man holding the lever to release the platform under the gallows. The doctor looks from Cohen to Kaye. She nods, wiping her eyes.
“I’ll have some paperwork for you to fill out,” Dr. Stevens says. “I’ll stop by in an hour. In the meantime, don’t forget to take care of yourselves. Have some coffee. Eat some breakfast. Okay?” He pauses. “You’re making the right decision. There’s nothing more to be done here. Your father is at peace, and his body is ready.”
The three of them sit, frozen in place. Their mother picks absently at an imperfection in the chair. Kaye holds her face like the character in the painting The Scream, but her mouth is not open. The weight of her hands pulls downs on her cheeks.
“Thank you, Doctor,” Cohen says in a hoarse voice. He clears his throat. “Thank you. We’ll be here.”
Outside the window, the sun rises above the city, a brightness that feels like a deliberate offense to what is happening in the room. It glares off the wispy clouds that are simultaneously winter and spring. Cohen walks to the window and pulls down the blind.