fifty-seven
There’s a City of Light
Cohen walks up Duke Street from the church to the hospital, against traffic, the shadows lengthening and shortening while the headlights pass. The windows are dark. There is not a single person walking the sidewalks, crossing the street. Only cars, few and far between, sweeping south on Duke, their headlights dazzling his vision.
The air is much warmer than when he had walked south toward the church only twenty minutes earlier. There’s a light breeze, but it has lost its winter’s edge, and it carries the hint of spring moisture, the smell of seeds. The smell reminds him of the shallow ditch that lined the road between their country house and the narrow road, the one that, in the spring, filled with wriggling tadpoles. Those waters teemed with life, the miniature sea creatures swam, and day by day their tails shortened and their stumpy legs grew. Then one day they were gone, slapping their sloppy, halting jumps across the street toward the creek or burrowing deep in the long grass.
Could that kind of transformation happen to him?
Another car, another line of light, another wake of darkness. It’s strange, these competing desires. When he’s in the room with his father, he feels caged, as if he must get out, do something. But when he’s away, a sense of panic wells up inside of him that he might not be there when his father dies, that he won’t be standing beside the bed when his father takes his last breath.
He walks faster.
Inside the hospital, he can hear his mother from down the hallway, the sound of her voice clear and unwavering. He wonders if she stopped even for a moment while he was gone, if she has taken a drink, eaten anything, used the restroom. She has certainly gotten louder. He turns into the room. She doesn’t look up at him or even seem to be aware of his gentle arrival into the room. She starts a new song.
“A mansion is waiting in glory,
My Savior has gone to prepare;
The ransomed who shine in its beauty
Will dwell in that city so fair.
“Oh, home above,
I’m going to dwell in that home;
Oh, home of love,
Get ready, poor sinner, and come.
“A mansion of rest for the weary,
Who toil in the vineyard of love;
O sinner, believe, and be ready
To enter that mansion above.
“Oh, home above,
I’m going to dwell in that home;
Oh, home of love,
Get ready, poor sinner, and come.”
The words move around inside his head, and he remembers once, long ago, really believing that there was something beyond this, something out there more ancient than the stars and their faraway light. An ache fills him, a sadness for the belief he lost somewhere along the way. He wants it back. This is why he has been going to confession, and he realizes it there, listening to his mother sing: he wants to find that belief. He wants to rediscover it. Would he ever feel that way again about God, the way he felt when he was a child?
Cohen looks for his sister and finds her standing by the window, gazing out over the nighttime city. To him, she looks like a queen, grand and majestic, on the verge of birthing the first inhabitants of a new world. It’s the beginning of time and they are somehow there, nothing in front of them except all the ages to come.
His father remains unchanged, although his breathing is so shallow that at first Cohen thinks he has died. He moves closer, bends over him, and then hears it, or perhaps senses it. The light breaths, the ins and outs, spaced apart and slow as if each is its own effort, each disconnected from everything else. It brings tears to Cohen’s eyes. He has trouble pulling himself away. What if this breath is the last? Or this one? Or this one?
A nurse comes in and squeezes past him. The nurses have less and less to do now, but they continue to stop by, mostly as a courtesy.
Cohen straightens up. “How will we know when he’s died?” he asks her. “What if he takes his last breath and we don’t realize it?”
Her face is sympathetic and soft. “Sometimes people slip away without their loved ones realizing it at first. It’s not always a sudden, dramatic thing. This gradual slipping away is a process. I think it’s a blessing to have these quiet moments with him.”
Cohen nods, but he’s not so sure. These quiet moments have brought up more from his past than anything else he’s ever experienced. These quiet moments have dug deep, pulled away calluses, disturbed the living skin, so that he feels a constant ache.
In the silence left behind by the nurse, he notices his mother’s voice again.
“There’s a city of light ’mid the stars, we are told,
Where they know not a sorrow or care;
And the gates are of pearl, and the streets are of gold,
And the building exceedingly fair.
“Let us pray for each other, nor faint by the way,
In this sad world of sorrow and care,
For that home is so bright, and is almost in sight,
And I trust in my heart you’ll go there.”
“Is this allowed?” Cohen asks. “Shouldn’t she quiet down? I can ask her to.” After a pause he adds, “I don’t think she’ll listen to me.”
The nurse gives a kind smile and offers a barely noticeable shrug. “None of the nurses on this floor mind it, and we haven’t had any complaints from other patients or guests. It’s okay with me.”
“Do you think she’s disturbing my dad?”
The nurse glances down at his father. “He’s fine. I’m sure he can hear her. Do you know of any reason the sound of her singing might be disturbing to him?”
Cohen looks away from her, toward his father. There is somehow less of him than there was before, and what remains is haggard and weary and weighed down in the bed.
“I’m sure it’s fine,” Cohen says.
Again he remembers those old days in the revival church, lying on the floor on hot summer nights, the sound of people fanning themselves, the simultaneous creaking of pews when they stood to sing. He would lie there in the shadow of the pew, feeling the summer breeze come in through the long windows, listening to his father’s emotional plea for the eternal salvation of one more soul. From there he watched the feet of people on their way to Calvary, shuffling their way past the standing crowd, gliding up the center aisle to the stage. He could hear people wailing. Under the pews, between all the feet, he could see them kneeling.
And the crowd would start in with a new hymn.
All those old hymns with their images of battles and rivers and homes over there—they were the soundtrack to his childhood. And hearing his mother sing them—at first he finds it hard to believe this is true—he realizes his disdain for her is retreating. There is a new softness there. If he doesn’t look at her hard eyes, her unyielding forehead, he can remember the love he once had for her.
As if she can read his thoughts, she starts a new song.
“Just as I am, without one plea,
But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bid’st me come to Thee,
O Lamb of God, I come! I come!
“Just as I am and waiting not
To rid my soul of one dark blot;
To Thee whose blood can cleanse each spot,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come!
“Just as I am, though tossed about
With many a conflict, many a doubt;
Fighting within, and fears without,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come!”
Kaye comes over and stands beside him, reaching her arm up to him.
“Where’s Johnny?” he asks her.
“I sent him home with the sitter. He needed to get out.”
“I know that feeling.”
“Remember in the old house, how Mom would sing while she did the dishes? Dad would sit in that old recliner watching the news and we’d all end up in there with him. I’d be reading and you’d be playing on the floor and Mom would come in and sit in the corner reading her Bible.”
He nods, but it’s more a robotic movement than anything resembling assent, because something uncomfortable has lodged in his chest, something sour. For every quiet memory like that of his mother, he has ten harsh ones, and capping them all is the one of her driving away, leaving his father standing in the middle of the road.
Hours pass, and they remain there, placeholders. Cohen paces the room, Kaye falls asleep, Cohen sits down, Kaye paces the room, Cohen falls asleep. All the while, their mother sings.
Cohen wakes in the chair. Morning approaches. He realizes Kaye’s hand is on his shoulder, and he reaches up as if to hold her hand, but instead he lifts it, sliding out from under her half hug. Without looking at her or his mother, who is still singing, he edges his way toward the door and walks out into the almost-morning hospital. The lights are low. He finds his way to the stairwell and pushes open the door. He clears his throat, only to hear the echo of it travel up and down through all the floors.
He walks down, down, down, aimless and wandering. The stairwell is empty except for the yellowish lights that buzz on each landing and beside each door. He stops, not sure where he is, not sure what floor he’s on, and he sits in the corner, wedging his body in the right angle of two cement block walls. The tiles under him are cold. There are no windows. There is nothing.
Where did his life go? His belief? His father? Where did they all go? How could it be that so many things have been lost?
Cohen sits there and weeps.
He hears a rhythmic buzzing, some kind of alarm. He wipes his eyes and stands up, drowning in the yellow light. He hears a scream. He walks onto the closest floor and sees people running. There’s the sound of rapid tapping in some far-off place.
Rattattattattattat.
A voice comes over the intercom. “This is an emergency. This is not a drill. I repeat, this is an emergency. There is an active shooter in the hospital. Please go into the closest room and lock the door.”
There’s an explosion and the building shakes. A panel falls from the hallway ceiling.
Cohen turns and sprints back into the stairwell, taking the stairs two at a time until he arrives at his father’s floor. It is already vacant, all the doors closed, ruled by an eerie silence.
The same recorded announcement issues calmly from the intercom speakers in the ceiling. “This is an emergency. This is not a drill. I repeat, this is an emergency. There is an active shooter in the hospital. Please go into the closest room and lock the door.”
He reaches his father’s door and turns the handle, but the door is locked. He bangs on it. “Kaye! Mom! It’s me!”
There’s no answer. He bangs again.
“Kaye! Are you in there?”