LUCA

When Martin called, Luca didn’t think twice about going. It was the next logical step, even if it didn’t turn out exactly as expected.

What did he expect?

Haze quietly asleep in the bed, the curtains drawn, sipping cool liquids through a straw, whispering his last wishes?

The reality was Haze Morton, blind, covered with raised purple splotches. His mouth was full of sores, his lips cracked. Luca couldn’t erase the sensation that he was already looking at a corpse. And there was the smell, the smell Luca recognized from his childhood: the smell of death.

Meeting Martin was awkward at first, but the need was so immediate there was no time for formalities. Martin was as Luca had imagined: courtly, quiet, decent, kind. All the things Haze wasn’t. He looked tired; grizzled, dark circles raccooned his eyes. Martin couldn’t stop talking; he rattled on.

“I didn’t know what else to do. I had a doctor come. Nothing left to do. That’s what he said. Keep him comfortable. Comfortable? What kind of joke is that? Give me something to knock him out, I said. Can’t. It’ll kill him. Keep him comfortable. It won’t be long. That was weeks ago. Weeks and weeks ago.”

Martin showed Luca around. Dirty dishes were piled in the sink. He had been sleeping on a divan in the room that was his study. The rumpled sheets looked like they hadn’t been changed in weeks. Wet towels lay on the bathroom floor. At least the man had showered.

Luca followed Martin back into the kitchen. Martin slumped into a chair. Luca stood at the sink. He contemplated doing the dishes.

“You look like you could use a break,” Luca said. “There must be somewhere you can go for a couple of days.”

Martin looked relieved and said, “There is.”

He belonged to a club, something to do with collecting mushrooms. It was their big annual outing, somewhere in Massachusetts.

“Go,” Luca said.

After Martin left, Luca cleaned Haze up, reorganized the sickroom, swept, washed the dishes, and did a load of laundry. He cleaned out the refrigerator, called the number of a grocery store that was pinned to a corkboard in the kitchen and had some food delivered. Haze was restless. He thrashed, half in and out of sleep most of time. Luca wasn’t sure if he recognized him.

Martin returned Sunday night, carrying a basket of mushrooms. He brought them into the kitchen, opened the cabinet under the sink, and pulled out the wastebasket.

“What are you doing?” Luca asked.

“I don’t have much of an appetite for them right now. Do you?”

Martin eyed the doorway. They could hear Haze babbling in the bedroom. Luca shook his head.

“Are they safe to eat?”

“Perfectly safe, all except this one.”

Martin held up the lone paper bag. He threw the rest of the mushrooms away, opened the refrigerator, and dropped the bag into the vegetable drawer.

It had been easy to take charge. At first he thought it would be only a matter of a few days until Haze passed, until the days dragged into weeks and he realized he’d been in New York for a month. Luca thought of his mother: how she nursed his father, how exhausted she must have been, how relieved once he was gone.

As he had with Randy, Luca stepped outside of himself and did what needed to be done. He sat with Haze, soothed him, wiped him, diapered him, fed him until that last night, that terrible night of vitriolic diatribes.

Haze came to and recognized him. He tried to get out of bed. He raged, excoriating the new director of the dance company, claiming he had stolen it from him. When Martin walked past the doorway, Haze screamed at him, mocking him for wearing silk socks, setting off a coughing fit that propelled Luca back to his childhood, listening to his father, coughing, coughing, coughing.

In the kitchen Martin begged, “It’s time. A few slices . . .”

“Time?” Luca said, careful not to let on that he was thinking the same thing. “Time for him, or for you?”

“We agreed. If it got this bad, we agreed what we would do. I can’t stand listening to him anymore.”

“What do you mean we? We aren’t going to do anything. You haven’t set foot in the room since I got here.” Martin closed his eyes and pressed his fist to his mouth.

“But I can hear him. I can hear him out here.”

Luca selected a pot and put it on the stove. When he opened the refrigerator and pulled out the vegetable drawer, Martin left the room.

An hour later Luca sat and calmly tipped spoonful after spoonful of soup into Haze’s mouth, and waited. He turned off the lights and sat with Haze for a while before he called Martin in. It was quiet. Finally, after weeks of listening to the sounds of the dying man, there was nothing.

The EMTs were quick about it. There was some paperwork to fill out—Martin took care of that—some questions to be asked and answered before they pronounced Haze dead. Martin waited outside the bedroom. Luca admired the EMTs efficiency, how smoothly they transferred the body to the bag, to the gurney, and out the door.

Luca and Martin followed the EMTs out of the apartment. They watched the gurney glide onto the elevator. As the doors were about to close, Luca stepped forward to block them.

“Open the bag,” Luca told the EMTs. “There’s something I forgot.”

He could feel Martin behind him.

One of them unzipped the bag. Luca reached inside, felt around for Haze’s right hand and plucked Martin’s yellow diamond ring off the corpse’s middle finger. He stepped back into the hallway.

“Go,” he said.

One of the EMTs rezipped the bag. The other released the elevator. The doors closed. Luca stood with Martin. They watched the numbers illuminate each of the floors: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2. When the L lit up, Luca handed the ring to Martin and walked him back into the apartment.