Stephen’s gone, and my brother and I flank our father’s bed. My gaze is locked on Dad’s chest, counting the breaths. Vance is playing some game on his phone.
Still four breaths a minute.
Without looking up, Vance asks, “Still four?”
I nod, knowing my answer won’t register. Passive aggression at its finest.
He asks again.
I nod again.
He stares at me. “What’s your problem?”
A fresh wave of guilt washes over me. Now’s not the time for me to be a dick. “Sorry. Yes. Still four.”
Vance huffs and bites the inside of his lip, something he only does when he’s worried, which doesn’t happen that often.
“What time is it?” he asks.
Instead of snarking that he’s got his phone right in front of him, I say, “Almost nine.” I yawn and start a new breath count. My heartbeat doubles. I think I just counted three breaths. No, count again.
One.
Two.
Three.
Shit.
“Vance, he’s down to three breaths.”
My brother pops up, his phone clattering to the floor. “What?”
“Look,” I say. We count and time. “Three.”
He runs from the room, and within a few seconds Marnie is back with him. Her lips tighten, and she squeezes my shoulder.
“Is it happening?” I whisper.
“Let me see how he’s doing first. Okay?” She feels his forehead, lifts the covers to survey his legs and feet, and starts her own breath count. “It is three, guys.”
This is real. My lip quivers so I bite it. I’ve been secretly wanting it to happen, but now that it’s so close I…I…
Oh God.
Vance’s face drains of color. “He’s never opening his eyes again, is he?”
Marnie turns to Vance and takes his hand. “Aw, honey. I’m sorry. No. We’ve done everything we can to make him comfortable.”
Vance says, “What Oscar said. Is it happening?”
“All I can tell you is that he’s closer to passing, but I can’t tell you for sure that it’s going to happen tonight. We do see a lot of patients let go while their loved ones are sound asleep, almost as if they’re sparing them from the last good-bye. Some wait until family members are all here. Everyone is different.”
Neither of us have a response. We both simply stare at her.
“Oh, boys, I’m so sorry. This is a tough situation. You’re going to have to dig deep and be strong.”
I guess Marnie is forgetting that we’ve already lost our mother, so we’re intimately familiar with digging deep.
Marnie steps back and says, “If there’s anybody you’d like to call, to let them say their good-byes, I’d do it. Just let me know their names so I can let the guard downstairs know and he’ll let them up.”
“We should call Joey and Bill,” I say.
Vance nods. “I’ll do it.”
“Uncles?” Marnie asks.
“No. They’re my father’s bartenders at the Blue Mountain,” I say. My father is an only child. Both of his parents died when he was in college, and my mother only has one sister who lives in Singapore. I turn to Vance. “What about Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop?” They’re my mother’s parents who live in Alaska. Yeah, Alaska. And even though we’ve only seen them a handful of times throughout our lives, they should probably know that their son-in-law is about to die.
My mom shared her regret with me about losing touch with her parents during one of our last “in the backyard, listening to reggae, looking at the sky” moments. She admitted to missing them, which is something I’d never heard her say before. It was no secret that Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop resented Dad for taking their daughter so far away. They were also not fans of his infidelities. Go figure. Throughout my childhood, I’d overheard lots of telephone arguments between Mom and her parents, and she was always so protective of Dad. It used to make me angry. I wanted her to tell them the truth—that she was in love with a guy who didn’t know how to love her back.
She never did patch things up with them.
Vance says, “You seriously think they’d care? They didn’t even come to Mom’s funeral.” He shakes his head. “I mean, Mom was their daughter and they didn’t come. So they’re definitely not jumping on a plane to come be with us, that’s for sure. So what’s the point? I don’t think they even know our names, for fuck’s sake. The last time we saw them, I was seven.”
Marnie clears her throat. “I’ll let you guys hash this out privately. So you want Joey and Bill on the list, right?”
“Yes,” we say in unison.
Vance is right. They’d never come. They hate Dad. Quite frankly, I hate them. How do parents not come to their daughter’s funeral? “I agree with you, Vance.”
He tilts his head. “What?”
I quietly snort. This may be the first time in our lives that I’ve said those words in that order to my brother: I agree with you, Vance. “I said I agree with you. Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop are assholes. There’s no way they’d care about Dad. They don’t deserve to be told.”
Vance’s brows shoot up, and he looks from side to side. “Me? You agree with me?” He turns and peeks out the window. “Is it snowing outside?” He smiles and then scrunches his nose. “They are assholes, aren’t they?”
This feels right, us both calling our grandparents a-holes, and that is strangely perfect.