I come to in the recliner. Vance and Peggy stand at my feet, talking to each other. They don’t know I’m conscious. I listen.
Vance says, “I can’t believe he just passed out like that. Is he going to be all right?”
A lump forms in the back of my throat. My brother is worried about me—maybe for the first time in his life.
Peggy says, “He’ll be okay. His vital signs are good. Let’s let him wake up on his own.” The room goes quiet for a few minutes, and then she adds, “The social worker is on her way. She’ll do everything she can so that you and Oscar make it through this.”
“Is it the same lady we met at the hospital?” Vance asks.
“Most likely.”
They turn and look at the bed. I snap my eyes closed.
Vance exhales. “Where will my dad go from here?”
“The funeral home. You give me the word, and I’ll start everything in motion.”
“I’m going to get Oscar up. He can’t be passed out when they take our dad away.” I’m being shaken. “Hey, they’re coming for Dad soon.”
Vance has just considered my feelings. Another first. Tears well in my eyes and spill onto my face. I’m not worried about these waterworks. Vance will assume they’re for Dad.
I sit up and nod.
Peggy bends down. “How you doing, Oscar?” When I go to stand, she holds up her hands. “Whoa, whoa. Not so fast, hon. We don’t want you passing out again. Just sit there for a few minutes. Let’s do this in stages. All right?”
She hands me a box of tissues, and even though I feel fine, I comply with her request.
“How much time do we have left with him?” I ask.
Peggy repeats her earlier statement that it’s up to us when she sets things in motion. My brother and I look at Dad. Neither of us wants to be the catalyst for whatever “things” come next. She clears her throat. “How about I leave you guys alone? Just come get me when you’re ready.” She closes the door on her way out.
I notice that someone has lowered Dad’s bed because his upper body is no longer slightly elevated. He’s lying flat now, which is good because his head and neck look comfortable.
“What are we going to do without him, Oscar?” Vance’s voice cracks and he looks away.
This is certainly the million-dollar question as of late. “I don’t know.”
Vance stares out the window, and I can’t take my eyes off Dad. After a while, we switch places and more time passes. Eventually we’re both sitting and looking at our father, crying openly, passing the tissue box back and forth over his body.
Vance blows his nose. “You know what I can’t stop thinking about? The three of us going to Jamaica. I really thought being there would turn him around. Like, maybe all of us being together like that, relaxing, having fun, would’ve made him have an aha moment. A moment where he could’ve seen things clearly. See that he wanted to get back on track. I was so ready for him to start being Dad again.”
My heart aches hearing my brother open up like this. I’ve longed for it my entire life, yet it’s so foreign to me. I don’t want to respond incorrectly and shut him down, so I nod. Vance returns the gesture. A whirlwind explodes in my gut. We just had an emotional exchange, and it wasn’t based on anger.
And I know exactly what he meant when he said he was ready for Dad to start being Dad again. Even though we never discussed it, Vance and I watched him unravel after we lost Mom—the drinking, the vomiting, the hangovers, the anger, the rage, the excuses. In many ways my brother and I became his parent. Teenagers aren’t supposed to clean up their father’s vomit or make sure the cabinet always had ibuprofen. They just aren’t.
A new surge of sadness wells. Dad will never get the chance to heal. He died broken.
After a while Vance says, “I don’t want to get Peggy yet, do you?”
Truthfully, I don’t, but then I think that we’re avoiding the inevitable. “How long has it been since he passed?”
“Why? Do you think we should get her?” Vance pulls out his phone. “It’s been, like, an hour and a half.”
“No, I don’t, but I wish it wasn’t a decision we had to make.”
We sit and cry and pass the tissues over and over until the box is empty, and it is the single most brotherly experience I’ve had to date with him.
Vance puts the box on the nightstand. “Let’s go get Peggy.”