I unfold the crisp, white sheets and make up the pullout couch. My brother gets the reclining chair tonight—which means he has the horrible job of counting Dad’s breaths till morning.
The nurse is here again. “Hey, guys, have you eaten dinner?”
Vance answers for us without lifting his eyes off his phone. “No, not yet.”
“If you have money on you, I’d be happy to order something.”
Vance ignores her as his fingers continue texting someone, most likely a girl.
I can’t take my brother’s rudeness so I speak up. “Yep, we’ve got cash. Thanks, Barbara. That would be great.”
“Large pizza and fries good?” she asks.
“With sausage, and make it cheese fries,” Vance shouts from my father’s bedside without looking up.
I glare at him and wish I could make him disappear. “Thanks,” I say to Barbara. She smiles this huge and lovely smile. Her cheeks lift, her eyes shine. It’s been so long since I’ve seen a woman my mom’s age smile like that. I want to capture it in a jar so I can study it. It’s that perfect.
Barbara closes the door behind her, and it’s just the three of us again. It’s tiptoe quiet in the hospice. There are no beeping machines or IV wires in Dad’s room, not like the ER. Here reminds me of the funeral parlor. Whispers, dim lights, sadness.
I leave my sheets till later and walk to my father’s bedside. I assess him head to toe for the ten-thousandth time. He’s still the color of mustard, and his hands and forearms remain blown up like balloons. His normally thick, wavy, dark-brown hair is now patchy and thin. I can see his scalp in many places.
Before he fell apart, whenever my father and I were together, everyone commented on how much I looked like him. I hate resembling someone I’m always so mad at.
My brother and I also share his stature—proudly described by my father himself as studly—which translates into tall, wide shouldered, small waisted, and naturally muscular. Unfortunately, it’s my facial features that are so similar to his. We’ve got the same full lips, big brown eyes, and wavy hair. Even our noses could pass for each other’s. I know it infuriates Vance whenever someone says, “Wow, you can’t deny this one,” or, “He looks like you spit him out, Steve.”
Vance looks like our mother: green eyes, straight, light-brown hair, and oval face. Truthfully, and I’d never tell my brother this, he’s better looking than almost every guy at our school. But even his solid good looks can’t extinguish the raging fire of jealousy he has about me being Dad’s “twin.” Trust me, I’d give almost anything to switch who we look like.
I continue studying our father. What bothers me the most is his mouth. It’s wide open and just hanging there like he’s surprised or shocked. Normally he’s smiling and talking—not to me of course, to everyone else. His breath rattles in and out. It’s the only sound sometimes for hours.
I lift the sheet and inspect his feet and calves. From the chair my brother huffs and chides, “I don’t know why you keep checking underneath there.”
The nurse explained it to us. But he probably wasn’t listening, as usual. Barbara said they check the legs and feet for swelling, which means the kidneys are shutting down, which also means the person’s body is that much closer to letting go.
I gently lay the sheet back down and stare at my father’s head. Despite being propped up by a pile of pillows, it still dips at an inhuman angle, and I want to fix it. So badly. I begin what Vance has coined “rearranging his melon” and carefully move the pillow positions so that his head lies normally.
A long sigh escapes from his gaping mouth, and I startle. It’s high pitched and resonant at the same time. It reminds me of a violin.
“What the hell was that?” Vance says. Obvious terror paints his face: bulging eyes, furrowed brow—the standards. Perhaps if he paid more attention to detail, he wouldn’t be caught off guard so often. My brother lives for himself, lacrosse, partying, and girls. In that order. I fit into none of those categories, which means I don’t fit into his life, and I never have. I figured this out a few years ago after our mother died. However, when I’m in bed staring at the ceiling, when the darkness is thick and blatant, I picture the time when I was six and Vance was seven, and he punched me in the stomach for picking a handful of dandelions for Dad.
I probably should’ve come to the conclusion then.
I place the pillow carefully next to my father’s head. He has resumed his facial stance and is quiet. No more sighing. My heart slows down to a normal rhythm. I grab my sketchbook and pencil and take a seat on the overstuffed chair next to the pullout. I put my earbuds in but don’t turn on music—I just want my brother to know I have no desire to talk to him.
Without Vance’s knowledge, I begin sketching him and Dad. This book is filled with countless moments between them that I secretly captured, mostly at the Blue Mountain Lounge.
Dad named the bar he owned in town after the Blue Mountains in Jamaica. He and Vance were obsessed with reggae—just one more thing we didn’t have in common. I was obsessed with drawing people. I’d draw him and Dad quickly, stealing glances when they weren’t looking, adding details when I was back home in my room. Neither of them has ever laid eyes on my drawings. And they never will.
My sketchbook is for me. I express myself through my drawings without judgment. I don’t need permission, there’s no need for discussion—I can draw whatever I want. The sketches remind me that I’m alive, that I’m present. Here. That I exist. When my hand moves across the page, each stroke and smudge fuels me. It’s as if the graphite has life-giving energy.
Without drawing and my music, I probably would’ve given up by now. I don’t mean suicide or anything. I mean functioning like a somewhat normal human being. Drawing and music remind me that life has the power to be beautiful, that I just have to keep my eyes and ears open.
My brother disturbs my view when he leans in and rests his forearms on the edge of the bed. He looks over at me. My earbuds must reassure him because he turns back to Dad and shouts, “Can you hear me, Dad? It’s Vance. You gotta wake up, man. We leave for Jamaica in a few months. Seriously.”
He is absolutely clueless. Dad already canceled that trip because of him.