“I’ll just be on the couch. Go back to bed, I didn’t want to bug you.” Alice kissed Debbie on the cheek and turned around, heading back to the couch.
“I’m sure your dad would want to say hi, Al,” Debbie said, her voice now playful. “You don’t want to poke your head in?”
Alice turned back around. Ursula climbed up to her shoulders and bumped her wet nose against Alice’s ear. “He’s here?”
Debbie cocked her head to the side. “Course he is. The good nurse is in there, too. Mary. He likes her best. Her family’s from Trinidad and when she comes she brings these amazing little chickpea sandwich things, doubles, they’re called. So delicious.”
“Is he awake?” Alice asked. The hallway leading to the bedroom was dark.
“Here and there,” Debbie said. She gave a sort of half smile. “Mary thinks we’re close. The doctors said so, too, of course, but what do they know. Once he shifted over to hospice, they sort of washed their hands of him. I don’t think doctors like to lose. It’s not good for their stats.” Alice thought of the giant banner stretched across Fort Washington Avenue, proclaiming the hospital one of the best in the country,and imagined if instead it kept a tally of everyone who died, and all the babies born. This many in, this many out.
“Okay,” Alice said. She set Ursula back down on the floor. The hall was dark, and when she pushed open the door to her father’s bedroom, a nice-looking woman with glasses and a small book with a reading light was sitting in the corner. The regular bed was shoved all the way against the far wall, and Leonard was in an adjustable hospital bed right next to it, which made the small room feel even smaller. There was only a tiny strip of floor to walk on, no more than a foot wide.
“Leonard, you have a visitor,” Mary said. She closed her book and put it behind her on the chair. Leonard moved slightly, rolling his head from one side to the other.
“Oh yeah?” he said. Leonard was always better with company—alone, like most writers, he was prone to grumbling, but he turned on the charm when he wanted to, especially with strangers, especially with young people, and women, and bartenders. With most people, really. He was curious and always asked questions—that was why all her friends had always loved him. He wasn’t like most dads, who would mansplain about the grill or the Rolling Stones and then vanish after their soliloquy. Leonard was interested.
“It’s me, Dad,” Alice said. She took a few steps along the wall, until she reached his hands.
“Al-pal, I was hoping you’d come over today,” Leonard said. He turned his palm up, and she put her hand in his. “Happy birthday.”
“Thanks, Dad,” Alice said. It was weeks ago now. “How are you feeling?”
Leonard coughed, and Mary hurried over, squeezing past Alice to adjust his pillows. This was a dance, a duet between Leonard and whatever was on the other side, and the other side was starting to lead. Alice flattened herself against the wall to let Mary by. When she left the room, Alice let herself get closer to Leonard’s face. His cheeks weresunken, and so were his eyes. He was smaller than she’d ever seen him before.
“I’ve been better, Al.” Leonard offered a weak smile.
“Should I call an ambulance?” Alice understood what hospice meant, but it just felt wrong not to do everything one could. But of course, they already had.
“No, no,” Leonard said. His mouth pulled into a grimace. “No. This is the deal. We all have a time, and this is mine. Whether it’s today or tomorrow or next month, this is it.”
“I just don’t fucking like that, Dad.” Alice was surprised to find herself crying.
“I don’t like it much, either,” Leonard said. He shut his eyes. “But there’s no other way. This is how it ends, for all of us. If we’re lucky.”
“I’m just really going to miss you, you know?” Alice’s voice caught in her throat. “I don’t know how many people I really, really love, who really, really love me, you know what I mean? I know that sounds pathetic, but it’s true.”
“It is true,” Leonard said. “But that love doesn’t vanish. It’s still there, inside everything you do. Only this part of me is going somewhere, Al. The rest? You couldn’t get rid of it if you tried. And you never know what’s going to happen next. I was older than you are now when I met Debbie. Time to go forward into the breach. Until the future, at last.”
Alice nodded, willing herself not to cry, not yet.
The talking had clearly knocked the breath out of Leonard, and he closed his eyes, his chest moving in and out in sharp, shallow movements.
Debbie came up quietly behind Alice and put her hands on her back. “You two okay in here? Want some coffee, Al?” It was a kind way of sayingNot too much, not too much,he can’t do this all day. Alice nodded. She leaned down and kissed her father on the cheek and then left the room.
63
The rest of the day was like flying across an ocean on a slow airplane. Alice and Debbie and Mary took turns swapping seats—the chair in the bedroom, the dining room table, the couch. Debbie took a nap in Alice’s old room. She put out bowls of clementines and grapes and pretzels and they got eaten. Mary left for a while and then came back. Alice found that she was anxious when Mary was gone, even though she knew Mary alone was not keeping her father alive.
“Should we order Jackson Hole for lunch?” Alice asked. Debbie looked perplexed.
“Honey, that place closed years ago.” New York City didn’t stop, either. That was another banner that could hang across a city street—the number of places you loved that were gone and had been replaced by different versions of themselves, places that someone else would love and remember long after you were dead.
“Right,” Alice said. She lay down on the couch and pulled the blanket over her legs. Ursula leaped up and curled into place, tucking herhead into her body, a perfect circle. Debbie sat by Alice’s legs and pushed a few buttons on her phone. No one was going anywhere until it was over.
Leonard was awake and asleep. He didn’t say more than a few words—he said so few words, in fact, that Alice thought she might have imagined their earlier conversation.
“Has he been like this for a while?” she asked Mary, who had done this for so many other families, who had seen the end again and again and still got up in the morning.
