I wait a moment before I go to tell the nurses. I hold Thalia’s hand and look into her face. When you look at someone whose life has just ended, you don’t see horror or pain or fear. You see peace. Not just because the muscles relax and the breath has left—but because there’s a deep satisfaction, a conclusion. It never fails to move me, what a privilege it is to be at this moment, to be the bearer of their story.
I take out my phone, open my calendar, and start to read.
Manoy Dayao, who waited nineteen years for a winning lottery drawing to get to the United States from the Philippines. Three months after he and his wife arrived, he was diagnosed with cancer. I was hired when he was already unresponsive. He didn’t speak English, and I did not speak Filipino, so I asked his wife for his favorite song. “New York, New York,” she told me. Frank Sinatra. When I started to sing the first line—Start spreading the news—Manoy suddenly opened his eyes and belted,I’m leaving today. And he did, three hours later.
Savion Roarke, who had perfect color—like perfect pitch—and could hold any hue in her head and match it to a sample.
Stan Wexler, who worked for Western Union for forty years, and whose great-grandson was teaching him to text. In telegraph code, he told me,LOLused to meanloss of life.
Esther Eckhart, whose son was a singer on a cruise ship in the middle of the Atlantic, who died with him crooning to her on speakerphone.
I type in one more name.
Thalia O’Toole, who never knew that Maria married Captain von Trapp, or that Harold Hill was a shyster, or that Eliza Doolittle wasn’t to the manor born.
—
ONE MORNING, ONmy way to see Win, I take a few moments with Felix. I’ve noticed a decline, and I am sure he has, too. Win is sleeping more, engaging less. She only eats a meal a day. She has stopped putting on makeup.
“How long do you think she has?” he asks me.
“If I knew that, Felix, I’d be a millionaire.”
He smiles and hands me a cup of coffee. I have become part of the household. I have my own assigned mug and Felix buys me a vanilla creamer that I like. I keep a toothbrush and a pair of sweats in a reusable grocery bag in the mudroom, in case it’s a late night. When we sit at the table together for dinner, I have a usual spot.
I slip into it now, and wait for Felix to sit across from me. “How are you doing?” I ask.
He sips his coffee and raises a brow. “I mean,” he says.
“Are you sleeping all right?”
“No,” he admits. “Every time I hear a sound—even if it’s a bug hitting the window—I jump out of bed to make sure she’s okay.”
We have moved Win to the guest room, to a hospital bed provided by hospice. There’s a wheelchair nestled up against the side of the refrigerator now, too. Caregivers are so busy trying to stay afloat, to remember medications and dosages and to be brave and compassionate and hide their own fear, that they don’t even see the water level rising.
“She’s not okay,” I say. “She’s dying.”
“I know that,” Felix snaps, and then his eyes widen. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. It sucks. You are allowed to be angry, sad, frustrated, whatever.”
He rubs his hands over his face, making his hair stand on end. “The whole time we’ve been married,” he says, “we never said goodbye to each other. I know that’s weird, right? But when I left for work, or if she went out with friends, we just waved and went off, because weknewwe were going to see each other in a few hours. It’s kind of our little superstition.” Felix looks up at the ceiling, as if he can see Win. “Now I have to say it. I have to say goodbye.”
I reach across the table and hold his hand. “I know.”
A sob folds him at the waist. “I love her. I love her to death.”
“You love herthroughdeath,” I correct gently. “You don’t stop loving someone just because they’re not physically with you.”
One of my favorite concepts from Ancient Egypt waskheperu,or manifestations. An individual was much more than just thekhat,or body. You were made up of theib—a heart; akasoul—a familial legacy; abasoul—your personality and reputation;shuyet—ashadow; andren—your name. After death, while thekastayed earthbound in the mummified corpse, thebasoul winged its way to Re, the sun god. There is an 18th Dynasty tomb in Luxor that shows a procession carrying all these different pieces of the deceased. The physical act of death affected only one of those, and the afterlife was where all the parts came back together.
“She’ll be here,” I tell Felix. “In the way your living room is decorated. Or the bulbs that come up next spring. The way you remember how it rained every day of your honeymoon.”
“She told you that?” Felix murmurs, blushing.
“She said you found other ways to pass the time.” I smile at him. “If you wind up remarrying, she’ll be there, too. Because she’s the one who taught you how to love someone.”
“I’m not going to fall for another woman.”
