Page 106 of When the Smoke Clears

“How was your vacation?” Mom asks the second I step into the house.

I drop my bag by the door and remove my boots. “Vacation feels like an exaggeration.”

She keeps her chin tipped, focusing on washing dishes. “A getaway. An escape. Whatever.”

“Are you upset I left?” I drape my jacket over the back of the gray cloth sofa and join her in the kitchen. Then I kiss the top of her head and nudge her aside to take over washing the dishes.

She frowns with a long sigh while drying her hands. The bags under her eyes are puffier, the lines at the corners of her eyes deeper. “I’m sorry. It’s just been a long weekend. I should have been enjoying time with my grandkids, but even when I stayed here to watch them, I felt guilty for not being with your father.”

“Leah and Andy were with him. Give yourself a break, and not just from being with him. You need to emotionally give yourself a break from the guilt. None of this is your fault. It’s life. It sucks. All we can do is our best. And some days that feels better than other days. I felt plenty of moments of guilt on my vacation, but I don’t regret going. I wish you’d give yourself a few days away from here.” I set the skillet on the drying pad.

Mom sits opposite me at the counter. “I’m sorry.” She rubs her temples. “I’m glad you got away. And I hope you enjoyed yourself despite the guilt. But he’s my husband. It’s not your job to take care of him. It’s mine. And I can’t leave until . . .” She blots the corners of her teary eyes.

Until he’s dead.

“Death is awful,” I say.

She eyes me and sniffles.

I drain the sink. “I know that’s an odd statement. It’s like the sky is blue. But when someone else’s dad or husband dies in his eighties, we give our condolences with a footnote. Sorry for your loss, but they had a good, long life. Or They’re out of pain. They’re in a better place. But it doesn’t matter how long their life was. It doesn’t even matter if they were in pain. Death is not about the deceased. It’s about the living. We’re not in a better place. We’re here without them. And being without them hurts. So while they’re out of pain, we feel it tenfold. It’s never the right time or the right place to say a last goodbye. Death is just fucking awful. Period. And that’s just the actual death part. This . . . this process that we’re going through with Dad, watching him lose his mind and his dignity, is something worse than awful. There’s no word for it. And it’s happening all too quickly yet not quickly enough. You know? Does that make sense?” I rest my hands on the edge of the counter and drop my head between my shoulders.

“Yeah,” Mom whispers. “It makes perfect sense.”

“So what are we going to do?” I lift my head.

She shrugs. “We’re going to be with him, even when we feel helpless. We’ll swallow the pain and the guilt, then hide the bitter taste behind a smile. And one day, he’ll take his last breath, and I know”—she wipes a few tears that escape before she can blink them away—“it will feel like he’s taking my last breath too.”

I press the buzzer and wait for one of the nursing home staff to open the secure door. When they do, a cringey waft of the world’s worst odor smacks me in the face. It’s a putrid mix of bodily fluids, overcooked broccoli, antiseptic, and probably good old body decomposition.

I’ve changed my mind. I hope I die on the job, even if it means I die young.

“Oh my god,” Mom whispers, grabbing my arm and nodding to our right.

Dad’s in a wheelchair, parked in front of a TV, but it’s not turned on. He has three bright-red spots on his forehead. Fresh surface wounds.

“Hey, what’s going on?” I ask, crouching beside him as Mom blinks away her tears and inspects his uncovered wounds. “Did you get in a fight?” I joke even though it’s not funny.

He narrows his eyes.

“Did you fall?” Mom gets to the point, pulling up a chair from one of the dining room tables.

A few residents remain in the room, picking at their food. One lady looks like she’s not breathing. Her plate’s untouched. And she’s asleep (I think) in her wheelchair with a floral blanket over her legs and skin so white it’s hard to imagine she has blood running through her veins.

“Why is your head bleeding?” Mom asks when Dad doesn’t answer.

He lifts his shaky hand to touch it, but I stop him. “Don’t mess with it.” I look around.

A lady in blue scrubs eyes me and steps away from her computer. She manufactures a smile on her way to us. “Your dad caused quite a commotion today,” she says.

“Oh?” I say, looking at his head.

“He wandered into the wrong room and fell. His catheter bag was on one side of the door, and he was on the other. I’m not sure how that even happened.” She holds out her hands as if they hold the world’s biggest mystery.

This place is understaffed. The employees are overworked, underpaid, and probably mentally and emotionally drained.

Still, this is my father, and I hate that something happened on their watch, and no one knows the details.

“Why does he have a catheter?” I ask.