Mrs. ___?—this way.

  YOU ARE GREATLY RELIEVED, a (female) nurse’s aide will be bathing you. Washing away the sticky sweat, the embarrassing smell of your (female, frightened) body.

  Dry yourself in an enormous scratchy white towel, cover your nakedness in a short paper gown that ties at the back. If you sit on the edge of an operating table, the paper gown crinkles and rides up your thighs white as lard.

  Absurdly modest for a woman of your age, a woman no longer young but with pretensions of appearing young.

  The last of all pretensions is that of being sexually attractive. At least, to someone.

  My husband thinks that I am beautiful. In all the world he is the only person who thinks so.

  In all of the world my husband is the only person who loves me.

  You are urged to lie down on the gurney. You will be transported to Surgery for the procedure. Overhead a perforated ceiling passes in a blur. Your hair falls in tangles over the edge of the gurney. You are helpless on your back as a turtle on its back. You see that you have lost weight since the start of the hospital vigil, you fold your arms across your small flaccid breasts as if to make yourself smaller.

  You will be partially sedated, it is (again) explained. You will be partially conscious through the procedure but unable to move. You will not remember most of the experience afterward.

  Yes, there will be pain. But if you do not remember pain afterward is it pain?

  Yes, there will be grief. But if you do not remember grief afterward is it grief?

  Skilled gloved fingers tap for a vein in the crook of your right arm. Your veins are dehydrated, many (painful) attempts to start a line are made, and fail, before a needle is inserted successfully—One-two-three! This will pinch!

  A cry escapes your lips. But soon then you begin to float. Though your eyes are not open you see clearly the part-masked faces surrounding you in a ring above you, eyes brightly avid with curiosity.

  An eighteen-inch needle is held aloft in gloved fingers, shining. Fascinated you observe it descend. A cold sensation on your left pelvic hip bone, then a piercing pain, and a yet more piercing pain as the needle is inserted deeper, into the bone, into the very marrow of the bone. So extreme is this pain you have no breath to scream. You have no strength to move—you are paralyzed, as it has been promised.

  Oh! Oh God help me . . . But your quaint cries are muted, no one hears.

  Perhaps there is a surgical error, your brain seizes, your heart fails, you sink into oblivion: die.

  Or, fail to die but wake in confusion in Recovery hours later.

  Eyes open, Mrs. ___! Eyes open!

  Your spine, your neck, and the back of your head ache with pain but your lower body has disappeared in a haze of numbness.

  Where is your husband? Vaguely you expect your husband to have been brought to you, to grip your hand and to commend you for being very, very brave.

  A sound of crinkling paper, the silly gown you are wearing that is badly smeared with blood has ridden up your thighs.

  A sound of muffled coughing. Muffled laughter?

  Solemnly you are informed by an embarrassed voice—Not such good news, Mrs. ___! It appears you were not a viable candidate to donate bone marrow after all. It appears that you are paralyzed from your pelvic hip bone down.

  Stunned silence. You open your mouth to protest but no words issue forth.

  More sounds of muffled coughing, laughter. You manage to push yourself up on your elbows, with much effort.

  Silly woman! Did. You. Really. Think. That. Through. Any. Pathetic. Action. Of. Your. Own. You. Could. Save. Your. Husband’s. Life.

  YOU ARE INFORMED: your husband has died, he has been dead for forty-eight hours. The precious bone marrow extracted from your hip bone is in the process even now of being “donated” to another, wealthier, and more important patient.

  You are informed: your husband has been awaiting you in the hospital morgue on Level C. You will be taken to Level C now.

  28

  Breathe

  . . . this tale you tell, tell and retell. This tale you cannot bring to an end. This tale that has entered your own breathing. That is your heartbeat. That has seeped into the very marrow of your bones.

  Breathe.

  Breathe.

  Breathe.

  Breathe.

  Breathe.

  Breathe.

  Breathe.

  29

  Death Certificate

  Of course, the vigil has ended.

  The tale you have been telling yourself has ended days ago.

  The fever dream will persist but breathing has ceased.

  In your desperate arms breathing has (finally) ceased.

  How many hours, days, weeks you’d held your husband! Begging breathe, breathe . . .

  But you failed him. You were not strong enough to prevail against Death.

  Time and date of death: 2:36 P.M., April 13, 2019.

  Santa Tierra Cancer Center, Santa Tierra, New Mexico.

  Cause of death:

  Acute renal failure

  Acute hypoxic respiratory failure

  Pulmonary edema

  Metastatic urothelial cancer

  YOU SHOULD MAKE MULTIPLE COPIES of the death certificate, Mrs. McManus. We usually suggest a dozen or more.

  And whatever you do—don’t lose the original.

  Part II

  Post-Mortem

  30

  The Wound

  No, no! It has not (yet) happened.

  A misunderstanding. Whatever has happened has not (yet) happened.

  Waking from the fever dream stunned amid sweaty clothes. You seem to have fallen asleep on a couch too short for your legs. Sharp pain in your neck, pain the entire length of your spine, left hip bone sharp jolting pain where you’d been lying twisted with knees drawn to your chest.

  “Gerard—”

  Panicked sitting up immediately to see: your husband is (still) alive in the hospital bed, (still) deeply asleep, (still) breathing.

  You feel an immense wave of relief. You could weep, Gerard is (still) alive.

  All that has happened, or will happen, has not happened (yet).

  So tired! You wonder if bone marrow has leaked from your bones, you have become so weak.

  Make your way unsteadily into the bathroom. Right leg bearing most of your weight. In a mirror trying to detect a small circular surgical wound in the left pelvic hip bone but of course there is none but still a dull ache throbs where a wound would be, if there were a wound.

  31

  Post-Mortem

  Mrs. McManus?—you can remain with your husband as long as you wish.

  We will be waiting out in the corridor.

  Still at the husband’s bedside. Sobbing uncontrollably, body wracked in grief.

  How useless, grief! As Gerard would observe, the evolutionary advantage in grieving is not self-evident.

  Teeth chattering, the air is so cold!

  Cannot bear to leave. For how can you leave.

  What can be the precise moment, when a wife turns to leave.

  You are holding Gerard, you are kissing his still-warm face, stroking his face, his crinkly hair.

  With a nail scissors brought for this particular purpose you cut a lock of his hair.

  In fact, two locks: one that is whitish silver, from his right temple, the other coppery-silver from the thicker hair at the back of his head.

  How embarrassed Gerard would be! Michaela, for heaven’s sake what are you doing? Don’t let anyone see . . .

  Beautiful hair! You will weep seeing these locks of your husband’s beautiful hair preserved forever in a little white envelope hidden in a drawer.

  His limp hands you lift in yours, and kiss. These are the hands of a man of good health—one would think: the skin not papery-thin but thick, ruddy.

  Draw the blanket up around Gerard’s shoulders. Tuck in around his neck. Often Gerard has complained of the cold in this room—he, who’d walked hatless in sub-freezing weather in Cambridge, Mass., no overcoat but only a tweed sport coat, gloves.

  Heartily laughing at Michaela shivering in a quilted thermal coat to her ankles . . .

  But who will laugh at you now? Who gives a damn about you, now?

  Here is the strange thing: Gerard is no longer breathing.

  Stare at his throat, his chest. Press the palm of your hand against his chest. Lean over, to determine—is he breathing?

  His eyes are partly open. Blue-gray eyes unfocused as if a transparent film has grown over them. Yet, it seems that these eyes can “see” you—somehow.

  As Gerard can “hear” you—somehow.

  Whisper to him another time, almost shyly—Breathe! Can you—breathe . . .

  Shy to beg the man after his long struggle—Please try, try to breathe, don’t give up, don’t leave me, I love you so much . . .

  Gerard has not given up—has he?

  You have not given up. But you are very tired.

  Kiss his lips, that have begun to cool. A wild impulse comes to you, to bite the lips, hard. Gerard will wince, and cry out in pain.

  Involuntarily, drawing in breath.

  Breathe! Please try . . .

  But it has been forty minutes, and then it is sixty minutes. Fascinating, the relentless passage of time.

  Here is a riddle: How can there be a single, singular instant that is the instant of leave-taking?

  For each instant might easily be the penultimate, not the last, instant.

  Why then would one choose a single, singular instant that is the last instant?

  You smile, this is absurd. There is no inevitable last instant.

  The possibility that the vigil is finally over, and that Gerard has finally died, is unacceptable, illogical.

  Unbearable thought like something that has squeezed inside your head and is opening its wide wings much too large for the inside of your head.

  No, no!—you beg. Whatever it is, it must not open those wide black-feathered wings inside your head . . .

  No, it is unbearable. Unfathomable.

  And that final heaving exhalation—that sigh.

  Always you will hear that sigh. You are hearing it now. The weariness, heaviness.

  Breathed his last. Words stark and beautiful and intransigent.

  Yet: Why would one breath—out of a lifetime of breaths—be the last? How could such a breath be determined? Surely not pure chance? And yet . . .

  What would Spinoza say?—the beloved philosopher who’d seemed to believe in a purely determined universe yet seemed to believe, as well, in the human soul?

  You are eager to ask Gerard. How Gerard loves to be asked such questions!

  Gerard did not at all mind being interrupted in his study—if you had a question for him that merited interruption. Come in! Come in! What can I do for you, darling? Leaning back in the creaking swivel chair dangerously far with his hands clasped behind his head, creasing his forehead as he pondered the question, formulating a thoughtful and usually lengthy answer . . .

  And come kiss me while you’re here.

  You are feeling weak, unreal. Shut your eyes and you can hear your husband’s voice. Shut your eyes, you can hear your husband breathing.

  Trying to recall what you’d asked Gerard, over the years. So many questions, and always there’d been answers. But now you can’t seem to recall a single question or a single answer.

  For you are fascinated, staring at Gerard’s face. It is not an impassive face, it is not a “frozen” face—at any moment, it can become animated, life can rush back into the eyes. You are convinced of this. You seem to be awaiting this.

  Gripping Gerard’s hands in both your hands, to steady them. Otherwise, your hands will tremble terribly.

  Yes, you are sure that in the next instant Gerard’s eyelids might flutter, his lips might part, he might begin breathing again—his chest heaving into life again . . . Almost you can anticipate the first breath, a sharp intake of breath, the renewal of recognition in the eyes.

  Wait. Never cease waiting.

  MRS. MCMANUS? MAYBE YOU SHOULD come away now.

  You’ve done all you can for your husband, Mrs. McManus.

  Now—it’s time to take care of yourself.

  32

  “Widow”

  Numbly she makes calls. Yes, it is over. A vigil of weeks, now over. Yes, she is very sorry they were not informed but Gerard did not want visitors. Nor did Gerard want telephone calls. Yes, Gerard insisted.

  Yes, they’d planned to transition to hospice in their rented house here. But no, that had not happened for Gerard had weakened too swiftly at the end.

  Yes, she is sorry that there was no hospice—no visitors. For Gerard had weakened too swiftly. But no, there was nothing she could do about it then and there is nothing she can do about it now.

  “I understand. Yes, it is very upsetting for you. Yes, I know that you loved him. But no, there is no need for you to fly out here. Gerard’s request was for cremation. He did not want a funeral. He did not want a ‘burial.’ There will be a memorial in Cambridge, possibly in the fall. Of course you will be invited. Yes.”

  RETURNED TO THE ROOM, now the bed was empty and bedclothes removed. A sharp odor of disinfectant brought tears to her eyes.

  Hours later. The cardiac and oxygen monitors had been removed, the room was unnaturally quiet. Anonymous. Of no significance that she could discern.

  In the doorway she stood, stared. That bed—where had she seen that bed before? Something terrifying about that (empty, stripped) bed.

  Something terrifying about (re)entering this room, and seeing that she was alone in this room.

  For the first time, alone in this room. She was inclined to think that it must be a wrong or mistaken room for what could possibly be the purpose of being in this room alone?

  As she would be assailed by the thought in hours, days, weeks and months to come: What could possibly be the purpose of a life alone?

  Trying not to think But where is he. Where have they taken him. What if he is not dead but still alive, he will wake and discover himself—where?

  Trying to fix her attention on the task at hand. Retrieving his things. Clearing out the room preparatory to leaving it forever. This was her mission, she’d insisted upon doing it alone.

  Much in the room she would leave behind. All of the flowers including the pink begonias sent by the Institute’s administrative assistant Iris Esdras who had been her principal contact with the Institute, and all of the magazines and newspapers accumulated on the windowsill. A few cards from the few acquaintances Gerard had made at the Institute before illness overcame him—these cards Michaela would take home out of respect for the senders though they are strangers to her.

  In the drawer of the bedside table were Gerard’s glasses, wristwatch, wedding ring, cell phone, Kindle. Immediately she slipped the wristwatch onto her wrist, she slipped the wedding ring onto her thumb. In a narrow wardrobe on a top shelf were Gerard’s laptop, more books, what appeared to be the copyedited The Human Brain and Its Discontents. She’d placed the manuscript there herself, for safekeeping, but scarcely remembers. Gerard’s clothes on hangers rudely squeezed together in the small space. His favorite blue shirt, he’d worn for a few days in place of a hospital gown! She pressed her face into the shirt, she inhaled greedily. Khaki shorts, T-shirts Gerard had asked her to bring for him but never wore. He’d intended to spend more time sitting in a chair by the window, working; he’d intended to walk as much as he could in the hospital, explore a rooftop garden they could see from the window, when weaker he’d hoped nonetheless to be wheeled in a wheelchair (by Michaela) but somehow they’d done very little of this, time had passed too swiftly, the figure they recalled as Gerard’s essential self, his healthy self, was ever rapidly retreating like a figure glimpsed in a rearview mirror as a vehicle speeds away. No need for Michaela to bring the clothes as there was no need for Michaela to bring so many take-out meals Gerard would be incapable of eating and realizing this now her heart was broken anew, she could not bear it.

  Michaela, stop.

  Just—stop.

  She’d frightened Gerard, and then she’d angered him, when she broke down weeping in his presence, as she wept so often when she was alone, hoarse wracking sobs that seized her like a convulsion, face contorted, eyes burning with tears. The first time, Gerard pressed his hands over his ears, turned away appalled, he’d never seen Michaela in such a state.

  She’d had the presence of mind to hurry from the room, to spare him. Like a wounded animal hiding in private, in a lavatory.

  Of course, your husband doesn’t want to see you crying. He doesn’t want to know that you are terrified of his dying and he does not want to be terrified of his dying himself nor does he want to cry. So—stop.

  He’d loved her less, she thought. After that scene.

  Or, his capacity to love had weakened. Like the gauge measuring oxygen retention, faltering, erratic, but slowly falling. Fading.

  Squat awkwardly to lift shoes, (soiled) underwear and socks from the floor. All these, stuffed into a bag, along with toiletries—hairbrush, toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant hurriedly collected.

  Toothbrush, deodorant. Michaela bit her lower lip to keep from sobbing.

  Discovering then that the copyedited The Human Brain and Its Discontents was in a slovenly state: pages bent and mauled, some fallen to the floor amid the (soiled) underwear. How had this happened, Gerard’s precious manuscript!

  Michaela felt a stab of panic, guilt. If Gerard knew, he would be disappointed in her . . .

  No. He would be furious. He’d trusted her!

  It had been unspoken between them, that Michaela would safeguard the manuscript, initially until Gerard was well enough to be discharged from the hospital and work on it again, at home; later, when it seemed clear that Gerard would not be able to work on it, ever again. But Michaela must have lost track of it, distracted, distraught.