Even as she prayed this, prayed as hard as she could, she heard a voice in her head just beyond her own. It was Maya’s voice, small, offstage in her mind, telling her that she would be giving up a hope, not all hope. Giving up the hope that Henry would get better, that he would get to have a real life and that she would get to share that future with him. And in that moment Hannah understood how she, just like Henry, had been stuck in a holding area between life and death. How maybe she’d conflated her aliveness with his. Maybe keeping Henry here was selfish, her way of avoiding that awful in-between place where one hope had died and another had not yet been born. Perhaps all this time she’d been keeping him stuck as well, preventing his passage to somewhere better. Was there somewhere better? Somewhere they would meet again? She knew Renee believed it. And though she was inclined to disagree, she also knew that her perspective was as limited as any other creature’s, as limited as that of the octopus who knew nothing of the craggy fisherman above him, nothing of planes swimming sharklike across the moon at night, of giant trees whose branches bobbed in a breeze.
She thought now of the Henry she knew when they were younger, his warm, safe hugs and the way he smelled like laundry detergent and how he absently stroked her arm when they were together. The boy who used to put an extra packet of cream cheese in her bag at the bagel shop when they first met, who moved her out of the rain to kiss her, who gazed at her with such soft, loving eyes that she came to see herself through them. She asked this Henry, the Henry in the before, what he would have wanted if he knew what was coming. Twelve years kept alive. How many more would be enough? How long would he ask them to hold on? And she knew the answer clearly. It had already been too long.
No! she thought, a howl in her chest. Please no.
She couldn’t take it. It was too much. God help me, she thought. The primal wail. Her body racking. I can’t. Please God, I can’t. Her pain was a universe, her whole being made only of sorrow.
She felt a hand on each shoulder. Maya on one side, Blue on the other. And she wanted to say, Please make it stop, please if you love me, please help me. But she understood that this was what was happening, what had to happen, and no one could change it. She sat up, wiped her cheeks, forced her breath to slow and regulate. “I have to go,” she whispered. “I need to see him.”
She walked out, moving down the hall as fast as she could. Her grief was giant and unwieldy, like airplane wings careening and crashing into everything she passed. She could almost feel the strangers walking by sensing what it was, stepping out of the way of it.
They took the elevator up to the fourth floor. Buzzed into the ICU. Entered the awful theater of urgency, of patients tubed and wired like aliens in purgatorial rooms, the beeps and sighs of machines, the low murmur of doctors and nurses talking over the terrifying undercurrent of the lottery, of maybe life, maybe death.
Vivian was standing at the nurses’ station. She turned and saw them, her shoulders sagging with exhaustion, an almost ancient sadness in her eyes.
Hannah ran to her and Vivian held out her arms, hugged her tight.
“I get it,” Hannah said into the cloth of her shirt. “I understand now. We have to let him go.”
“Yes,” Vivian said, and Hannah could hear the choke in her voice. “Yes, sweet girl, we do.”
She stepped back, took Hannah’s face in her hands and gave a determined nod, as if summoning courage for them both. Then she held out her hand to the others. “My girls,” she said, “I’m so glad you’re here.” She hugged them all. “I think I’m going to go to the chapel for a bit. Take as long as you need.”
But I need forever, Hannah thought.
Together the girls walked to Henry’s room.
She looked at Maya, saw the helplessness in her eyes.
“He’s still here,” Hannah said. “Right now. That’s what I keep telling myself.”
But she knew that soon there would be an empty bed, eventually taken by someone else’s loved one, another set of family and friends gathered around. How could it be? Her brain wanted to shut it down and so she did.
She went to Henry, took his hand in both of hers. She watched as each of her friends bent down to him, put their lips tenderly on his forehead, told him goodbye. Maya put her hand on top of hers. On the other side of the bed, Blue and Renee added their hands, as well.
They sat like that for a few moments, quiet and sad and together.
“Did you know sea otters hold hands while they sleep?” Renee said. “It’s so they don’t float away from each other.”
“I like that,” Maya said, squeezing.
“Me too,” Hannah said.
“We’ll be right outside if you need us,” Maya said.
Hannah nodded, watched them go with the awful understanding that it was time. She sat alone with Henry, the sky at the window dressed in mourning black, the room mostly dark but for a soft shell of light over Henry’s head, the dull glow of machinery. A hollow, sterile quality to the air, as if life had already been suctioned out of it. She took in Henry’s beautiful face, the way his hair, in need of a trim, curled near his ears. She traced his big hands, put her head on his chest—the safest place she had ever known.
He was her first love, her first experience of tenderness and also of ecstasy. He had taught her how to drive, fixed her computer when it broke, listened to all her sorrows and dreams. He was her person, her one. After that nightmare night he’d become even more her safest place, in some way her imaginary friend, the one who never got mad, who never hurt her, who would never leave, a benevolent and steady presence in her life like Renee’s Jesus. Without him she would be untethered.
She climbed into his bed, lay on top of him. Sobbed quietly so that he wouldn’t know. Just in case. Just in case he was still in there, she didn’t want to frighten him. She wanted to scream, Why? Why? and Fight! Fight! And against those words another voice in her head said, Maybe this happened because he knows you’ll be okay now, maybe he was waiting for that, maybe he sensed that it was time for both of you to let go. She didn’t want that and yet she understood. Even as she grieved, she understood.
She stayed like that for a long time, touching and pressing her body against his, memorizing the feel of him, his strong and steady heart, still here, still beating. She was ripped. She was full of love. She held on and held on and held on. She kissed his cheeks, sniffed for the sleep smell at his neck, but it was already gone, replaced by something medicinal.
It was too much. Too much. He was all she knew.
Finally, reluctantly, she climbed off. She sat beside him again, watched him breathe, memorizing each rise and fall of his chest. Stroked his arms, his hair. I love you, I love you, I love you. She raised his hand to her forehead and pressed it against her, imprinting its warmth there.
From the doorway, Vivian’s soft voice. “Hi,” she said.