The other day he watched a mini-doc on YouTube. An English barrister with an aggressive cancer enlisted his grandson to film his last few months. They went to the cemetery where he would soon be buried and took beguiling footage of a walkabout amongst the graves. After supper, he sat by the fire musing about the end, only weeks away. It played well to those who hadn’t experienced the unfathomable riddle of sudden death — like an ad brought to you by the Three Acts Corporation.
A newborn dies minutes after being delivered, without awareness of having existed; an ebullient Florida tourist is taken out by a 350-pound manta ray when it leaps on deck; a barefoot bride poses for a wedding photo in the shallows of a river. Water creeps up the gown and she stumbles on the embankment — the soaked dress, now heavy as concrete, makes rescue by the photographer impossible. A posh barrister, fatally diagnosed, has ample time to reflect on life’s mysteries before morphine companionably hastens his death. What did any of it mean? In a world of drowned brides and murderous, bitch-slapping flying fishes, it meant nothing. He felt asinine even posing the question, even thoughtlessly having the thoughtless thought…
Jeremy only prayed that when his moment came, he’d be quickly absorbed into the masterpiece of dark matter and infinite nebulae — of black holes from which neither light nor three acts could escape.
—
At midnight, just as she turned out the light, Larissa’s cell lit up with SHITHEAD.
(How Derek was listed in her contacts.)
Her gut clenched. He’s drunk.
When she picked up, a woman very tentatively said, “Is this Larissa?”
“Who’s this?”
“Uhm, Beth. Derek’s in the hospital.”
“What happened?”
“He had the flu but now they think maybe it’s his heart? They’re transferring him to the ICU. Uhm, did I—? Sorry if I woke you.”
Larissa stewed. The asshole made the girlfriend call his mommy! Unfuckingbelievable. Then she laughed, imagining how the doctors and R.N.s probably kept asking if she was the granddaughter.
Larissa got out of bed, empowered by her abrasively carefree assessment of the situation — it really was liberating to feel nothing. No way was she going to get in her Uggs and race over there.
It started to gnaw, though, as her thoughts turned to Rafaela. “ICU” never meant anything good… if the piece of shit upped and died and she never woke her daughter, she wouldn’t hear the end of it.
Seeking clarity, she had herself a pee.
She crept to Rafaela’s room, softly calling her name. Turned on a light. The sleep-confused girl yelped when Larissa said her daddy was sick and had been taken to the hospital and that they probably needed to go. When Rafi asked what was wrong, she snapped, “His girlfriend wouldn’t tell me.” On the way to UCLA, she regretted the snark.
Her daughter whimpered the entire ride like some puppy outside Starbucks. (She should have given her a Xanax.) They stopped at a light before the final turn. A woman at the intersection held up a sign.
I failed
Now what?
HOMELESS
Can you help?
—
He was still in the ER when they arrived.
They sat for a moment before a volunteer came to escort them back. Larissa demurred and told Rafaela to go by herself. Mom said try to be calm but it was no use.
Larissa scanned the waiting room for the g.f.
Just as she returned to her seat, a slender gal emerged from the ladies’ room — emo wallflower with a twee trunk of retro tattoos covering her arms, petering out at her jawline. They smiled at each other and knew. Well, that’s sorta interesting, she thought. Definitely not his type — though maybe she is… good on ya, Derek! What do you call that, a frickin’ millennial? At least she didn’t look like what Larissa feared: a 2.0 version of her younger, voluptuous self.
Her anger dissipated as the girl timidly approached.
Larissa smiled and extended a hand — a grownup’s power move. “So, what happened?” she said, trying to colonize her with a WTF, big sister vibe.
Beth smiled wanly. She was disarmed — she’d prepared herself to be ambushed by a flurry of hostile innuendo. It had been such a very long day.
“He had — he’s had this fever for, like, three days. I told him not to go into work but we had this really important deadline. He was breathing funny. I tried to get him to go to the ER but he wouldn’t.”
“Sounds like Derek!” she said, with a smile that overplayed. The collision of her vanity with the lover’s callow youth (she felt so old!) made everything go large. She couldn’t help herself.
“What freaked me out was that he coughed up blood.”
“Oh shit.”
“When we got him here — we’ve actually been here since six—I wanted to — I thought I should call someone, I thought I should call you, but he wouldn’t let me. But they said his lungs had fluid in them and his heart was, like, really racing. I think his pulse was, like, two hundred—”
“Whoa.”
“—and I kind of started to get scared maybe something was going to happen? I think they think it’s like a really bad upper respiratory infection? Someone even said asthma? But they’re checking his heart. One of the nurses said there wasn’t enough oxygen in his blood.”
Once Beth finished relaying the essentials, it got awkward. Things went quiet until a flurry of Tessatexts came to the rescue. She was at Pump and fully drunk, urging Larissa to GET YE BISEXUAL GINGER ASS OVER HERE RAITCH NOW because an Eddie Redmayne lookalike was there with a hottie WHOS PUSSIE YOU WOULD DEF LIKE TO LICKK. Larissa laughed out loud and texted back guess where i am? While she waited for a response, she considered sexting Allegra, but thought, Nope. Too soon.
As another tessellated bulletin came in, Rafaela stormed toward her, in tears.
“How’s he doin’, babe?”
“Not good!” she said, falling into her mother’s arms.
Beth hung back, which was smart.
“Tell me what’s goin’ on,” said Larissa, cool and steady and interested. For her daughter’s sake.
“They’re saying they need to test him for a stroke!”