‘And I’m Jenna,’ I say, holding my hand out.
Her focus jerks back, her pupils small, hard beads. ‘Jenna,’ she says, like she knows who I am. She looks at my outstretched hand and slowly reaches out and holds it. She runs her thumb along my knuckles like she is counting each one, and then she doesn’t let go. I look at Ethan, afraid to pull away. She sees us exchanging glances and drops my hand. Her back stiffens. ‘Allys isn’t well,’ she says.
‘May we see her?’
A hand reaches around the door and pulls it open wide. ‘Why not?’ a man says. He is clearly as spent as the woman, the circles under his eyes and the lines of his forehead speaking of days of no sleep.
‘She might not be up to it,’ the woman protests, blocking the way.
The man’s voice is tender, barely a whisper, a short knife in the tension that grips the house. ‘They’re her friends, Victoria. If not now, when?’
She steps aside. ‘This way,’ he says. My feet don’t move, but Ethan’s nudge at my elbow overrides a flurry of thoughts to flee. We follow him through the entryway and down a long hall. I sense the woman’s presence close behind, watching our moves. My moves. Before we reach the last room on the left, I stop.
I can already smell death. Memories shake me. Smell. It was my last connection with this world before I was swept into a dark empty one. It is distinct, sweet and yeasty, the smell of death, like spoiled bread, damp and swollen, coating walls, nostrils, skin, anything within reach, trying to tag it all. Even when I could no longer see, I could still smell death crawling over my skin.
‘She’s in there?’ I ask.
‘Yes,’ her father whispers. ‘It’s okay. She’ll want to see you.’
We take two more steps. Before we can even see her, we can see medical equipment jamming the room. Suction pumps. Trays of gauze, minty mouth swabs, cups of crushed ice, and stacks of white towels.
Ethan steps back and steadies himself against the wall. ‘She’s too sick to be here. Why isn’t she at a hospital?’
Her mother answers from behind us. ‘Allys is assigned to Comfort Care only. Her liver is shutting down. And her lungs. Heart. Kidneys. Shall I go on? Pretty much all of her organs are in some stage of failure. And on top of that, her condition has triggered systemic lupus. Her body is basically attacking itself.’
‘What about a transplant?’ Ethan asks.
‘Which organ? She has too many involved. The numbers add up fast. They said she is beyond saving.’
‘There was damage when she had her last illness,’ her father adds. ‘We knew that. But they thought medications would control the damage. She was doing so well. We thought …’
He breaks. I watch him sob, hang on to the wall, wiping his eyes, embarrassed, and then looking down, pinching at the bridge of his nose. His shoulders quake and soft moaning breaths escape as he tries to suppress his grief. I have never seen my own father sob. But now the soft breaths of this man cut through me, weaken me, and I fear I may fall to my knees. These are sounds I have heard before. The sounds of a grown man crying when there is nothing left to do. The sounds of my father.
I grab Ethan’s arm and pull him into the room. Allys turns her head as we enter. Ethan can’t suppress his reaction. ‘Oh, God.’
‘You’re no prize either, Ethan.’ Her voice is raspy and weak.
‘Allys,’ I say. She is small, sunken into sheets and pillows, like she is already half swallowed up by another world. Except for her right arm, her prosthetics are gone, stored away. Her stumps barely peek from her gown. An oxygen tube lies across her upper lip, and a large patch is pressed against her chest.
‘Come closer,’ she says. ‘It’s hard to talk.’
Ethan goes to one side of her bed, and I, to the other. ‘We didn’t know you were so sick,’ he says.
She smiles, her lips a weak yellow smear across her face. ‘That’s an understatement. I’m dying. When organs start shutting down, it doesn’t take long. I always knew it was a possibility. My parents were in denial.’ She makes an effort at a chuckle. ‘Maybe I was, too.’ She coughs, her face wincing in pain from the effort. She presses a button on a pad near her fingertips. The patch on her chest clicks. ‘Sweet elixir,’ she says and smiles.
‘Allys, is there anything we can do?’ I ask.
‘No, Jenna. It’s all been done. This little train was set in motion decades ago by people who thought they were above the system. It will probably take decades more to stop it. Only the FSEB can fix this mess we’ve made. But it’s too late for me. With everything I would need, my numbers would be way over the top. It’s the law, remember?’
I am silent. For someone so sick, her voice is amazingly harsh.
‘Hold my hand,’ she says.
Ethan reaches out.
‘No. Jenna. I want Jenna to hold my hand.’
Ethan and I look at each other. How can you deny a dying person a simple wish? I reach across her bed and take her prosthetic hand. ‘Your hand is so soft. Much softer than mine.’ She touches gently at first, then squeezes hard. She pulls at me. ‘Closer,’ she says. I lean down until my face is close to hers, her sweet, sickly breaths hot against my cheek. She pushes up as far as her left stump will allow, and she whispers into my ear.