SHE SLIPS AWAY IN the night. The breath goes out and does not come back in. ii. I’d like to say I woke up in the middle of the night, shocked awake by the sudden loss, a ripple across the cosmos. I do not. I sleep a dreamless sleep and wake with sandy eyes. When I come downstairs, Mom is on the couch. Dad is next to her, still pretending. They are both wilted flowers with red-rimmed eyes. Mom’s hair is tousled; Dad sports the shadow of a beard. And it is in that moment, when I see their eyes, that I know. I shake my head to keep them from saying it aloud, but they do anyway. “Very,” Dad says, his voice even. “Last night Nonnie—it happened last night.” “Don’t tell me,” I say. I do not want to hear the words from him. “She’s gone,” Mom says, her voice hoarse. “She’s gone away.” There’s all this language we use to avoid saying the truth, to avoid calling it what it is: passed, passed on, passed away, gone away, gone to a better place, left us. It’s as if death is one big road trip and the rest of us are left behind.
