Twenty-Eight

“HEY, CARA, WHAT’S up?”

Abby, juggling her jacket and keys, Gen’s leash, and the salad she’d prepared to take over to Scott’s place for dinner, pressed the phone between her ear and her shoulder.

Dylan had band rehearsal after school. He’d play first chair trumpet in the Christmas concert and he’d been up late every night for the last week practicing, working on his homework and end-of-semester projects, and hand-making holiday decorations, half of which went up at his house, the other half of which went home with Abby.

She’d made the mistake of mentioning she had only a small, fake tree and a single string of lights—neither of which she’d put up in years—and Dylan had taken it upon himself to remedy her obvious lack of holiday cheer.

Abby pressed down on one of the curling, wilted paper cutouts of holly Dylan had colored the night before, so saturated with dark green ink even the generous use of double-sided tape couldn’t keep it flat. Then, clicking her tongue for Gen, she held up her leash.

“Hey, Abby,” Cara paused, her voice breaking. “I think you and Gen should come in.”

“What happened?”

“It’s Liam...” Her words choked to a stop.

Abby didn’t need Cara to say anything more.

“We’re on our way.” She hung up and clicked her tongue again.

Gen, curled in her basket on the floor outside the kitchen, raised her head, then dropped it again.

“C’mon...” She swallowed hard, clearing the thickness she could hardly breathe past. “C’mon, Gen. Let’s go.”

The dog rose, shook, then padded across the floor, head low and ears pressed back, her tail drooping, and Abby knelt as she approached. Wrapping her arms around Gen, she pressed her face into the fuzzy, black ruff for a moment.

Breathe .

Twenty minutes later, Abby tapped her knuckles on the door to Liam’s room. His mother answered, jaw tight and eyes shimmering.

“Abby. Thank you for coming.”

“Of course.” Abby stepped into the room, bright from the harsh, fluorescent lights above.

The setting sun, bleeding brilliantly in orange and magenta across the sky, went unnoticed outside the window. Ethan laid in the bed beside his twin, still, for once, his hand resting on Liam’s chest as it rose and fell in sleep. A man sat on the bench beside the window. Liam’s dad.

She didn’t ask. Didn’t need to. Whatever had happened, it didn’t matter, now. Only the long, silent vigil remained as those in the room waited for minutes, or hours, until the tiny chest would rise no more.

Her eyes burned.

It never got easier, but this one... This one would hurt more than most.

She guided Gen to the bed, knowing this would be the last time she would set her hand to the dog’s collar, give her the command, and help her leap onto the sheets and settle herself beside Liam’s small form.

Ethan, alerted by the jingle of Gen’s collar, reached across his brother and rubbed Gen’s soft ear between his fingers. “Liam? Gen’s here.”

It lacked his usual exuberance, the triumphant announcement of a friend arriving to play. Quiet instead—subdued—little more than a whisper, as if Ethan didn’t know whether to let his brother sleep or wake him up to say hello.

Liam’s eyelids fluttered, then opened, looking out with an emptiness Abby recognized all too well. His tiny hand twitched beside him, and Abby guided it around Gen’s neck, pressing the dog’s head lightly into place on the boy’s chest.

Her tail thumped once, then stilled.

“We’re here, Liam. Gen is here. Do you feel her soft fur?” Abby ran his hand down Gen’s back, then settled it around the dog. Ethan, still cuddled close beside his brother, let go of Gen’s ear and laid his hand atop her head, rising and falling with Liam’s breaths.

Spent by even so little effort, Liam’s head fell to the side, eyes fluttering closed again, the deep smudges of purple beneath them standing in stark contrast to his skin, too pale, almost gray, the edges of his lips already turning blue.

Abby turned to the boys’ mother. “Do you want me to call a nurse and get some oxygen?”

She shook her head. “No. The doctor says it will only prolong things. He had a cannula earlier today, but it kept falling out, and he’s resting more...” She paused, her breath hitching. “More comfortably, now.”

By the window, Liam’s dad closed his eyes, wincing.

They were a brave family. Liam’s mother more than any of them.

Since Liam’s diagnosis, she had fought for him.

For treatment, for time, for her twins to be together.

She had fought herself. Hopelessness, guilt, the price one brother paid for another.

She had fought for her marriage, for a modicum of normalcy in the midst of tragedy.

And she’d still be fighting tomorrow. Fighting for Ethan, who would be alone for the first time in his short life. Fighting survivor’s guilt. Fighting the questions that were sure to come.

A flash of shame bit Abby. Ethan and Liam’s mom didn’t have the leisure to fall apart tomorrow, or any of the days after. She’d get up in the morning and keep on going. Abby hadn’t had that strength. Couldn’t imagine the burden.

Didn’t wish it on anyone.

She and Gen sat a silent vigil beside Liam’s family, their presence enough. On the low bench, his father took his mother’s hand. Her knuckles turned white.

The minutes ticked past, the machines by Liam’s bed beeping obscenely in the quiet room. After a while, a nurse came in to check his monitors. She gave Abby a quick nod and, as she left, again, she ran a hand down Gen’s spine.

Abby made a mental note to stop by the nurse’s station.

The sky outside darkened, color fading in pinks and oranges, then to purple twilight, then bleeding into night.

Ethan, close beside his twin, stroked Gen’s head, then let his hand rest again. Liam’s fingers twitched where they lay on the dog’s shoulders.

They waited.

“Mom?” Liam’s weak voice cracked. “Ethan?”

His mother rose and crossed to his side, taking his hand where it flailed against Gen’s midnight fur. “Shhh, I’m here, Liam. We’re both right here.”

She leaned over him, brushed the hair from his forehead, then pressed her lips to the skin slicked damp and glistening under the harsh lights.

He thrashed, shaking his head from side to side and moaning.

Ethan, beside him, held him tighter, eyes wide.

“Here, Ethan, come here,” Abby held her arms out for the boy. “Let your mom and dad have a moment with Liam, ‘kay?”

The boy slipped from the bed and Gen raised her head, eyes following him, as he folded himself into Abby’s arms.

Once Ethan settled securely into Abby’s embrace, she rested it back down, nuzzling beneath Liam’s chin.

His mother held his hand in one of hers, the other tucking stray hairs behind his ear as she spoke in a low voice.

His dad came around the bed and Abby moved to the side, Ethan hitched against her hip, though he was far too big to be carried like that. His arms tightened around her neck, his small body trembling against hers.

“I’m here,” his mom said, voice low and soothing.

The voice of a woman who had come through surgery after surgery, procedures prolonging Liam’s life week after week, month after month, buying her son as much time as she could.

“You’re going to be okay. I’m not going anywhere.

Daddy is here, too. Gen and Abby are here. Ethan is here...”

Liam thrashed again, then stilled.

Ethan, breath hitching, pressed his face into Abby’s neck, hiding, and she held him close.

Glancing over her shoulder at the pair, their mother’s voice broke. “Abby... Ethan. Can you...?”

Abby nodded and rose, the boy still tucked into her embrace. “Gen, let’s go.”

The dog lifted her head and thumped her tail once, then laid it back down again.

“No.” Ethan jerked, trying to break free from Abby. “No, I need to be with Liam. I need to be with my brother.” His voice rose, broke, crashed, a wave beating itself against the shore, shattering into a million tiny droplets.

“Shh, shh.” His mother reached for him and Abby let him slip into her arms. “Okay. It’s okay. You can stay.”

She turned back to the bed and settled beside Liam, Ethan tucked in her lap.

Abby, too, approached, and laid one hand on Gen’s head, the other on Liam’s shoulder.

“Do you want me to go?”

She shook her head. “No, please stay. Unless you need to...?”

“No, I can stay as long as you need.”

Silence blanketed the room for a time and Ethan, exhausted, drifted off.

Then, Gen lifted her head and whined, high-pitched, on the edge of hearing.

Moments later, the first alarm blared.

Ethan twitched in his mother’s arms as a second alarm beeped. A nurse arrived, followed by another, and soon the quiet room blared with a cacophony of voices and piercing warnings.

Ethan clapped his hands over his ears and cried, “Make it stop. Make it stop.”

Pressing his face into her shoulder, his mother rocked him, then, with an authority at odds with the moment, spoke. “Turn them off.”

The nurses nodded and, while one began resetting and disconnecting each machine, the others filed out. Then, quiet returned, except for Ethan’s hiccupping sobs, muffled in his mother’s shirt.

His father stood gray-faced and still, but Abby didn’t make the mistake of thinking he didn’t care. She’d seen this too many times to judge how another grieved.

“Ethan, it’s time to say goodbye, now,” his mother whispered as she stroked his hair.

“We talked about this, remember? Liam can’t keep fighting anymore.

His body is ready to give up...” Her voice broke, but she cleared her throat and continued.

“Do you still want to stay, or do you want to go with Abby?”

Ethan sniffled, then turned toward his brother and dragged a sleeve across his nose. “I want to stay.”

His mother nodded and, turning, set him on the bed, where he cuddled close beside Liam and took his hand again.

“I love you, Liam,” he whispered, pressing his forehead to his brother’s temple.

Their mother leaned over both of them, holding Ethan’s other hand and resting her own over Liam’s where it still lay on Gen, an unbroken circle. Liam’s father clenched his fists, jaw tight and eyes wet, as he bent over his son’s prone form.

Abby thought back to the first time she’d stood this unthinkable vigil over a body broken beyond recognition.

The silent minutes ticking past, alone, scared of what life would be when it finally ended.

She studied the little family before her and grieved for what she hadn’t had, then.

For what she’d been too proud to accept from those who loved her.

For the solace she’d denied herself, wrapped so tightly in her own desolation.

A few moments longer they remained, then Liam thrashed again, coughed, and laid still. His mother locked eyes with Abby, then sobbed once, shaking her head. Lurching toward them, Abby threw her arms around Ethan as he bolted up in the bed, confused and alone for the first time in his life.

“It’s done, Ethan. It’s over, now,” Abby whispered against his ear. “Liam is gone. He doesn’t have to fight anymore.”