After the End(7)

Did we really care about next-door’s dog? About an hour’s disruption to our otherwise perfect lives? The last six months have brought life into sharp, painful focus.

“Your appetizer, sir.”

I put away my phone and move my laptop to the empty seat beside me. The flight attendant waits for me to make room. “Sorry.”

“No problem. Would you like some wine with your meal?”

“Red, thanks.”

If we hadn’t had Dylan, Pip would still be working transatlantic flights. It’s funny to think of her here, pouring wine for tired business execs, and touching up her makeup midflight. She missed it, when she left—missed the big planes, the big destinations—but she never complained.

“Short-haul fits far better around Dylan,” she always said, when I asked. Now it’s as though she’s never worked, as though she’s always spent her days in a hospital ward.

I envy Pip the time she spends with Dylan, but at the same time, I don’t know if I could do it. Time away from the hospital gives me strength for when I come back. Eating proper food fuels me for when I don’t eat at all. Seeing healthy, happy people around me reminds me that’s the life we once had. The life we’ll have again.

“How’s the family?” my New York client asked as he shook my hand in reception last month.

“Great!” I said, not just to spare him the awkwardness, but because for that moment I could pretend that it was.

I watch the flight attendant as she walks back down the aisle, stopping to fill someone’s glass. In the galley kitchen at the end, she leans against the counter and lifts one foot out of her shoe to rub the heel. She’s talking to someone I can’t see, and I see her laugh at something they’ve said. I feel a wave of homesickness, and for a second, I miss Pip so much it physically hurts.

When Dylan got sick I stopped giving a shit about work. My inbox filled up, my phone blinked with unplayed voicemails. We spent all day and all night at the hospital, we didn’t eat, we didn’t sleep. And then the consultant took us to one side.

“Go home. Eat. Get some rest.”

“But Dylan—”

The doctor was firm. “You can’t help him if you’re sick yourselves.” It was advice we’d hear a lot over the coming weeks; advice we quickly began to give ourselves, to new parents arriving on the unit. Get some rest. You have to stay strong for your son, your daughter, each other. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

Neither of us had been to work in weeks. Pip’s boss couldn’t have been more supportive. He put her on open-ended compassionate leave; paid for the first six weeks, and with an open door whenever she’s ready to come back. Exceptional circumstances. We’re all so sorry. If there’s anything we can do, just ask.

My firm, Kucher Consulting, holds family days twice a year, where middle managers are photographed handing out candy and shooting hoops with starched teens briefed to look like they’re enjoying themselves. Last year Forbes listed us in the top twenty-five US companies nailing work-life balance.

When I told Chester my son had a brain tumor, he gave me three days. I used all my vacation allowance, took a week off with fictitious flu, and then I simply went AWOL. When I finally listened to my voicemails they were all from Chester, each terser than the last. What am I supposed to say to the clients, Max? Schulman are threatening to go to Accenture. For fuck’s sake, Max, where are you?

I wanted to quit, but Pip stopped me.

“How will we live?”

“I’ll get another job.” But even as I said it, I knew I couldn’t quit. I was good at my job. I was respected—to a point. I had flexibility—within reason. I was well paid.

I went back to work.

None of us knows what Dylan will need when he comes home. He might need a wheelchair. Special equipment. A live-in nurse. We don’t know, and that unknown could be expensive. The bottom line is, I need this job. And, if I’m honest, I couldn’t do what Pip does. I couldn’t be at the hospital, day in, day out. I don’t know how she does it.

The flight attendant takes away my salmon and replaces it with roast beef, complete with tender vegetables and a tiny jug of glossy gravy. I’m not hungry but I eat it anyway, twisting my head toward my laptop between bites, to remind myself what I’ve written so far. The attendant takes it away; offers me cheese, dessert, coffee, more wine. I take the coffee. Around me, people are finishing their meals and sliding their seats into beds. The attendants hand out extra pillows, unfold blankets, lay out snacks. The lights dim.

I fight tiredness. Get this report done, I remind myself, and you get to see your boy. The boy who—God willing—is going to breathe on his own tomorrow.

I look at my watch. It’s already tomorrow in the UK. I sit up straighter, focus harder. Today. Dylan comes off the ventilator today.





three





Leila


Leila Khalili’s alarm goes off at five thirty. Frost from the windows ices the air above her bed, despite the central heating, which she is resigned to keeping on overnight until her mother acclimatizes. It is only ten degrees colder here than it is in Tehran, but seventy-two-year-old Habibeh Khalili feels each one of them in her bones.

When Leila goes downstairs Habibeh is already there, dressed in the mint-green velour tracksuit she wears in the house.