More Than Words(26)

She pulled out her phone and instead sent an e-mail to Rafael and Jane with a subject line that said My Dad. The body text said: Nothing’s public yet, but I won’t be at work today. Hopefully she’d be able to finish out the campaign, get Rafael to election day. It was only seven weeks away. Maybe she could do that and take over her dad’s role at the Gregory Corporation at the same time. Would it be that hard to juggle them both? She’d counted on more time. But she shouldn’t have. She was smarter than that.

As she was trying to figure everything out, her phone rang. Rafael O’Connor-Ruiz calling, it said on the screen. She had never spoken to Rafael on the phone before. He had seen her e-mail and called her. The fact that he cared enough to do that made Nina’s throat feel full.

“Hi,” she said, trying to disguise her tears.

“Nina, Nina,” he said.

“It’s me,” she said, wiping her nose with the bottom of her T-shirt.

“I don’t sleep . . . I never sleep these days, but most people do, so I just wanted to make sure . . . is someone there with you?”

“Carlos,” she answered. “My father’s nurse. He’s calling the hospice and I think the mortuary to come get—” But she couldn’t finish the sentence. She tried, but it was impossible.

“Do you want me to come over? If you need someone, I can.”

Nina thought about how nice it would be to have him there, to have someone she could lean on, someone whose opinions she could ask. But regardless of whatever connection they had, he was her boss, nothing more.

“That’s such a nice offer,” she said, “but you don’t have to come.” She paused for a moment, afraid this meant she’d have to hang up, afraid she’d be alone again. “Maybe we could stay on the phone, though.”

“Whatever you want, Palabrecita,” he said. “I know how awful it is to lose a parent. Do you want me to talk? Do you want to?”

Nina sat down at the table where she and Tim had eaten dinner. She couldn’t bring herself to leave her father’s body alone. She remembered the night she and Leslie drove from Connecticut to eastern Massachusetts when Leslie’s mother had died. They’d joined Leslie’s father and her three sisters as they sat in the funeral home, staying with Leslie’s mother’s body. It was a Jewish custom called shemira that Nina hadn’t known about before. Leslie hadn’t either—her family hadn’t been particularly religious while she was growing up, but while her mother was sick, her parents read everything they could about Jewish customs surrounding death and dying. And Leslie’s mom decided that she wanted her family to observe shemira, to sit with her from the time she died until the time she was buried the next day, keeping watch, not abandoning her before she was brought to her new home at the cemetery. There was something initially horrifying about sitting and talking near Leslie’s mother’s dead body—Nina had never seen her own mother after she’d died—but then somehow it became comforting. It had normalized death in a way.

“Have you ever spent the night in a funeral home?” Nina asked Rafael.

“Can’t say I have,” Rafael said. “Have you?”

“Mm-hm,” Nina said. “When my college roommate Leslie’s mom died. It’s a Jewish tradition or maybe more a practice—not one that most people follow.”

“How does it work?” Rafael asked. Nina imagined him relaxed against the pillows in his bed.

“Leslie’s dad said you’re really supposed to pray and read scripture, but we didn’t. Instead we talked about Leslie’s mom. Leslie and her dad and sisters told stories. I told one, too, about how grateful I was for her when Leslie and I moved in together our freshman year. My dad, unsurprisingly, didn’t want to leave. And Leslie’s mom took charge, shepherding him out of the room, convincing him to take her to Mory’s so Leslie and I would have a chance to get to know each other and the people on our floor. It takes a strong personality to boss my father around, and I’d been amazed that she was able to do it after knowing him for only a few hours.”

Nina leaned back in the chair she’d sat down in. It had been Tim’s earlier that night. Forever ago, that was how it felt.

“Do you want to tell me a story about your dad?” Rafael asked. “Or I can tell you one.”

“You can?” Nina asked. All of a sudden this felt incredibly important.

“I didn’t know him, but I heard him speak once. And it actually changed my life.”

“You’re not serious,” Nina said. She couldn’t believe that in all of their talks, all of their work sessions, this had never come up. “Why didn’t you ever mention that?”

“I’m completely serious,” Rafael answered. “And I never said anything because I didn’t want it to change your perception of me. I . . . I always wanted you to know that I valued your contribution to my campaign for who you are, not because of who your dad is.”

“Was,” Nina said, looking over at the body that looked now like a wax museum version of her father. No chest rising and falling, no eyelashes fluttering.

“Is,” Rafael repeated. “Even if he’s gone, he is your father. He doesn’t stop being your father just because he’s not here anymore.”

Nina had always thought about her mom in the past tense after she’d died. And in some ways that made sense. Her mom was funny. Her mom was smart. Her mom was beautiful. Her mom loved to take Nina out for frozen yogurt with rainbow sprinkles, just the two of them. But what Rafael said made a lot of sense, too. Phoebe Gregory would always be her mom, no matter how long she’d been gone.