Coming Home(145)

“This is…” he whispered.

“I know,” she murmured, running her fingers through his hair before she leaned down and pressed her lips to his head, leaving them there as she added, “But he’ll never be gone, Danny. Because you still love him. And he’ll always exist through you because of that. They leave, baby, but they’re never gone.”

She straightened, and he lifted his head, resting his chin on her stomach as he stared up at her. She smiled a watery smile as she ran her fingers through his hair again. “You’re doing the right thing,” she whispered.

He nodded before pressing his face into her stomach again, and she stood there, caressing his hair until Gram returned from the bathroom.

“I’m ready,” she said softly, and Leah stepped back, allowing him to stand.

“Alright,” he said, running his hand over his eyes. “Let me just…I’ll…”

“I’ll go get them,” Leah interjected. “Stay here with her.”

He exhaled as Leah turned toward the nurses’ station, thankful for her offer; he didn’t think he’d be able to speak to anyone right now. He wasn’t even sure how he was still standing.

Gram came over and took his hand, holding it gently as they stood waiting for Leah to return.

A few minutes later, Dr. Racine turned the corner with the nurse named Amanda from earlier. He approached them and held out his hand, shaking Danny’s as he said something Danny didn’t hear. Instead, his eyes were on Leah where she stood a few feet away, her watery eyes pinned on him.

“I love you,” she mouthed.

“If you’ll follow me,” Dr. Racine said, pulling his attention from Leah, and Danny blinked quickly before he nodded.

The doctor and nurse walked a few steps ahead as he and Gram followed them into Bryan’s room.

This was usually the part where Danny could exhale; no matter how many times he walked through the ICU, it always unsettled him. Solemn faces. Voices barely above hushed whispers. No flowers. No balloons. Everything sterile. Angular. Cold. Machines beeping in a repetitive chorus of hope, or trilling in warning. Faces worn from vigils that had lasted days or weeks, or worse, the faces streaked with the tears of a vigil that had ended.

But then he’d get inside Bryan’s room, the door would close behind him, and he’d exhale. He’d pull up a chair and sit next to the bed, and he’d talk to his best friend as if they were sitting on the wall outside the shop having lunch. He’d tell him about his life, about work, about the guys. He’d tell him about the weather, about movies he’d seen. And most recently, he’d tell him about Leah.

It was a little piece of normal inside a cyclone of sorrow.

But today, as the door closed behind him, he didn’t exhale. He didn’t pull up a chair. He didn’t smile or talk or share.

He didn’t move at all.

Gram released his hand as Amanda guided her to the other side of the room, pulling up a chair for her to sit by Bryan’s bedside. Danny was still rooted to the floor as the doctor looked over the readouts on Bryan’s machines and the nurse helped Gram get comfortable in her chair. She said something to her that Danny couldn’t hear, and then Gram pressed her lips together before she nodded.

“Okay,” Amanda said, placing her hand on Gram’s shoulder before she turned to Dr. Racine, looking at him meaningfully.

Danny watched as he approached the side of the bed and took hold of the tube in Bryan’s mouth. When he stepped back a few seconds later, there was a small plastic cylinder still attached to Bryan’s lip by some medical tape, but the long, serpentine tube—the one Danny knew was sending life-giving oxygen into his lungs—was gone.