Heart the Lover (43)

‘I didn’t. I didn’t know that. At the time it felt like the end of the world.’

Sam comes up to us, apologizes for interrupting. ‘Can you come back to the room, Jordan?’

‘Excuse me, EJ.’

‘You go to Yasher. He needs you.’

I follow Sam down the hallway. Outside the room he says, ‘He gets this way at night. Really agitated. I’ve asked the nurse to give him some Ativan. I just—’ He looks up to the ceiling. ‘Maybe you could go in. Maybe you could, like, sing to him?’



‘Sing?’

‘You know. Some of your songs. About fairs.’ He grins at me.

It’s a shock when people remember what you remember. Those few weeks, many, many springs ago, when I sang Sam to sleep. ‘Sure.’ I don’t think I ever sang to Yash.

He opens the door for me and I go in alone. Yash has a terrible look in his eyes. I sit down in my chair and he clutches at me.

‘It’s not good. It’s not good, Hink.’ He’s shivering.

‘The nurse is coming.’

‘She won’t help.’

‘She will. She’ll help you sleep. Take some breaths.’

‘I can’t. I can’t take any more breaths.’

‘Yes, you can. Do you know about square breathing?’

He shakes his head but looks at me hopefully.

‘I do it with Jack. It helps a lot.’

‘With the pain?’

‘Yeah.’

‘That poor kid.’

‘It’s okay. He’s okay.’ I don’t know if that’s true. I don’t know how his day has gone. My phone’s been in my bag in the corner since I got here. ‘You’re okay. Here we go. Take a breath in then hold three seconds, then breathe out and hold three more and breathe in again.’

His breaths are so short, so shallow. Maybe it isn’t good for him to pause. ‘Maybe one-second holds,’ I say.



He nods. He reminds me of Jack when it’s bad.

And then I’m singing. I sing about sailing away, my own true love. He looks at me with such surprise—You? Singing Dylan?—and I smile and my voice gets steadier. We both relax a bit.

When I sing this song for my boys, it’s like a fairy tale, with the mountains and diamonds and western winds. Here with Yash it becomes something different, our own saga of coming and going, of finding and losing each other, of letting go.

I sing and he grips my hands hard and his whole body shudders. I come to the line about wanting the same thing again tomorrow. I barely get it out.

I pause when the nurse comes in with the Ativan. I start up again when she leaves. It’s a long song and it’s hard to push the words out, each line laden with sorrow and regret. Every image seems like a metaphor for loss. I can’t look at Yash. I can only look at his hands in mine. Finally I get to the last lines. Yes, there is something she could bring back to him. Boots of Spanish leather. Yash’s eyes are closed and his trembling has died down.

‘Lovely,’ Sam says quietly.

I turn.

He’s in the doorway. He sees my tears and comes to put a hand on my shoulder. It’s warm and trembling. We watch Yash sleep.



An orderly rolls in Sam’s cot and he helps her set it up at the foot of Yash’s bed. He takes out sheets from a cabinet and makes up the bed. When he leans over, his T-shirt rides up and the band of his blue boxers shows above the waist of his jeans like it always did, way before it became a trend.

The clock above the sink says 9:45. I don’t know how that’s possible. I’ve missed saying goodnight to Jack. I let go of Yash’s hands. It doesn’t wake him. I stand up. My back is sore from stretching my arms over the bed railing most of the day. Sam sits on his cot.

‘Will he sleep through the night?’ I say.

‘Mostly.’

‘Will you?’

‘I think so.’ He stands up. ‘Do you have an early flight out?’

‘I’m going to change it. I’ll come back in the morning for a few hours.’

‘I’m glad. Maybe we’ll have a chance to talk more.’

I hope we don’t have that chance. I nod. ‘Noche noche, Sam.’

I get my suitcase from the corner and follow it out the door.

In the taxi, I switch my six a.m. flight to noon and text Silas the details. I check in at the hotel and go up to my floor. The hallway is wide and the carpet very plush. Before Jack got sick we used to travel. The boys loved going to hotels like this, racing down to the room, fighting about whose turn it was to unlock the door. Once inside they investigated every inch: the snacks, the safe, the showerhead. We got room service. We played cards on the bed. We always stayed in one room, two double beds, and I’m not sure I was ever happier than when we were all together in a hotel room.

This one feels very empty. My ears ring in the silence. I turn up the heat and I drop onto the bed with my phone. I call Silas. No answer. Carson and Claudette have texted me messages with a lot of emojis, sending love to me in Atlanta.

I click my screen off. It is black for a few seconds then lights up again. Silas.

‘You’re still up,’ I say. ‘Not a good sign.’

‘He’s okay.’

Silas isn’t okay, I can hear that.