* * *
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I married him—despite all the very good reasons that no one should ever partner up for a third time—because early on, he reminded me of the best father figure of my life, my ninth-grade English teacher. When that man died, his friends （eighty-year-old poker buddies, pals from his teaching days, devoted former students of all ages and types） wept. He was old, fat, diabetic, and often brusque. Women desired him and my children loved him and most men liked his company a great deal. He was loyal, imperious, needy, charming, bighearted, and just about the most selfish, lovable, and foolishly fearless person I had ever known. And then I met Brian and found another.
On our third anniversary, Brian hurt his back. I’d come home to find him in our bedroom, not dressed, more than naked. He’d left work early. He was wearing his T-shirt, a very wide, white, and necessary mesh-and-Velcro lumbar-support wrap, and the navy-blue socks that were usually hidden by his suit trousers. His boxers were off because he was going to bed; his undershirt and socks were on because his terrible back pain made both the reaching up and the bending over difficult. He looked at himself in the mirror and laughed out loud. He put his black fedora on his head and modeled the whole look for me, like Naomi Campbell. That’s what it was like.
Thursday, January 30, 2020, Zurich
The night passes and the next morning we have a car take us to Pfaffikon, where Dignitas has its apartment, or house—I couldn’t really tell. It’s a residential structure in an industrial park. Two nice women, in nice clothes, sweaters and slacks （I mean that I feel an effort was made. They didn’t just throw on their sweats and come over）， greet us. They have dressed for the occasion of shepherding us across the river and they take it seriously. I have never been treated with such seamless, attentive tact. They walk us in, up a few steps to the door, and I see a snow-covered garden, the kind of gesture toward a garden that you’d find in an industrial park （it’s January, so it might be that it’s a floral paradise in June）， and into a large, odd, immaculate room. There’s seating in every corner—two small armchairs, a large pleather recliner, a pleather sofa, and a hospital bed, as well. It dawns on me later that it’s important that everything that can be sat on or laid down upon be washable. In the center of the room there’s a table with several chairs. The Ladies bring our paperwork to the table and point out the many bowls of chocolates. They review all of the steps, which Brian and I can now both recite. They look at him closely and say, At any time in this process, including after you drink the anti-emetic, you can choose not to do this. We will be very supportive of you changing your mind, rest assured. We are assured. The only sign of reluctance on Brian’s part is what he warned me about—his making conversation before taking the sodium pentobarbital. He’d said to me that he thought he might be inclined to “just bullshit around for a while” when the time came to take it. “I know I have to go,” he said. “I know I’m going. I’m ready. I’m just not going to hurry.”
He doesn’t hurry. He drinks the anti-emetic and gets comfortable on the couch. I sit next to him, holding his hand, but I have to let it go because he’s gesturing while storytelling. The stories are all about football at Yale and his coach, Carm Cozza, and I could tell them with him: Brian and a friend winding up in jail because of a young, dumb fight in front of the Anchor Bar, and Carm Cozza, stern and forgiving, bailing them out; Brian talking about quitting football because he didn’t get to play enough his first season and Carm telling him that he, Carm, would let Brian play when Brian was good enough and not before and Brian resolving to be good enough; Brian’s father and Carm Cozza playing handball together one time, his two fathers.
I cannot manage to look interested in these stories, because I’m not （Brian says nothing about his life, about our life, about our love, about the children and grandchildren, nothing about the beautiful public housing he designed and cared about so deeply or the work he did for conservation and open spaces or even, and you know I must be reaching here, about fishing）， but I do try not to look like I’m in agony, which I am.
The Ladies wait in the back room （a kitchen, I think）， and after about forty-five minutes they come out again. They tell us that the anti-emetic has now worn off and if Brian wishes to continue （I do, he says）， he will have to take it again. They say, You can take your time, and I roll my eyes because of course he will, he always does, I think, as if we are in some other room, on some other occasion, and then I remember where I am and I’m ashamed of myself. Brian smiles slightly. “What time’s your plane?” he says, and I have never felt so bad about being me in my entire life.
He takes the anti-emetic again and the Ladies put an airplane pillow around his neck. Brian falls silent and now I long for the football stories. I take both of his hands and he lets me. IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou, I say. I love you so much. I love you, too, he says, and he drinks the sodium pentobarbital. I kiss him, all over his handsome, weary face, and he lets me.
It is impossible to think about the next twenty minutes. I keep my eyes and hands on him, as if I’ll forget what it is like to breathe next to him or feel his presence. （I don’t, not for a minute. I hear his breathing when I go to sleep and I feel his body heat when I wake up.） He falls asleep holding my hand and his head falls back a little on the neck pillow （whose purpose I now understand）。 His breathing changes and it’s the last time I will hear him sleeping, breathing deeply and steadily, the way he has done lying beside me for almost fifteen years. I hold his hand. I can still feel its weight and warmth. His skin color changes, from ruddy to paler pink. I sit there and sit there, as if some other thing will now happen. He is quite pale and I see that he is gone from this world.
I sit, holding his hand, for a long time. I get up and wrap my arms around him and kiss his forehead, as if he is my baby, at last gone to sleep, as if he is my brave boy going on a long journey, miles and miles of Nought.
The Temple Gatekeepers
The Ladies emerge from the kitchen at some point and they sit by, quiet and prepared, the temple gatekeepers. Although I have tried to think about this before, I have no idea what to do with Brian’s things: his coat, his muffler, his suitcase and the clothes in it, his medications. The Ladies offer that they can take care of all of that and his clothes will be given to people who need them.
There’s not much else to do. The Ladies would like me to go, before the Swiss police come. It is simpler, they say. It doesn’t feel that we have done something illegal, but I can tell that it would be better （perhaps better for me? For Dignitas?） for me to not be around while a Swiss policeman identifies Brian’s body （that’s what his passport and dental records are for, as I understand it）。 I call an Uber and hug the Ladies. I head to the airport.
* * *
—
In Zurich Airport, I sit in the fancy lounge and I look around for faces, people-watching. It is very pleasant in the Swissair lounge coming home. I’m wearing Brian’s wedding ring on my right hand, on my forefinger, and it’s much too big. I gesture once, while talking to my friend, and the ring flies off, nearly hitting a man in the face. It rolls under a chair and I get it and sit in that chair, staring out the window, avoiding men’s faces. Since the moment of Brian’s death, I find most people, especially men, disgusting. Not just unappealing but disgusting—like yesterday’s oatmeal. Like eels in a bowl. I find heterosexual couples dismaying. In the lounge, I feel like an alien examining pairs of earthlings: What is the meaning of that? How could a creature like that be the choice this other creature makes? How can one recognize choice in these random movements?