I laughed because Grace knew me better than anyone. She was knocking on death’s door yet she wanted to make sure I was okay because I hated hospitals. “I don’t think okay is really the word I’d use,” I said.

She smiled at me. The same sympathetic smile that got me through a lot of hard times during my teenage years. “I know what happened to Samuel felt like the end of your life too, my son.” Grace drew in a shaky labored breath. “But it wasn’t. And when I get to the other side, I know for a fact the both of us are going to have a good long laugh at your expense.” She coughed and I lunged forward to place the mask back over her face.

She took slow deep breaths, her chest lurching on every intake. When she’d calmed, I said, “I wouldn’t put it past either one of you.” She waved away my hand and looked at me with unfocused bloodshot eyes. Her lips were a light shade of blue. Her hair was covered with a light purple bandana.

“I am dying, Abel. But I swear to fucking Christ that I’m not leaving you. You need to know I wouldn’t do that. When you make Thia your wife, which I know you’ll do just from the way you both look when you talk about one another, I’ll be here with you.” She patted my hand, again comforting me when she was the one in the hospital bed. “When you welcome your first, second, third child into this world, I’ll be here. When you don’t know what to do or you don’t know where to turn, I’ll whisper in your ear until you make up your mind. Just promise me one thing.”

My heart was hammering in my chest. Tears I didn’t know I possessed leaked from the corners of my eyes and trailed their heat down my cheeks, wetting my beard. “What’s that?” I asked. My voice cracked.

Grace flashed me a weak smile, her chest rose and fell rapidly. The machines beeping and blinking with each intake of final breath. “When it comes to the girl out there.”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t fuck it up.” Grace gasped.

I held her hand up to my lips. “I’ll try my hardest not to. I promise.” I chuckled, tasting the salt of my tears. My shoulders shook, and for a small moment I allowed myself to wallow in my grief.

“Thank you, sweet boy,” Grace said, bringing my hands to her mouth and giving them a dry-lipped kiss.

“For what?” I asked, wiping my cheek on the shoulder of the shirt I’d put on as we were walking up to the doors.

“For being the son I always wished for. You, Samuel, and Brantley. I prayed for sons every single day since the day I married Edmond, and it took long enough, and you boys didn’t come to me in a way I ever expected, but suddenly you were there, and you made me the mama I’d always wanted to be.” Machines beeped and blinked again. Some sort of alarm went off on the far wall. The room flashed in red light.

“There is so much I need to tell you,” I said, holding on to her more tightly as if she was going to slip out of my grasp at any second and physically fall to her death.

“I know, and there is so much I need to tell you.” Grace looked to the ceiling and then back to me. “I need to apologize.”

“For what? Dying?” I asked, the word coming out broken.

“No. For lying. I lied to you Abel, and I’m so sorry. I really hope you can find a way to forgive me some day. I thought it was for the best, but looking back, I think I should have fought harder. Come up with another plan. I…”

“It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters,” I said just as Grace started to choke. She cleared her throat several times before she could speak again.

“It’s all there for you to find out,” she said, and I didn’t know if she was still talking about the same thing, or if she was on any pain medication that might have just kicked in. “As I said, I’m dying, but I’m not going anywhere. Even death couldn’t keep me from my boys.”

“Kind of like Preppy,” I said, forgetting that I’d never told Grace about hearing his voice.

Grace flashed me a tight, blue-lipped smile. “You hear him too.”

“Sometimes,” I admitted, “Although, not as much anymore.”

“He was a good boy, my Samuel. Never could let anyone get a word in when he could say it louder, ruder, and a lot more inappropriately.” Grace chuckled and then coughed. I reached over and sat her up, feeling the outline of the bones in her spine and the outline of her ribs as I did.

When the fuck did she get so skinny?

“Thank you,” she said, after the coughing fit subsided. “Dying hurts.”

“Not funny,” I said.

“I didn’t mean for it to be. It’s just the truth.”

“I should have been there more. I should have—”

“No,” Grace said, effectively shutting me down. “Stop with that ‘should have’ shit. I have no regrets and you shouldn’t have them either. I love you. No matter what. For as long as I’m in this life and for as long as the next will have me.”

Grace’s eyes darted over my shoulder toward the door.

“There you are,” she said, holding out her other hand. Ti stepped up and took it in hers, going to stand on the other side of Grace’s bed.

“What’s going on with the alarms?” Ti asked.

“It’s nothing,” Grace said, “I’m just dying and they know it, but the machines don’t have human brains so they seem to think I’m salvageable. They’ll stop in a second.”

Sure enough in another three seconds, the room calmed and returned to the sickening halogen green glow it was cast in when I first came in.

“Thia, my dear, remember what I told you,” Grace said, without letting go of my hands. Thia leaned over and held on to Grace’s forearm. “Be good to my boy.”

“I will. I promise,” Ti said, wiping her own tears. “Always.”

“That’s my girl,” Grace said, followed by another coughing fit, this one twice as long as the last. More alarms buzzed and sounded, yet not a single nurse or doctor came bursting into the room.

“Is there any music around?” Grace asked, again moving the mask away from her mouth. “I don’t want to die in a room full of alarms, silence, or sobs. I want to go into my Edmond’s arms surrounded by beautiful music.” I was about to get up and go ask the nurse’s station if they had a radio when Thia chimed in.