Last night, I talked with my five-year-old. I was too sick to eat—Jim’s a wonderful cook but the smell of his lasagna sent me to the john. I was still breathing hard, kneeling on the floor and resting my head on the toilet lid, when I heard Leo’s high quiet voice. He asked me if I threw up and I told him that I did. He was wearing his baggy blue jeans and the green sweater I knitted for him last Christmas. The sleeves were rolled up over his tiny wrists. His round face looked full of worry. I’ve lost a horrible amount of weight, and these past few days, after the nurse has come and gone with the morphine shot, when the absence of pain begins and leaves me feeling almost giddy, I’ve fretted in front of the mirror about my looks, mainly to avoid scaring my son as much as I obviously do.

In the bathroom last night I asked him to come closer. He walked over and stood in front of me.

“You know, you’re right, I won’t get sick anymore.”

“You won’t?”

I shook my head and told him when you die, you can’t get sick.

“Me too?”

“Everybody, honey.”

“Everybody won’t get sick?”

“Not after they die.”

“How do they die?”

Lots of ways, I told him. Leo was quiet a moment, then he cocked his head and asked if I was going to die like the pretty leaves.

“You can look at it like that.”

“But I don’t want you to turn orange.” He laughed and I put my hands on his hips, my fingertips almost touching. I said that people die different, that they just lie down one night and don’t wake up. Their body stays, but their spirit flies away. He was quiet for a half minute, then he perked up. “So you’ll come back to your body when the snow’s gone? Like the leaves?”

I hugged him and I didn’t think I could continue, but Jimmy was washing dishes in the kitchen and this was as good a time as any other. I kissed my son on the forehead and held him at arm’s length. I looked right into eyes that may as well be mine and I told him how we bury our bodies so they can help the ground grow the trees that grow the leaves. I told him he didn’t have to look so scared because it doesn’t hurt. It’s like being real sleepy and cuddling up under warm blankets. When you wake up, your spirit is in another place.

“But when will I die?”

“After a long happy life, honey.” I wanted to tell him more, tell him not to worry, our lives are over before we know it. I wanted him to know I’ll be back to see him in whatever way I can, but his big eyes showed just how saturated his little head was, so I stopped there. Jimmy stood in the doorway drying his hands on a dishtowel. I don’t know how much he heard. He looks so handsome with his new mustache, and it was that I concentrated on.