I shake my head. “Thanks, but if it’s okay with you, I wanna stick around.”

She squeezes my hand. “Yeah, well, I appreciate the company.”

Ms. B’s standing, stretching, when the conference room door swings open.

And before the doctor says one word, Ms. B’s wagging her head.

“Dr. Rodriguez, no. No,” she says, firmly. “Nuh-uh. Not my son.”

“Simone . . .”

“Not my Quincy. You better go somewhere else with that. You hear me?”

“Simone, I’m so . . .”

“You take that somewhere else, Kevin! I don’t want it! Please! Please. I don’t want it.”

I want to reach for her, comfort her, but I’m cement.

Dr. Rodriguez clears his throat, busies himself with his hands, staring down at them, wringing them, poking his cuticles, sliding the silver wedding band up and down his finger.

I wonder when he decided to be a doctor, to devote his life to saving lives, if he thought about these moments.

Stepping into a room that’s anxious for good news, even mediocre news, except there’s neither. There’s only worse and worser.

But his voice, unlike his hands, is steady and calm, a series of soft I’m so sorry we did all we can I’m so sorry we did all we can I’m so sorry I’m so sorry I’m so sorry fluttering around the room, flying over our heads.

And I’m waiting for my alarm to sound.

I’m waiting to sit up in my bed.

Blink this nightmare away.

I keep waiting and waiting but.

Ms. B slumps over like her bones have liquefied, crashes to her knees, the doctor barely stopping her from spilling all over conference room C, her screams loud enough that people rush in: Is everything okay? Is everything okay?

But how could it be?

Everything’s never gonna be okay again.

85

One Week Before the Funeral

The doctor snatched the surgical cap from his head. “Is there someone I—I . . . can call for you?”

“No.” Whit glanced at me, then the door. “It’s just . . . us.”

“What about grandparents?” the doctor asked.

“None left,” Whit said.

“Aunts, uncles, cousins?”

“We have a great-aunt in Cali, I think. Or Arizona. Look, Doctor, I’m sorry if this is rude, but when can we see them? We just want to see our parents.”

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “But your parents are . . . they, umm . . . they d—”

But I erupted from my seat, sprinted down the hallway to the ER. There were heavy curtains on one side of the wide corridor, and regular rooms with walls and doors on the other. Most of the rooms were empty, filled with beige machines and platters of shiny instruments. I was halfway down the hall when I arrived at the first closed door.

My hand turned the knob when a voice said her name.