My father had risen to the top of the shipping industry ruling with an iron fist, but I knew the gentle side of him. The man that left important meetings to take my trivial phone calls, kissed my scrapes, and rewrote fairytales so that the princess always saved the prince. Now he lay helpless in his bed, fading away in the vast bedroom he shared with my mother.

Our housekeeper, Agatha, greeted me at the front door. “Your mother’s expecting you, Love. You best get upstairs.”

Agatha took my coat, and then I climbed the stairs, feeling the bile rise higher in my throat with every step.

His private nurse brushed past me as I entered the room, and I winced at the sight of him. His face was sallow with a thin sheen of perspiration, and his usually clean shaven jaw was darkened with whiskers that crowded his parched lips. My mother spoke soft, comforting words to him as his chest heaved with every labored breath. The muted beeps and humming of the pumps and monitors were the background music to my worst nightmare.

Like the other times I’d visited my father since his accident, my legs transformed into deep-seeded roots that tunneled through my shoes and plunged into the wooden floor. I couldn’t go forward or retreat.

My mother looked up with weary heartbreak in her eyes. “Nina,” she called. “Come, dear.”

Her hand lifted to summon me forward but my feet wouldn’t move. She sighed in understanding and walked toward me, her arm still reaching out in front of her. I couldn’t take my eyes off of my father’s feeble attempts to breathe as she cupped her fingers around each of my shoulders and eased me forward. After a few reluctant steps, I stopped again.

“I know,” she whispered.

Peeling my shoes from the floor, I let her guide me to his bedside. My first instinct was to help him, but the only thing left to do was to wait for his suffering to end.

“Jack, darling,” my mother said in a soothing tone. “Nina’s here.”

After watching him struggle for sufficient breath, I leaned down to whisper in his ear. “I’m here, Daddy.”

His breath skipped a bit and he mumbled inaudibly.

“Don’t try to talk. Just rest.” My shaking fingers reached out to his hand. “I’m going to stay with you.”

“Cynthia?” My father’s attorney and friend, Thomas Rosen, called to my mother from the back corner of the room. With a pained expression she glanced at my father, clutched me to her chest for a moment, and then quietly walked to Thomas’ side. Their voices became a stream of humming no louder than the machines attached to my father.

He sucked in another breath while I tenderly swept his salt and pepper hair away from his moist brow. “Neen…,” he swallowed, “Nina.”