Only months ago, she could not have imagined bringing Spence home to sleep in her bed. Now each left clothes in the other’s closet, supplies in the bathroom. None of this had gone on while her mother was alive.

DURING THE FINAL DAYS of the illness, Chiyo made up her mind that her mother was not going to be alone when she died. She could see that her mother was terrified. As part of the care plan, a doctor visited daily. Two caregivers alternated shifts, also daily. Chiyo was the “extra,” and took few breaks. She cancelled some of her classes. She learned that a whole new category of help existed for her mother, whose needs now fell into a zone called end-of-life care. The caregivers’ shifts sometimes overlapped, and this arrangement removed a bit of weight from Chiyo’s shoulders and allowed a few hours of sleep here and there. The people who came and went were not nurses—not exactly—but they’d been trained by nurses to give specific types of care. Chiyo’s mother wanted to remain in her own home and so she did, as had been arranged. During the forty-eight hours preceding her death, she drifted in and out of lucidity. She was weak, piteously so, but strong enough—her will was responsible for this—to raise her head an inch or more off the pillow. Always to ensure that Chiyo was present and could be seen.

What Chiyo was seeing was her mother’s repeated feeble attempt to plead with two hoarse and desperate words: Help me! The words falling silently from her lips. Or rasping from her throat. The desperation was frightening to witness.

The doctor told Chiyo to prepare for the possibility that she might not be at her mother’s side at the precise moment of her death. “The act of dying is private,” he said. “I’ve seen dozens of cases where family members take turns sitting at a patient’s bedside for weeks. The moment the person ‘on duty’ steps out into the hall . . . well, that’s the moment the loved one departs. It happens again and again. Don’t be disturbed if this is the case with your mom.”

Chiyo vowed that she would be there, though she could hear what the doctor was saying. Were escorts waiting on the “other side,” watching for that split second of privacy? Who? Whom? How could the timing be as intentional as he had implied? Was there a wall holding back an invisible world? No wall at all? A world that shifted and couldn’t be seen?

Her mother died at eight forty in the morning. Chiyo had stepped into the kitchen to rinse a glass and refill it with fresh water. The doctor had left moments before, promising to return in the late afternoon. Both caregivers were present: one about to depart after the night shift, the other receiving the night report as her day shift began. The report took place while the two sat at the kitchen table discussing the notes in the chart.