“I’m fifteen minutes away. I’m on my way.”

Adele ends the call, as she always does, without saying good-bye.

*   *   *

I bang through the back door and drop everything on the kitchen table. Adele is in my father’s room and I hear her voice and the sound of the television tuned into some chat show where the audience is compelled to applaud at every line the host utters. I snap it off. In the sudden quiet, Adele’s voice also shuts off. My father is lying flat on his back, his mouth gaping open, and the odor of urine is pungent. Adele is standing over him, a wet washcloth bunched in her hands.

“He won’t wake up.”

“How long has he been like this?” I reach for the bedside phone.

“A few minutes.”

“But he was he like this when you called me?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you call the ambulance?”

“I don’t want him to go.”

I dial 911.

“Where’s Paul?” I assume she tried him first.

“I didn’t call him.”

“Okay. I’ll call him.” I don’t want to be alone with his mother in this.

Adele keeps wiping my father’s face with the cold washcloth. “I don’t want him to go to the hospital. He should be here.”

“He’ll need to go for a little while. We’ll bring him back.” I don’t know why I promise this, except that I’m pretty certain the outcome isn’t going to be one that gives us a choice in the matter. These are cheap words to offer. In the same moment, I realize that this means I will never get from my father what I’ve wanted since I was seventeen years old—an apology. No cheap words for me now.

*   *   *