“No,” I shouted into the phone. “He’s got this brunch planned today.”

“Brunch?”

“Yes, in our room, and I’m pretty sure it’s going to happen then but—”

“Are you okay? You sound terrible.”

“I’m fine, I just… I guess I’m having second thoughts.”

“What?”

“I don’t know what to do about—”

“Jackie? I can’t hear you!”

The line had gone static. I went around to the other side of the car. The traffic on Pacific Coast Highway made it hard to hear. I plugged one ear. “Nicole!” I yelled. “Can you hear me, Nicole?”

DISSOLVE TO:

INT. HOSPITAL ROOM

MORNING

DAY 55

My mother enters carefully as if stepping over invisible obstacles, waving her hands in front of her face like she’s clearing spider webs. She goes to the window and paces, her breathing shallow. A moment later, Anna and Daddy enter, hand in hand. They nod to my mother who manages a nod in return. I have not seen these three people in a room together since I was eight years old. It’s time. They’re letting me go. There isn’t another scenario that would bring my parents together.

The voices from the parking lot are getting louder. My mother stares out the window, oblivious to the crowd. My father stares at the floor. Anna’s eyes are on me, but I know she is thinking of my father, planning what she will say to soothe him when I am gone.

Emme opens the door and Brett rushes in behind her, mumbling an apology. He goes to my father and shakes his hand, hugs Anna, and starts toward my mother, who holds up a hand either in greeting or to avoid the introduction. For a time, everyone is silent, then slowly, awkwardly, like adolescents at their first dance, they join together at the foot of my bed. Anna reaches for my mother, who reaches for Brett, who completes the circle by taking hold of my father’s hand, which is trembling, his other hand in Anna’s firm grip: Daddy, Anna, Merilee, Brett.

They bow their heads.

Anna prays in English and Spanish, Brett follows, tossing in “Amens.” Daddy murmurs his own prayer, fragments of childhood Hebrew; a Kaddish prayer half remembered. Behind his fogged lenses, his eyes are squeezed shut. Tears seep from the corners. Merilee sways along, humming to herself.

Emme stands by the door, silent, watchful. Her presence is my only true comfort in this cacophony of grief; this hokey pokey of unresolved feelings; this final family portrait.

Outside, the fan’s chants grow, fevered.

Anna throws her head back and her black hair tumbles loose over her shoulders. The pitch of her voice rises as she pleads not for my life but my comfort, for my safety on the journey ahead.