I have until she turns around.
23
SEAN
The federal infirmary at MCC Brooklyn smells like every infirmary inside every federal facility. Disinfectant. Plastic. The quality of the air in buildings is not left to people to determine under their own power.
I have been at his room door for two minutes.
The agent at the desk knows I am here. He walked me down. He is at the end of the corridor in the chair he is always in, doing the thing federal agents do when they are watching a man die. Looking at the wall and pretending the wall is interesting.
The room is small. Bed. Monitor. Oxygen mask now, not just the line under the nose. The mask is loose because it no longer matters.
Kostas is in the bed. He is smaller than he was three weeks ago in his study. He has the dimensions of a man whose body has finished negotiating.
I go in.
He opens his eyes. It takes him a second to find me. When he does, the recognition is small and complete. He has been waiting. He did not know if I would come. He let himself want it anyway.
I stand at the foot of the bed. I do not sit.
He works the mask off his mouth with one hand. The hand of a man who weighs less than my coat.
"You came."
"I came."
"I did not expect that."
"I did not either."
The agent in the corridor turns a page of the magazine he is not reading.
"Have you asked Petros what he heard?"
"Not yet."
"You will."
"I will."
He nods. He looks at the ceiling.
I stand at the foot of the bed and let him have the ceiling for as long as he needs it.
When he comes back to me, his eyes are wet at the corners. The wet is for the ceiling.
"Tell me one thing about my mother," I say. "Something only you know. Something nobody else can give me."
He thinks for so long I start to wonder whether he has died with his eyes open.
He has not.
"She had a laugh she only used when Vittorio was not in the room. It was bigger than the one she used when he was. It came up from her chest. The other one stayed in her throat. I never told anyone. I have thought about it for forty years."
He breathes.
"I am giving it to you now."
