“How long?” he asks quietly.
“I don’t know. Hours maybe. Teresa said she’s been declining since noon.”
He nods. Doesn’t say it’ll be okay because we both know it won’t be. Just sits with me while we wait.
Mom wakes once more around six. Her eyes find Roman and something like recognition flickers.
“The hockey player,” she murmurs.
“Yes ma’am,” Roman says, leaning forward so she can see him better.
“You’ll be... good to her?”
“I promise.”
“Better be... more than a promise.” But there’s a ghost of humor in her voice. “I’ll haunt you... if you’re not.”
“I’ll hold him to it,” I say, trying to smile through my tears.
Mom looks at me, really looks at me, and I see my mother—not the confused, fading version of the past months, but her. Clear and present and here.
“You’re beautiful... when you smile,” she says.
Then her eyes close and she slips away again, breathing getting shallower.
The hospice nurse comes in, checks vitals, gives me that look.
“It won’t be long now,” she says gently. “Talk to her. She can still hear you.”
So I do.
I tell Mom I love her. Tell her it’s okay to go, that she doesn’t have to hold on for me anymore. Tell her I’ll be okay even though I’m lying through my teeth.
Roman’s hand never leaves mine.
Her breathing changes around midnight.
Longer pauses between each breath.
Teresa comes back and takes Mom’s other hand.
We wait.
It happens at almost 3 in the morning.
Mom takes a breath. Long and slow. Lets it out and doesn’t take another.
The silence is deafening.
I wait—five seconds, ten, fifteen—for her chest to rise. For the next breath. For some sign this isn’t it.
It doesn’t come.
The nurse comes in, turns off the machines, checks for a pulse we all know isn’t there.
“I’m so sorry,” she says gently. “She’s gone.”
And just like that, my mother is dead.
