“Your phone is ringing. Again,” Marisol says, irritation dripping like venom from her tone. “One of your … females?”

I pull my stare from my grandmother's face to my phone. It's lying face down on the sink station across the room, the vibration grating my skull because the sound collides with the beep, beep, beep of the heart monitor. It’s two here, meaning it’s four back in Boston, and I already know who’s calling. Jamila. She’ll be on her way to St. Catherine’s right now, her brow furrowed as she waits for me to pick up because she wants to check up on me again. Wants to make sure I’m all right.

My nostrils flare because I want to leave my seat so I can hear her voice. So she can take my mind off this. I start to get up, but then I catch Marisol’s dark gaze. She eases down on the edge of the bed next to Abuela, and I clench my hands. I turn away from my phone and shake my head. “It can wait.”

I had touched down in El Paso just before midnight last night, and I came to the hospital the moment the doors opened for visitors. I’ve been here all day because I knew how this would end the second I laid eyes on my grandmother: She won't last long. I’ve prepared myself for the worst, but goddamn, I don't want to say goodbye.

“Are you sure you don’t want to answer it?” Marisol speaks up softly, and I whip my head in her direction, the pain seizing my features. “She might be important.”

She is important. She’s somebody who deserves so much more and I’ve been a greedy fucking bastard for wanting to keep her.

“Do you ever shut up?” I demand, and my sister’s shoulders tremble. The waterworks are coming, but I’m not sure I give a fuck today. “Do you ever just shut up and stop being…”

Marisol dips her head, and some of the ice in my chest thaws as I watch her fingers move toward our grandmother’s hand. She rubs the pad of her thumb over Abuela’s wrist, her gaze hard as she focuses on the IV. I had stared at it too when I first came in this morning. I had stared at it until the translucent tube and white tape blurred my vision.

“I'm sorry. I don't want to lose her either,” she says.

“It’s … it’s fine.”

Silence is our friend—and our enemy—for a long time, and I sit with my fingers steepled against my mouth. Nurses come and go. The re-run playing quietly on the flatscreen television over our head ends and a new episode comes on. My phone rings again.

Marisol slips off the edge of the bed and walks around to where I sit. Her fingers clasp my shoulder and she squeezes hard. “You look tired.” But I tell her I’m fine. Everything is fine. “I know you said you wanted to stay at your hotel, but you’ll sleep better if you stay with Claudia and—”

“I’m fine,” I repeat because my sister’s house is in East Glen and this hospital is twenty minutes west. I want to be close. I don’t have any other choice.

“The door is always open.” She drums her fingertips against my upper arm and lets out a rush of air through her lips. “I was talking to Oscar this morning.”

Every muscle in my body flexes at just the mention of his name. Oscar. My goddamn brother. I haven’t spoken to him in fifteen years, and if I spend the rest of my life not having to see him, that won’t be long enough. “And?”

“And he loves her, too,” she says. “He wants to be here for her and—”

I dart out of her grasp. “That’s not possible. You and I both know that.’

She backs away from me, swallowing hard, swaying slightly, but I don't rush forward to steady her. I'm unsteady enough for both of us. She grabs the back of the seat and moves her head up and down. “You’re a lawyer.” When my eyes harden because I know where she’s going with this, she whispers, “He wanted to know if you might be willing to go before a judge, to do something for when she passes so that he can—”

Just when I think my sister is starting to make sense she has to start with bullshit that blows my mind. “No,” I say.

“No, you won’t do it? Or no, it won’t work?”

“No, it won’t work.” Because even if I was willing to do what she’s asked, I can't think of any judge that will let my brother out on a furlough to attend Abuela’s funeral. Oscar has at least another 10 years, but it should be longer. I don't say this to my sister. There's already too much poison in this room and bringing more in will shatter us. “It doesn’t work like that for what he did.”

“Oh,” she whispers.

I focus on my grandmother once more. I try to remember the woman who raised me, the petite powerhouse who didn't let me get away with shit. “I should've come to see her more.” I regret that. I regret that it's been weeks since I made my way to El Paso. To my shock, Marisol shakes her head.

“You did what you could.” She carves her hands through her black hair then brings her fingers to her lips, chewing on the tip of her nail. “It wouldn’t have been fair for you to have to spend all your time here when you had work and your life.”

My sisters my worst critic. She always has been. If she knew that work has been the last thing on my mind over the last few months, she wouldn't be consoling me. She would hurl insults at me. She would remind me of what I am. A man who can't deal with his memories—who spends his time distracting himself, ruining himself.

“I need to go shower and grab something to eat,” I say even though I’m not hungry and I don’t give a fuck about showering. I walk away from the hospital bed, reaching out to snatch my phone as I head to the door. “Will you still be here?”

“I’m not leaving. Claudia will be out of school soon, and she can't wait to see you.”

I nod curtly. “I’ve missed her too. You'll call me if…”

Fuck saying those words aloud.

My sister understands and she tells me she’ll call if anything changes.

I'm anxious to get out of the hospital, to wash the stench of death from my body. As I head to my rental car, she pops into my head. I ask myself how she can do this all day, how she can be around sick people, people who won’t live, and a ball of pressure constricts the back of my throat.

It’s sad. It’s sad that as my grandmother reaches the end of her life, I think of Jamie. I think of her, and I miss her like it’s been months instead of a single day.

She's left a couple of texts, and I sit in the hot car, reading over them.

8:19 AM: How’s everything going?

2:36 PM: If you need me, I'm here for you.

Always the nurse. Always the nurse, and my ribcage feels like it’s collapsing because she cares so much. I should text her back, tell her I'll be in touch, but the need to hear her voice is overwhelming. She answers on the first ring, breathing a sigh into my ear, breathing something into me that I haven't felt in years.

Don't do this, I warn myself. Don't do this with her.

“Thank God,” she whispers. “I've been worried sick about you. How's your grandmother? How's your family doing?”

“We’re fine.” My voice is harsher than I intend, and I swear I feel her flinch from over two thousand miles away. I speak again, this time in a softer tone. “It's as to be expected.”

“If you need me, I can come to you.” Before I can speak, she rushes on. “I have so many vacation days and I’m not going to use them. Please … let me help you.”

I start my car. Lower my head to the steering wheel that’s so hot it burns my forehead. The worst part about her offer is that I don't want to say no. I want her beside me, I want everything there is about her, and I’m struck by the look on my face when I sit up straight and catch my reflection in the rearview mirror.

“No, just stay there, Jamie.”

She makes another sound, this one a sharp exhale. “If you change your mind though, I’ll—”

“I won't.”

“You don't have to do everything alone.”

“You're not…”

I can't bring myself to say it. I can't bring myself to tell her she's not something to me because somehow she's become more. Her smile, her voice, the scent of her skin. It’s seeped beneath my pores, gotten me addicted, and I know I’ve got to pull away now because I’ve did what I said I wouldn’t do.

“I'm just a distraction,” she finally says at last and her tone is flat.

“That’s what we were supposed to be.”

The silence that follows is like a hammer to my chest. A part of my brain screams at me, ranting that I need her because it doesn't matter how hard love is. I need her, and I'm afraid to say that. It's ironic. I've asked her so many times if she’s scared of me and here I am, trembling like a fool in a rental car while she breathes in my ear.

“I don't know when I'll be back.” I had told Sonora that earlier, had spoken to my associates and partners and let them know that I would be working from Texas. I won't return to Boston until after Abuela's gone.

“I understand,” she says.

She could move on, the voice in my head reminds me, and I close my eyes picturing her face. She will move on and I won't be able to see her again.

In the end, it's probably better for her.

“I don't know when I'll be home,” I repeat, “but I'll call you when I get back?”

“Okay,” she murmurs, her breath coming out in short bursts. My fingers flex because they want to touch her face. “I thought you said we shouldn’t lie to each other but okay, Bailon.”

I hate it when she doesn't use my name. “Jamila,” I start but she cuts me off. Her voice sounds more distant.

“No… It's fine. Your grandmother is in my thoughts, I mean that. Your grandmother is in my thoughts, and I pray to God you find peace.”

She ends the call then, and I find myself staring down at my screen. Peace. I want to laugh at that because I haven't had that in years. I hurl the phone on the seat beside me. I start the ignition. And as I speed out of the parking lot, I know that I have you made a decision that will fuck me for years to come.