Omniscient
The elevator doors barely open onto the second floor intensive care unit, when Nora rushes to get off. She stops abruptly at the sight of my brother in a plaid jacket shuffling down an empty corridor. His hands are tucked in pockets of his worn jeans, shoulders are slumped, and he gazes toward the gray tile floor.
“Dad!” Nora’s voice carries though doesn’t penetrate his fog. She runs to him. “Dad.”
Eyes moist and teeming with emotion, he glances over his shoulder with a bleak expression that suggests the worst has happened.
Nora slaps a hand over her mouth. “Did uncle Isaac die?” she whispers, reeking of wine and guilt for having taken too long to come visit me.
“No. But your mama has something to tell you,” my brother says, before descending the stairs.
Nora takes off clumsily toward my room. She stumbles through the doorway out of breath. Looking past bags, monitors, and devices connected to my sac of bones poking under a thin blanket, her eyes find my lover backed in a corner. Nora likely heard her sobs over the clown concerto of blips, beeps and toots broadcasting my vital signs.
“Mama? What’s going on?” she says.
I wish I could tell my daughter that my brother overheard his wife confess. But I’m here and light years away, in limbo, awaiting terms of my exodus. Within this gap of time, I’m omniscient. For once, everything makes sense. And I can’t tell a soul.