Dignity

My daughter-in-law Estella wraps a scarf around my neck and tugs firmly to knot it. I tolerate the babying. Might as well. “Take care, mamma.” Her words are only slightly muffled by the pristine white mask covering half her face. A shoulder squeeze through blue latex gloves suffices in place of a standard cheek kiss. She is saying goodbye.

It’s more kindness than my own son offers. Perhaps I should have been better to Estella while I had the chance. Luca stands in the corner, his own mask in place. The three of us have matching sets. As I open the door, I pause, giving him one last chance. He takes it.

“Mamma.”

I turn expectantly, and he’s eight years old again, a boy who needs his mother. Suddenly I can remember every bedtime story, every boo-boo kissed better. I try to pinpoint when the distance between us grew so vast.

“Mamma,” Luca repeats, and he takes a step towards me. For a second, I think he might hug me, wrap his arms tightly around my waist like when he was little, but then I watch him grow up; his eyes harden, his jaw sets. “You are strong, mamma. The doctors will help you get better quickly, and then you will return to us, sì?”

I nod, wondering how much of his own words he believes. I haven’t been the invincible mother of his youth for a while. Would he have gifted me a final embrace if he knew he would not see me alive again? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

This time when I walk through the door, no one stops me. “I love you,” I offer over my shoulder, and I gather the echoes into my heart before the door closes behind me.

I am not going to the hospital. I’ve always hated it, that bustling, chaotic, hotbed of disease. And death. The nobler part of me refuses because it feels wrong to steal a spot from someone younger and more deserving. The selfish part of me refuses out of fear of past ghosts. Both parts agree that we will not be going to the hospital.

I walk for a few blocks. The streets are practically empty, but I see the homeless man I sometimes spare a few coins sitting in his usual spot. With minor protests from my knees, I take a seat against the wall a little ways from him. His eyes widen at me. Maybe he recognizes me? Maybe he’s side-eyeing my Valentino handbag. Either way, the rattling cough I let loose is enough to scare him off.

I pull down my mask and reach into my coat pocket. I’ve filched a pack from Luca’s stash of Davidoffs that Estella doesn’t know about. I hope he forgives me. I know how hard he works to sneak them in the house. I light one and take a satisfactory first drag.

I’m halfway through the next cig when I allow myself to contemplate my situation. At twenty years old, I boldly proclaimed that I would stop fearing death at sixty, that I would have lived enough to let go. Now, at seventy-three, I want to box that arrogant little shit’s ears. Still, I have chosen death over the alternative. I get through five cigs before I push myself up. It’s dark. I must head to my final destination.

My family and my husband’s family have been buried in the same cemetery for generations. This means I have a little plot of land reserved for me between Rafe and my oldest (and favorite) sister, Bianca. I plop down on the black soil, ignoring the complaining of my joints. One hand props up another cigarette, the other traces the words I know from memory etched into Rafe’s gravestone.

Rafael Matteo Giordano

1939-1999

Loving Father, Husband, and Brother

He’s been gone for a while, long enough that I only feel a dull ache in my chest when thinking of him. Not long enough that I’ve forgotten the pain of doctor’s visits and medical treatments and all the other messiness that comes with lung cancer. I suck in a lungful of smoke, and my hacking grows so violent that I have to wait a few minutes before I can take another.

This is how I plan to go out: smoking my way into oblivion. Lung cancer can’t kill me now, the way it took my husband. It’s too slow. I laugh in my mind. My throat fails to make the correct sound.

I lean back and look up at the stars. They are beautiful, and cold. I shiver. I haven’t been stargazing since Luca was a child. It’s harder to breathe lying down, and my inhales now come in shallow gasps. I will slowly drown in this sea of bones. I bring the cigarette to my lips and close my eyes.

I trust the stars are still shining.