“In the hospital,” I begin, looking at my hands splayed on the oak. “I couldn’t really see anything or remember much that I could. But I could hear you, over everyone that was there. I kept hearing you.” I can still smell that harsh antiseptic mixed with metal, can remember my hands trying to pat down and rub at my unseeing eyes, until a nurse had to hold them down. My mother was crying, but I could just faintly tell because the loudest noise was my father’s sobbing yells. “My son! My son—help him. Please.” And then, “I can’t live without him. Not my son—he can’t do this to me.”
