The intern pauses outside Room 102, her hand on the doorframe. Inside, the machines hum steadily, monitors casting green shadows over the bed where Mr. Greene lies. He’s slipping away. She knows that, and she knows what she’s supposed to do here: step in, check the monitors, maybe say a few careful words.
But the family is here, and she hasn’t learned yet how to walk into a scene like this, how to carry herself so quietly that she doesn’t become part of their memory of this day. It’s only her first year, and in the world of COVID, firsts come fast and sharp.
She takes a breath and goes in. Mrs. Greene sits beside the bed, her thin shoulders squared, her mouth pressed tight beneath her mask. It’s strange to see her this silent. Yesterday, she had snapped at the nurses over everything—the noise of the machines, the limits on visitors, the windows she couldn’t open to let “real air” in. Each complaint splintering like cracked glass. The nurses had exchanged looks; she’d caught them, of course, and demanded to know what they thought was so funny.
Today, Mrs. Greene is a stone, her gaze fixed on her husband, her gloved hand resting on his wrist. Their two adult children stand by the wall, helpless with their hands in their pockets, as if they’ve wandered in by mistake. One of them dabs at her mask with a tissue, but the other just stares, as though memorizing his mother’s face, as though trying to understand something she has not yet said aloud.
The intern checks Mr. Greene’s pulse, but it’s a habit more than anything else. She knows there are only minutes left. When she glances up, she catches Mrs. Greene watching her, and her eyes are steel.
“Do you need anything?” the intern asks quietly.
Mrs. Greene just shakes her head. For a moment, she seems about to speak, to demand something again—but instead, she lifts her gaze to the ceiling, blinking at the fluorescent lights above. The room is silent except for the machines, and in the stillness, the harsh, buzzing light casts a soft crown around Mrs. Greene’s head, a white halo that bleeds around her hair, her mask, her frown.
Madonna, the intern thinks, startled by the image.
The anger, the snapping—it’s all just the shell of it, the shape grief had taken in her, something angry and jagged, a shield against this unbearable thing.
The intern lets the silence stand, lets Mrs. Greene hold her gaze until she blinks back down, and her shoulders shudder. Mr. Greene’s hand lies slack beneath hers. The monitor lets out a single, final tone.
Mrs. Greene bows her head, her fingers still tight around his wrist, haloed under the fluorescent lights.
Photo by Marcelo Leal on Unsplash
