Plus One (29 page)

“It’s okay,” I said softly. “Really, Poppu, don’t.”

Don’t cry.

“Didn’t know. Oh, Soleil,
je me déteste…”

“No,” I said, not understanding why he would hate himself in his last days. “I love you.”

“Ta mère … ton père…”

I was quiet. He was thinking of my parents in his last hours. It was natural.

Another tear slipped out and evaporated.

“It was me.” He panted furiously, all exhaled puffs, with seemingly no inhales.

“Stop,” I said. “Oh, please stop.”

And then he got a burst of energy, which a hospice nurse once told me sometimes happens with dying patients, and croaked out this long thought: “I called … the office of the minister. I reported my own daughter.” A crackling sob heaved out of the shell of his body so violently that I thought he might break.

I froze, both understanding and not accepting what he had said. It bathed every crevice of my body but would not soak in.

Agonizing moments later, he breathed again and took up his cause with a pitiful desperation. “They were making explosions. Bombs … I didn’t want them to hurt anyone…”

My Poppu, the man who had raised me, had betrayed my parents.

“Soleil,” his lips mouthed, but almost no sound came out.

“I’m here.”

I forced myself to listen. Not to take a single step beyond hearing him. Not to judge, because I was incapable of rational thought while he was dying. I lifted myself on my elbow and put my forehead on his temple.

“My baby,” he said.

My mother.

“I … didn’t imagine she would die. Forgive me, Soleil.”

“Of course I forgive you.”

There was no question in my mind. Nothing could bring my parents back; nothing would stop Poppu from dying. He needed to hear that I forgave him. It was the last gift I could bestow.

“I have never told Ciel.” I barely heard the words. “I would have lost him.”

He drifted out of consciousness again. I raised myself to a sitting position and rubbed my arm, exploding with pinpricks. I wiped my eyes with my sleeve. My nose felt swollen, my eyelids puffy. I took in a shaky breath and blew it out in a thin stream.

There were quiet voices in the hall. A moment later, a knock at the door. The handle turned and a woman I recognized as Ciel’s wife poked her head in. I stared at her. I was too drained to be angry.

“Can we come in?”

We
. She had a baby in her arms.

She closed the door behind her. She looked hard at Poppu’s too-still shape, perhaps worried that—

“He’s drifting now,” I reassured her. “I don’t know if he sleeps or loses consciousness. But it’s merciful.” I had never planned on meeting this woman, had never practiced any words, and now I had nothing more to say.

She came over to the bed and sat on the end. “I’m Kizzie.”

Of course I knew that. I recognized her from the pixelated wedding photo. I stole a look at the baby, who wasn’t swaddled but was wearing a simple white unisex one-piece outfit. She had wispy black hair with loose curls that were sparse enough to show scalp, black eyes, and a lovely round forehead, which would probably be like her mother’s. She grimaced and squirmed, and I saw a flash of Ciel’s dimple.

Kizzie caught me staring. “This is your niece, Fleur.”

Oh god, Fleur the name, not
fleurs,
the noun for flowers
. I opened my mouth, but no words came. Finally something antagonistic popped out. “Are you sure?”

She laughed. It was like a bell ringing, and she had the most beautiful teeth I had ever seen. Everything about her was gentle and composed. I could imagine her being very soothing to a fiery redheaded geek.

She said in a low voice, smiling, “We got the DNA test back today, just to be sure. She’s ours.” She looked nervously at Poppu, and that’s when I understood that he knew nothing about the disaster in the hospital. I gave a tight-lipped nod to indicate that I wouldn’t mess up in front of him.

“Do you want to hold her?” Kizzie asked. I shook my head no.

“Did Poppu get to…” I began.

“Yes, he’s held her. Or more like, cuddled on the bed next to her. Many times.”

Tears welled irritatingly in my eyes. It was what I had wanted all along, wasn’t it, for him to hold her? Even though I wasn’t the one who had made it happen.

Kizzie’s eyebrows went up at worried angles. “Will you talk to Ciel?”

I glanced at Poppu, not wanting him to hear the answer. I shook my head.
I’d rather not, thanks.
But I didn’t really believe I could have my way, not on Ciel’s boat. Not when we had to share our grandfather’s last hours.

“I just want to tell you one thing, and then I think you should take care of your friend out in the hall.”

D’Arcy had waited for me, as he’d promised. The tears spilled out now. I pushed them quickly away with my fingers. I had done nothing to deserve him; it was incomprehensible to me that he was here.

“Ciel loves you like a lioness loves her cub,” Kizzie went on. I wanted to cover my ears and shout like a child, to keep from having to hear. It was obvious Ciel had sent her. “He couldn’t see you, couldn’t contact you these past two years. He’s being monitored all the time, Sol. The truth is, Ciel made a choice: he chose Day so he could help you. So that he’d be able to send you money; so you and Poppu would survive.”

I shook my head, violently this time.

“Do you think Poppu’s pension and your factory work supported you all these years? He’s been secretly adding money to Poppu’s account every month, and in order not to arouse suspicion, he only allowed himself legal texts to you, like a dutiful Ray transfer, knowing each one was being scrutinized.” She stood up to leave. “Whether you choose to believe it or not, I saw it. And it killed him to be apart from you.”

Before she opened the door she paused for a moment, looking at Fleur in her arms, thinking. And she said to me, “I’ve wanted to meet you so much this last year, because of everything I’ve heard. I never knew anyone as ferociously loving as you and Ciel and Poppu. I didn’t have that growing up. It’s—it’s not typical, you know. As soon as I met Ciel I wanted in. And now I want to be your family, too. If you’ll have me.”

Saturday
4:00 p.m.

I stepped into the hall after Kizzie left. D’Arcy was sitting against the wall, with his knees up and his heels tucked near his bottom. He moved to stand, and I held out my hand to pull him all the way up. I tugged him into Poppu’s room—too briskly for his stiff legs—and closed the door after us.

I couldn’t tell if Poppu was awake, so I went over to the side of the bed the way Ciel had, to kiss him. The skin on his cheek was cool crepe paper, and he smelled of antiseptic wipes. “Are you awake? I want you to meet someone.”

Poppu’s breathing changed, and his eyelids fluttered.

“Laisse-le dormir,”
D’Arcy said.
Let him sleep.

“Je ne dors pas,”
Poppu said, clear as night.
I’m not sleeping.

I reached my hand out for D’Arcy, and he came to my side.

I introduced him formally.
“Poppu, je te présente mon cher ami, D’Arcy Benoît.”
To D’Arcy I said,
“Voici mon grand-père, François Harcourt.”

D’Arcy reached for Poppu’s hand lying motionless on the bed and gently clasped it.
“Je suis enchanté de faire votre connaissance, Monsieur Harcourt.”

Poppu breathed through his mouth and said nothing. But his hand was not limp in D’Arcy’s, which I realized with a pain in my chest was the best he could do.

To me D’Arcy said, “Has he been on his back since you got here?”

I nodded.

“That’s more than two hours. He should be turned. Is there a chart anywhere?”

There was a paper on the night table. I handed it to him.

“His right side is next. Will you help me?”

I nodded again.

D’Arcy squatted and said, “Mr. Harcourt, Sol and I are going to turn you onto your right side now. We’ll be careful, but tell us if we’re hurting you.”

He rolled the blanket down neatly until it was past Poppu’s feet. Poppu was lying on a folded sheet. There were pillows under his ankles, his knees, between his legs, and under his elbows—everywhere that his bones protruded the most. At D’Arcy’s instruction we gently pulled the sheet to slide Poppu more to one side of the bed, and slowly shifted him onto his right side. He groaned, and his breathing increased. D’Arcy inspected his skin at all the pressure points with the mattress and gently lifted his leg to put a pillow between his knees. He straightened and checked the catheter tube. A smaller pillow went between Poppu’s ankles and another under them. D’Arcy moved him carefully and slowly, making subtle adjustments to his hip alignment and the position of his arms. And then he lifted the blanket to cover him.

“Can you mark on the chart that we moved him?”

I couldn’t find a pen on the nightstand, so I crossed the room to look in the desk. As I did, D’Arcy bent so that his face was near Poppu’s. He put his hand on his arm. Poppu’s eyes were open but unseeing. His mouth was still hanging. As I rummaged in the drawer I heard D’Arcy say quietly, “It’s been a privilege to meet you, knowing how important you are to Sol.”

I marked the time and left the paper and pen on the desk. When I turned back I saw that D’Arcy had whispered something more in Poppu’s ear, and that Poppu had heard him, letting out a gurgled gasp of acknowledgment.

“Secrets, already?” I asked.

“Uh-huh,” D’Arcy said. He reached out for me as I approached. I sank into his arms, leaned my head on his shoulder, and watched Poppu’s labored breathing.

The door opened. It was Ciel. He saw D’Arcy holding me and something flashed in his eyes, something irritable.

“Who turned Poppu?” Ciel said.

“We did,” D’Arcy said. “I hope that’s okay.”

“I was coming to do it.”

“Well, it’s done,” I said.

“I’d like to be alone with Sol and Poppu,” Ciel said to D’Arcy. He was a man of few words now.

D’Arcy looked into my eyes. “Stay, or go?”

“Go is fine.”

Stay forever.

“I’ll be in my cabin if you need me.” He gave me a quick, warm kiss.

Ciel said nothing until the door closed, and then he mumbled, “A Ray Medical Apprentice.”

It wasn’t a question, so I didn’t reply. But “Ray Medical Apprentice” hardly summed up D’Arcy. It left out his family, broken by the Day/Night divide; it left out the poet and artist and scientist, coexisting in one mind; it left out all of his sacrifices for me, from the moment he had picked up that stupid black phone in lockup. Or maybe from the moment he decided to take Bio for Trees in order to write on my desk.

Ciel said, “Can he be trusted?”

Outrage bloomed on my lips—
You’re the one I don’t trust!
—until I remembered that Poppu might be listening. “With my life.”

Ciel went over to Poppu and bent to put his cheek on his forehead. I closed my eyes, because it still hurt like hell to see it.

“Poppu, tu ne dors pas?”
he asked.
“Sol et moi, nous sommes ici.”
He looked up at me. “I don’t know how much he can hear.”

Poppu’s breathing was hard work. His face was contorted with the effort, and whether he was conscious or not, it looked like pain. Pain that it was senseless for his body to endure.

At home I had watched the world contract around Poppu until it was only what was in his room, and soon it was what was at the edge of his skin. Now it had tightened further until all that seemed left was what was inside of him: pain and the desire for peace.

“Can he have some morphine now?” I asked.

Ciel pulled his phone out of his pocket and sent a text.

He got the chair from beside the desk and brought it next to the bed. “I bet you didn’t even remember it’s your birthnight,” he said somberly.

I was stunned for a moment. “I lost track of the date.”

“You’re seventeen.” He shook his head, as if it were his fault. “Not even a cake.”

“I don’t need cake,” I said.

“What about tarte au maton?”

That thought almost knocked me over, and my eyes rimmed with tears. “Yes, I could do with one of those.”

He leaned on the chair and studied me. “I wish you weren’t in that Noma getup.”

I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t be whatever it was he expected me to be, or wanted me to be. The girl he had left was long gone.

“It’s somewhat empowering,” I finally said.

Miho knocked lightly, and when Ciel opened the door she had a tray with food—hamburgers and asparagus. There was also a syringe.

“You two eat dinner while I check on him.”

I didn’t move.

“Eat,” she repeated to me. “Everyone else is eating.” I knew she meant D’Arcy. I knew she already understood something about me. Of course Ciel would surround himself with perceptive people.

It was as if I had no taste buds, but I ate the burger just for the calories. I ate the asparagus. I drank the bottle of water Ciel handed me. I dutifully pushed fuel into my body. I watched as Miho took Poppu’s blood pressure with a portable cuff by the side of the bed. She listened to his heartbeat and breathing with her stethoscope. And then she lifted the blanket to inject the morphine into his buttock. She carefully replaced the blanket and came over to Ciel and me.

“He’s very close to the end. But he won’t suffer.”

These are the criteria for a good death: not to suffer, to be with people you love, to be home. I was grateful Poppu had two out of the three.

Miho said to me, “I’m really sorry, Sol.” And then she left the room.

I went over to the bed and sat beside Poppu.

“You’re still wearing the necklace,” Ciel said. “From your thirteenth birthday.”

I didn’t reply.

He sat in the chair, so we were both near our grandfather, so we could both see his face. “I was … with Gigi when I gave you that,” he said quietly. “I hurt her a lot.” But I had already guessed. He said, “Even taking that into account, she’s the only Noma we can trust right now.”