Sacrament

'I'm done,' he said eventually. His voice was a little slurred, his head nodding, as though he might fall asleep with the spoon still in his hand.

'Here,' Adrianna said. 'Let me take those from you.'

She took the bowl and spoon from him, and set them on the bedside table, where there sat a small squad of pill bottles. Several of them had been left with their tops unscrewed, Will saw. All of them were empty.

A sickened suspicion rose in Will. He looked at Adrianna, who despite her stoical expression was plainly having difficulty holding back tears of her own. This wasn't just any dinner she'd been telling Patrick to finish up. There'd been more than pudding in the bowl.

'How do you feel?' she asked him.

'Okay ...' Patrick said. 'A little light-headed, but ... okay. It wasn't the best pudding I ever tasted, but I've had worse.' His voice was thin and strained, but he was doing his best to put some music into it.

'This is wrong...' Rafael said.

'Don't start again,' Adrianna told him sternly.

'It's what I want,' Patrick said firmly. 'You don't have to be here if it bothers you.'

Rafael looked back at him; his face knotted up with contrary feelings. 'How long ... does it take?' he murmured.

'It's different from person to person,' Adrianna said to him. 'That's what I heard.'

'You've got time to get a brandy,' Patrick said, his eyes closing for a time, then opening again as though he was waking from a five-second doze. He looked at Adrianna. 'It's going to be strange...' he said dreamily.

'What's going to be strange?'

'Not having me,' he replied, with a dazed smile. His hand, which had been rhythmically smoothing a wrinkle in the sheet, now slid over the coverlet and caught hold of her hand. 'We've talked a lot over the years, haven't we . . . about what happens next?'

'We have,' she said.

'And I'm going to find out ... before you ...'

'I'm jealous,' she said.

'Bet you are,' he replied, his voice steadily failing him.

'I can't bear this,' Rafael said, coming to the bottom of the bed. 'I can't listen to this.'

'It's okay, baby,' Patrick said, as though to comfort him. 'It's okay. You've done so much for me. More than anyone. You just go have a cigarette. It'll be all right. Really it will.' He was interrupted by the sound of the doorbell. 'Now who the fuck is that?' he said, a spark of the old Patrick momentarily ignited.

'Don't answer it,' Rafael said. 'It could be cops.'

'And it could be Jack,' Adrianna said, rising from the bed. The doorbell was being rung again; more urgently. 'Whoever it is,' she said, 'they're not going to go away.'

'Why don't you go, babe?' Patrick said to Rafael. 'Whoever it is send them away. Tell them I'm dictating my memoirs.' He chuckled at his own joke. 'Go on,' he said, as the bell was rung a third time.

Rafael went to the door, glancing back at the man in the bed as he went. 'What if it is the cops?' he said.

'Then they'll probably kick the door in if you don't answer it,' Patrick said. 'So go. Give 'em hell.'

At this, Rafael made his departure, leaving Patrick to sink back down amongst the pillows. 'Poor kid...' he said, his eyes fluttering closed. 'You'll take care of him, won't you?'

'You know I will,' Adrianna reassured him.

'He's not equipped for this,' Patrick said.

'Are any of us?' she replied.

He squeezed her hand. 'You're doing fine.'

'How about you?'

He opened his weighted eyes. 'I've been trying to think ... of something to say when it's time. I wanted to have something ... pithy, you know? Something quotable.'

He was slipping away, Will could see, his words becoming steadily more slurred, his gaze, when he once again opened his eyes, unfocused. But he wasn't so far gone he failed to hear the voices from the front door: 'Who is that?' he asked her. 'Is it Jack?'

'No ... it sounds like Lewis.'

'I don't want to see him ...' Patrick said.

Rafael was having trouble keeping Lewis out, however. He was doing his best to insist Lewis leave, but he clearly wasn't being attended to.

'Maybe you should just go lend a hand,' Patrick suggested. Adrianna didn't move. 'Go on,' he insisted, though all the force had left him. 'I'm not going anywhere yet. Just don't ... take too long.'

Adrianna got to her feet and hurried to the door, clearly caught between the need to stay with Patrick and the need to keep Lewis from disturbing her patient's peace of mind. 'I won't be a minute,' she promised, and disappeared into the hallway, leaving the door a little ajar. Will heard her calling ahead as she went, telling Lewis this wasn't the time to come calling unannounced for God's sake, so would he please leave?

Then, very quietly, Patrick said: 'Where ... the hell did you come from?'

Will looked back at him, and saw to his astonishment Patrick's hazy, puzzled gaze was fixed on him as best it could be fixed, and there was a small smile on his face. Will went to the end of the bed and looked at him. 'You can see me?' he said.

'Yes, of course ... I can see you,' Patrick replied. 'Did you come with Lewis?'

'No.'

'Come a little closer. You're a bit fuzzy around the edges.'

'That's not your eyes, that's me.'

Patrick smiled. 'My poor, fuzzy Will.' He swallowed, with some difficulty. 'Thank you for being here,' he said. 'Nobody said you were coming ... I would have waited ... if I'd known. So we could talk.'

'I didn't know I was coming myself.'

'You don't think I'm being a coward, do you?' Patrick said. 'I ... just couldn't bear the ... the idea of withering away.'

'No, you're not being a coward,' Will replied.

'Good,' Patrick said. 'That's what I thought.' He drew a long, soft breath. 'It's been such a busy day...' he said '. . . and I'm tired...' his lids were closing, slowly '... will you stay with me a while?'

'All the time you want,' Will said.

'Then ... always,' Patrick said; and died.

It was that simple. One moment Patrick was there, in all his sweetness. The next he was gone, and there was only the husk of him, its miracle departed.

Barely able to breathe with grief, Will went to Patrick's side, and stroked his face. 'I loved you, my man,' he said. 'More than anyone in my life.' Then, in a whisper, 'Even more than I loved Jacob.. .'

The exchange out in the hall had come to an end now, and Will could hear Adrianna coming back towards the bedroom, talking to Patrick as she approached. All was well, she told him; Lewis had gone off home to write a sonnet. Then she opened the door, and for a moment, as she looked into the room, it seemed she saw Will standing beside the bed; even began to say his name. But her powers of reason persuaded her senses they were wrong - Will couldn't be here, could he? - and she left the word unfinished. Her gaze went instead to Patrick, and she let out a soft sigh that was as much relief as sorrow. Then she closed her eyes, silently instructing herself to be calm, Will guessed; to be as she had always been, the rock in times of emotional turmoil.

Rafael was in the hallway just outside the bedroom door, calling her name.

'You'd better come in and see him,' she said. There was no reply from Rafael. 'It's all right,' she said. 'It's over. It's all over.' Then she went to the bed, and sat down beside Patrick and stroked his face.

For the first time since departing into the Domus Mundi, Will longedto be back in his own body; wished he was there beside her, offering what comfort he could. Lingering unseen this way was uncomfortable; he felt like a voyeur. Maybe it would be better just to go, he thought; leave the living to their grief, and the dead to their ease. He belonged in neither tribe, it seemed; and that unfixedness, which had been a pleasure to him as he went through the world, was now no pleasure at all. It only made him lonely.