Before seven, Ana was on another liter of fluids. I
looked again, trying to detect the rise of her chest. No
movement.
I flagged two nurses to the room. Flanking the bed,
they checked every pulse point imaginable: wrist, neck,
temple, even her ankles. Exhausting those possibilities,
they shook their heads in resigned weariness that was
more melancholy than sadness.
They left me at the foot of the bed looking at the
corpse that, moments before, had been my wife. I stayed
there. It was done, done for Ana—done for us.
“Til death do you part” we’d vowed at the wedding. In
less than three months—81 days to be exact, we were
“parted.”
It had taken death.
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