The Space Between Them

by Eric Roller

It’s a Thursday evening. I am a stranger standing beside a hospital bed, watching a friend’s father suffocate from late-stage lung cancer. A tumor the size of a Cara Cara orange presses against his lungs, leaving almost no room for air. He holds a nebulizer in his right hand and breathes in its mist. He begs the nurse not to honor his Do Not Resuscitate order.

My friend, whom I had met only a few weeks before, told me on the drive to the hospital that he had been dying for years and that they had been estranged most of that time because of a betrayal she did not want to share—a situation many families, including mine, go through.

I am an outsider witnessing a deeply personal event. I am not sure why she brought me—perhaps to stand between them. Lingering here, I am reminded of my own experience with death: my sister, lost to cancer. I did not witness her final moments. She refused to see my father on her deathbed. They had been estranged for years as well. I never found out why; my mother would never tell me, even after my father’s death. I have left it alone for years, afraid to know.

I ache to smooth this man’s passing. I want to help my friend leave the hospital room without carrying the wounds I still endure. But grief isn’t something to tidy—especially for an outsider.

Every few minutes, he reaches for her. She hesitates. Her body leans forward, yet something in her holds back.

I think he must have really hurt her. Yet I find myself reflexively judging her, confused by her refusal to forgive her dying father. I don’t know the full story, yet I take his side, as if impending death demands obligatory forgiveness. I recall taking my father’s side all those years ago. Now, I’m not sure that was wise.

I step back, standing rooted in the corner beside a plastic Ficus tree, holding my breath as though I can preserve the oxygen he needs to stay conscious a few minutes longer. I want to give them space—to interlace fingers, to see one another, to perhaps apologize. I need this to work itself out. I want this death to settle the space between them. But my father and sister couldn’t resolve their differences, so why should I expect this from my friend and her father?

The nurse glances at her and asks if the decree is “airtight.” The room feels like a vault, every breath amplified. Each exhale compresses his chest deeper, ribs drawn tight like a bellows on its last pull.

He reaches for her again. She declines. He grips the nurse’s hand tighter, as if a consolation prize.

My friend’s face reddens, her eyes water, her chin quivers. His breaths tremble, each shorter than the last. Not many remain, I think.

I was in college when my sister’s cancer returned. My father told me to finish finals, believing there would be time that summer. There would always be time, he said. He wanted to reconcile with her first. We argued. I stayed. I shouldn’t have.

I yearn to nudge my friend closer, to urge her to forget whatever came between them.

Then, as if waking from a spell, she steps forward and stands beside him. She cups his left hand in both of hers. The nebulizer mist outlines their union. He settles. His face slackens; his head sinks deeper into the hospital pillow.

This is not the ending I expected. It feels precarious, as if one movement—or a single thought—could undo this moment. But they continue touching for the first time in years. Grace filters through the room.

His right hand drops the nebulizer and lands on his chest, as if in resignation. He nods at the nurse and squeezes out the final word of his life:

“Ok.”

His chest rises, hesitates, quivers, rises again, slows, shudders, falters—each breath delicate, fragile—until consciousness slips away. The room holds its breath, every second suspended, thick with the words left unsaid.

The nurse glances at her watch again, confirming each pause, as if counting the final seconds of his life.

Finally, his chest stills. Death settles the space between them. My father left looking over his shoulder—perhaps for an eternity—dreamt of this moment. I let myself feel relief for my friend.

The nurse pauses over him with a stethoscope at his heart. Then quietly says, “He’s gone.”

BIO: Eric Roller lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he teaches high school English to freshmen and sophomores. His poems have appeared in South Dakota Review, The Chestnut Review, Dead Skunk Magazine, and elsewhere.