The monitor was a flashing beacon of alarm.
Arthur had ripped off the blanket and the tubes, his face a mask of finality. Sarah rushed in, her grip tight on his shoulders.
"You’re not dying tonight!" she declared.
The alarms eventually faded, replaced by the soft ambient hum of the ICU. Arthur lay weak, his tubes restored.
""I wanted to die the same way she did," he whispered. "Quietly here. In this room. In this bed. It felt like the only way to be close to her again.""
Sarah realized that Arthur was trying to bridge the gap between life and death with a clinical setting.
"Being close to her isn't about where you die, Arthur," she said. "It's about how you lived with her. And how you live now."