A man leaves his father's bedside for the first time in a very long time. He'll come back a while later, but not because he's needed anymore.

     The man walks upstairs to the study, not knowing what else to do with his time. He sits at his dad's old roll-top desk and thinks of all he's seen and done in the past weeks, of how everything has changed. He's watched disease slowly consume this being he'd always thought to be invincible, eternal, and he'd been powerless to do anything to stop it. He'd watched the body, once strong and seemingly in perpetual motion, become still, only moving to twist in pain. He watched the mind, formerly so sharp, become almost child-like, so now the man has cared for his dad as his dad had done for him decades ago.

     It was wrong, it was unfair, and it was unnecessary. The man knew how his father had always felt about this sort of situation, but he'd been unable to do what he knew needed to be done, until now. When the time came for his dad's pain medication, the man administered the usual two. He paused for a moment, thinking, then he kept on feeding them until the bottle was empty. He kissed his dad, told him how much he loved him, and he left.

     Upstairs at the old desk, sitting in the worn, familiar chair, he takes a pen and notebook out of the drawer and starts to write. All that he's seen, done, and felt during this hellish time flows out of him onto the paper. Something breaks inside him and everything he's kept bottled up in the name of staying strong is released. The sobs make his handwriting shaky. Fat tears fall onto his notebook, but he writes over them. After what feels like it could have been either five minutes or five hours, he's done. He doesn't know what to do with his story, so he leaves it where it is.

     Downstairs, the man senses, there has also been release. Drained, afraid, and hopeful, he heads back down. His dad is still. The face that had earlier been contorted by pain is now peaceful, looking more or less like the man remembered it. Feeling a strange mix of inconsolably heart-broken and relief that the suffering has stopped, the man sits in his usual chair. He picks up a rough, wrinkled hand and holds it for a minute. He kisses it and lays it back down on the bed. He strokes the thin hair on his dad's head, and then he walks away.

     He's got phone calls to make.