The black Mercedes idled in front of a five-story townhouse, a classic staple of London\u2019s Marylebone district. Its grey stone fa\u00e7ade was illuminated from below by exterior lights that set it apart from the surrounding night buildings. A security guard stood watch on the front steps, and directly above the heavy oak door was a cluster of mounted flags, making the place look almost like a miniature embassy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
David looked out the window from the back seat, squinting through the tinted glass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was the flags that threw him off. They scrambled his thinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then David had a flash of understanding in his foggy mind. We\u2019re already in Zurich. This must be an official government building. The appointed time is finally upon me.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n His breath hitched. His heart began to race. Too soon, wasn\u2019t it? He wasn\u2019t ready!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n His eyes caught his assistant\u2019s with visible alarm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instantly, a warm, youthful hand was placed on David\u2019s arm. Cody\u2014his twenty-four-year-old assistant\u2014calmly pulled a laminated itinerary from his vest pocket and read it aloud, clear and composed: “Rebecca. Dinner. London.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then, Cody squeezed his arm twice. Squeeze, squeeze.<\/em> A familiar unspoken signal: Everything is on track, Boss.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n David let out a long breath, the crushing weight on his chest easing away. This was a private members’ club. A seven p.m. reservation under the name Larkin. Restaurant upstairs, check-in downstairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I\u2019m coming in with you,” Cody said soothingly, as if speaking to a child. “I\u2019ll wait in the car during dinner. But these interstitials\u2014handing you off safely\u2014are important. When it\u2019s time for pickup, I\u2019ll be right here to ferry you to the hotel.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I\u2019ll be waiting,” Cody reassured him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They stepped through the massive entrance into a stone entryway, its floor polished to a lawsuit-slickness. The walls were seamless sheets of wood that seemed to flicker and waver under the candlelight. David hung back, letting Cody approach the woman at the front desk, who was nearly obscured by a massive floral arrangement. It was so big David wondered if they had jammed actual tree branches into it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The woman at the desk was a ghoul, cold and fraught with requirements. She needed identification. Needed the full names of both parties. Cody smoothly supplied the correct answers, drawing any number of important David documents from his pocket for her perusal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She wrote something on a piece of paper and checked her tablet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Ms. Larkin is in the restaurant,” she said, looking up at David while utterly dismissing Cody. “Fourth floor. Just the named guest.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Cody reached out to take David\u2019s arm, she cut in: “Only the named guest.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I\u2019m his assistant,” Cody explained patiently. “It\u2019s medical. For medical reasons. I\u2019ll come right back down as soon as he\u2019s with his daughter.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I\u2019ll get lost,” David interjected, offering a vacant smile. “I really will.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “You can watch on your security monitor,” Cody pointed to a camera on the wall. “I\u2019ll take him up and come right back down.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “All right,” the woman finally relented, though her frown lingered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “And you can send him after me,” Cody nodded toward the security guard, “if I\u2019m not right back down.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n The guard didn\u2019t even blink.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cody guided David into the elevator. The hallways were draped with heavy velvet curtains, and the carpet was so thick it seemed to swallow their footsteps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The people they passed along the way felt like over-grown children dressed up in party wear, traipsing around the rooms of a giant dollhouse. Their faces were done up and their hair shone under the lights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Good for you,<\/em> David thought bitterly as a woman in a short dress and high heels pushed past them. Now that he had no desire to expend any effort on life, he saw nothing but effort all around him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There were too many levels, too many turns. Cody steadied him through each transition: a turn down a hallway, three shallow steps, a slight slope, and another set of stairs. They passed a dim bar area where the wall lights were dialed down to a golden glow, finally arriving at another bar\u2014the correct one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cody pointed to a woman perched on an uncomfortable-looking high stool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “There we are,” Cody supplied helpfully. “Rebecca.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n David nodded. Of course. My daughter.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n “I\u2019ll check in with her later,” Cody instructed softly. “Rebecca knows to text whenever you\u2019re ready. I\u2019ll just be around the corner.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n David started toward his daughter. She was dressed in a prim British style: a narrow skirt, tall boots whose tops were hidden by the hem, and a button-down shirt with a Peter Pan collar. Gold jewelry flashed its minor dazzle, subtle and tasteful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She appeared to have finished most of the glass of white wine in front of her. She was chatting with the bartender, but when he glanced in David\u2019s direction, she turned too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rebecca stood up nervously, her eyes taking him in with diagnostic intensity. What was she noticing, or trying to notice? Signs of decline? The toll of age?<\/p>\n\n\n\n She closed the distance between them, put an arm through his, and led him back to her stool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Dad,” she said. At least that was familiar, not some British affectation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She began chattering about the club. “When it\u2019s sunny out, there\u2019s a nice roof terrace. They open it up\u2014it\u2019s nice. Not now, of course.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Yeah,” David mumbled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “It\u2019s a bit frustrating,” she said, looking around with annoyance. “Our table isn\u2019t ready. It\u2019s not even that busy. They\u2019re usually quite good about that stuff.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Right.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rebecca squinted at him closely. “Dad… you\u2019ve got\u2014” She tapped her own cheek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n David stared at her dumbly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Here,” she reached out. David felt a tiny tug on his skin, and then she held up a scrap of toilet paper, browned with dried blood. He tried not to look confused as she rolled it into a little ball and rested it on her cocktail napkin. David touched his cheek\u2014no blood. A mystery. When had he nicked himself shaving without remembering?<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Your table is ready,” the waiter announced. Rebecca drained her glass and stood. “Shall we?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n What did Rebecca actually know about his condition?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Only that David had decided to “slow down a bit” lately. Step back from work. Retirement\u2014or some euphemistic version of it. Yet that information alone had been enough to send her into a tailspin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If she had known that there was actually something genuinely wrong, that a formal medical diagnosis existed and David was keeping it from her, it was hard to imagine the fallout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She had emailed Cody a string of articles to print and pass along to David. The general gist was that retirement often marked a bad turn; it was when people started their slow cognitive decline. That had to be actively avoided. When you retired, you actually had to work overtime to keep your brain and body stimulated!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Creatine research, peptides, the precise sauna temperature needed to best replicate the resilience of certain Norwegians in a clinical study. These congenial, sweaty Norwegians scolded him: Why hadn’t he developed a lifelong habit of weekly saunas with a close group of friends? That seemed to protect against any misfortune.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n What was the correct sauna temperature? David didn\u2019t know, because the article had reported it in Celsius, and according to his mental calculations, it came out to 392 degrees Fahrenheit\u2014a number he knew was… probably… not right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A kitchen drawer at home had been taken over by bottles of vitamins, tipped on their sides with labels facing up, and there had been a stretch of weeks where he forced himself to swallow them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n DO NOT AGE<\/em>, one supplement brand read. DONUT AGE<\/em>, his eyes saw.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Was it truly possible for salvation to be purchased on Amazon.com or wherever Rebecca went to find these dim and stinky gelcaps? Was the brain just waiting for unregulated supplements to slough off the plaque before it would emerge, spanky and pink?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her protocol had intersected with his own desperate push: a brief period of sobriety, a red-light cap placed on his skull, a laser pointer clipped up his nose. Swallowing those pills felt like a folk ritual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “This is the body of Christ, Amen”\u2014David recalled Friday morning Mass from grade school. He opened his mouth for the bland Communion wafer. It dissolved almost instantly, his tongue roving around trying to coax the soggy body of Christ from his molars. Even so, he had tried to summon a solemn, holy feeling\u2014just as he did now when swallowing these pills, a gesture for a far-off daughter. The lost years, the brief birthday calls, dates for visits discussed but flights never booked… Swallow, swallow; do this in memory of me.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n It was all similarly disappointing, similarly unmiraculous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n David’s desperate surge of hope had lasted only a month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Why should I hire you?” his first boss had asked him. “I graduated with honors,” David had replied. “So you think you\u2019re special?” Mark asked, his tone not unkind. “A special guy?” “Not at all,” David said. “But I work hard. I\u2019m a hard worker.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Why me? Why not me?<\/em> That was how some people dealt with bad news\u2014accepting that they weren\u2019t special after all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The blight had come for him; it was too late. The vitamins stayed in the drawer. He let his brain blank out on words without trying to chase them down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog…<\/em> The lazy… the lazy…<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n “Have you talked to Mom?” Rebecca asked, checking her phone as she dabbed her napkin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Annabel,” David corrected himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Yeah. She\u2019s good. I mean, seems like it.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n David had remained unfailingly polite with Annabel\u2014a task made easier once she remarried and gave up her alimony. Her new husband was a doctor, wasn’t he? David had been relieved. Her anger had finally lost its edge, and every conversation was no longer a fresh report from the scene of her woundedness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet he couldn’t remember the last time they had spoken. Where was she in the world right now? A spike of panic hit him\u2014surely he ought to know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He hurried past the blank spot in his memory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “We came here on our honeymoon,” David said. “Did you know that?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Yeah,” she said. “I guess I did.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n She paused, as if expecting him to offer an amusing story from the past, but he didn’t. The past was where he lived now. Rebecca, on the other hand, was unmistakably a citizen of the present planet, with its exclusive clubs and its many levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The waiter arrived with their food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n David took a slice of dark bread and spread a thick layer of butter over it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “It\u2019s been cold here,” she said, “but it\u2019ll be much worse in Zurich. You know Geoff wanted us to go to Switzerland for Rainer\u2019s break. He loves all that\u2014skiing, real treks, National Geographic excursions. I wouldn\u2019t go now, in the dead of winter. So gloomy. What\u2019s the project, anyway?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n She waited for a response. David waited too, hoping for a nudge in the right direction inside his head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Switzerland?” she prompted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Oh, you know. For Stearns. I do little things here and there.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Invoking the name Stearns was instantly calming. It was a familiar signpost from a familiar life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “It\u2019s wonderful to get back into things,” she said, her voice rising an octave higher than normal. It was one less thing for her to worry about if David kept himself busy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Busyness\u2014the thing that used to be his entire life. A businessman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n David had worked so frantically. It was unnecessary, yet everyone around him\u2014Stearns and the rest\u2014were the same. Why did any of them fill their lives that way?<\/p>\n\n\n\n It had always been a relief to return to work, to a universe that required his absolute belief and, in turn, reassured him that he was real, that his life meant something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rebecca didn’t know how things had ended with the board; she knew nothing of the unpleasantness. And David welcomed his own forgetting on the matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The waiter served slivers of pale fish drizzled with sauce and dotted with paper-thin rounds of citrus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “This is to share,” the waiter noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n David began picking the citrus rounds off his plate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “You can eat those,” Rebecca said. “The skin is quite thin.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n David chewed obediently. Thin skin, edible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Oh, Dad.” Rebecca looked at him with a sad expression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He stayed silent. When the pork chop arrived accompanied by an unfamiliar green vegetable, he used his knife to scrape the greens to the side of the plate, the metal making an audible noise until they formed a neat square, cordoned off from the cutlet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Aren’t you hungry?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n She reached across the table to take his silverware, using his knife and fork to cut the pork chop into small bites. “It looks good.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Don’t do that!” David grabbed his knife and fork back, perhaps with too much force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rebecca raised her hands, blushing. “Well, I’m sorry.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n David used his fingers to pick up a piece of the cut meat and popped it into his mouth. Pork was very sweet\u2014a fact he forgot until he was eating it again. Strangely sweet. He swallowed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If Rebecca knew what was planned in Zurich, she would stop him. She would find a legal avenue to hit the cutoff switch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What was the formal term\u2014mentally unfit<\/em>? Incompetent<\/em>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n She would make it official, forcing him through a brutal decade of decline. Whatever gruesome care scenario awaited him, his brain would short out completely within the next year or so. He might have occasional flashes of lucidity, but whatever scraps of reality he managed to grasp would be pierced with terror.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There would be dutiful once-a-year visits from Rebecca and her child, though neither would want to be there. The wind would blow against the window, the humidifier would puff, and David would deteriorate in his small slice of existence, running out the clock on the very edge of other people’s real lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was not a pleasant thought. Not pleasant at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So he was doing the right thing. His calculations were correct. Leave at five minutes to midnight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “It was a great party\u2014thanks a ton!” David suddenly smiled at Rebecca.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Rainer is looking forward to seeing you,” she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rainer. In his notebook, it read: Rainer, age 9.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n “He\u2019s nine,” David offered inanely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Almost ten. He has loads of friends\u2014he\u2019s doing really well at his new school.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Wonderful.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n And so, the dinner passed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n No dessert\u2014was Rebecca sure?<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I\u2019m really OK,” Rebecca insisted, but David waved his hand. “We need something sweet. You love sweets.” He scanned the dessert menu, which seemed bizarrely coded with random capitalized words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “You choose,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “One yuzu cheesecake, two forks.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n They took polite bites. David tried to think, I love you<\/em>, to see what feeling it might scrape up inside him. He tried to gather himself to match the gravity of the occasion\u2014the last time he would be alone with his only child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n His child. Through all the illnesses and treachery, hadn’t she survived? The baby who once vomited silently in the bathtub and kept playing happily with her toys… The child who broke her wrist on the flagstones…<\/p>\n\n\n\n The film reel was spinning too fast; it was hard to hold on to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I\u2019ll have to show you the new plasterwork…” Rebecca chattered on about her house renovations. “It\u2019s been a long time since you\u2019ve been over, hasn\u2019t it?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Too long,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Mmm,” Rebecca murmured aloud, indicating she liked the dessert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There was an email Cody would send out after it was all over, drafted mostly by David, with a few additions made by Cody to mitigate any legal liability:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dear Rebecca,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n By the time you read this, I will have passed away peacefully and legally in Switzerland. It was entirely my own decision, signed off by my doctors. My medical diagnosis left no other choice. My physician has been authorized to share the details and my medical history with you if you wish.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I apologize for the pain this may cause you. Please respect my decision, and know that I will always love you. My lawyer can be reached at the contact details below. He is expecting your call and is prepared to answer any questions. Thank you for being my daughter. I am sorry for any ways in which I have disappointed you. Know that I loved you as best as I could.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Your loving father,<\/em> David Hastings<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n (Was the last name really necessary?)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ambushing her with an email wasn’t ideal, but it seemed like the only practical way to handle it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The slice of yuzu cheesecake steadily disappeared from the plate. David wiped his mouth half-heartedly and thought: Rebecca is a full-grown woman.<\/em> Her universe, her preferences, her neuroses, her taste for sweets\u2014he would only ever know a fraction of her. A shadow moving in another room, spied through a keyhole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Emotion stirred in his chest. My child.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Like little Rebecca with her fake-yet-real tears, his love for her was genuine. It swelled through him convincingly, but he couldn’t hold on to it. The feeling receded into fogginess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The restaurant, despite being filled with people, felt airless and artificial, kept at a distance from actual life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, he raised his espresso cup to his lips. It tasted real, and that was pleasant enough. This real cup of espresso, the daughter who carried his DNA…<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her birth, the years of raising her, the marriage that fell apart when she was ten… It all drifted past like passing clouds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n David tried to get the check\u2014a clumsy fumble as he accepted the little leather folder and stared at the receipt. He groped for a pen, but everything was swimmy. Impossible. He handed the whole mess to Rebecca.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “My eyes…” he said vaguely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “They just charge me directly,” she said with her usual briskness. “It\u2019s on my account.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Take my card, at least…”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “They just need a signature, Dad\u2014it\u2019s all on file here.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tallying up all the money he had spent on her over the years\u2014hundreds of thousands for private school, university, and help with her house\u2014this dinner was a drop in the bucket. But it felt good to nourish one’s offspring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n His daughter looked at him with concern. “Ready?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n David blinked. “To go?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n The table in front of him was empty, wiped clean, even the candle blown out. When had that happened?<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Ready,” he said, bracing his hands on the cleared surface for support. “Up we go.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n They rode the elevator down, passed through the heavy velvet curtains, and stepped out the front door. The cold London night air hit David’s face, clearing his head slightly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The black Mercedes was idling by the curb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cody stepped out from the passenger side and opened the door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rebecca gave David a tight, warm hug, smelling of expensive perfume and white wine. “Have a safe trip to Switzerland, Dad. Call me when you get there.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I\u2019ll… I\u2019ll stay in touch,” David managed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He climbed into the back seat. Cody closed the door respectfully, nodded to Rebecca, and quickly got into the front passenger seat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The car pulled away from the five-story townhouse. Through the rear window, David watched Rebecca’s figure shrink under the lights, her hand waving softly in the cold night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cody turned around from the front seat, handing David a warm glass of water and a small metal case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Did everything go well, Mr. Hastings?” Cody asked in his calm, professional tone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Yes,” David whispered, looking out the window as the London streetlights stretched into long streaks of light. “She doesn’t know anything.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Very good,” Cody said smoothly. “Our flight to Zurich departs at 3:00 a.m. from Luton Airport. The medical team at the Pegasos clinic has received all the authorization forms. Everything is set.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n David rested his head against the soft leather headrest. The chaos in his mind settled down. The oppressive flags, the complex procedures, the useless vitamin bottles, the panic over his cognitive decline\u2014it was all receding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He looked down at his hands, the blue veins raised against thin, age-spotted skin. His brain might be betraying him, but tonight, he was still the one making the final choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From the front seat, Cody reached back and squeezed his shoulder gently. Squeeze, squeeze.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n “Get some rest, Mr. Hastings,” his assistant said softly. “I’ll stay awake. I’ll wake you when we arrive.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n David closed his eyes. In the tranquil darkness of the car speeding through the London night, he felt a profound sense of peace. There would be no cold medical care facility in his future, no polite lies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There was only the 3:00 a.m. flight to Zurich\u2014to his final destination, where he would step boldly into the beyond, on his own terms and by his own will.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PART 2: DINNER WITH REBECCA<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
PART 3: SHADOWS OF THE PAST<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
PART 4: THE EMAIL IN THE SECURE INBOX<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n
PART 5: A MIDNIGHT DEPARTURE<\/h2>\n\n\n\n