In the Hour Between

The call comes at 3:12 a.m.

The voice is careful, practiced. “You should come now.”

I thank her—because that’s what you do—and hang up before my voice cracks. My hand’s already reaching for the pack.

The kitchen light buzzes overhead, casting the table in that jaundiced glow you only notice when the rest of the apartment is dark. The ashtray in front of me is a thrifted glass bowl, too shallow for what I’ve been asking it to hold. It’s past full, the butts packed in at odd angles, some leaning on others like they’re too tired to stand alone.

I shake one from the pack, tap it twice on the table, light it. The paper catches with that dry, hungry sound. First drag’s always the same—tight in the chest, smoke pressing out from behind my eyes, the sting on the back of my throat like something trying to wake me up the wrong way.

They’ve called twice tonight. The first time, I told them I was on my way. I wasn’t. I sat on the fire escape instead, snow gathering in the fold of my hood, my hands shaking just enough to spill ash into my lap. The streetlamp below turned the falling flakes into slow, weightless ash in reverse. I told myself I’d go after that one. But then I lit another, and another, like the pause between them could hold time still if I tried hard enough.

Now the snow’s thicker, more deliberate. It fills the air without a sound, covering parked cars, trash can lids, the curbside piles of black ice.

I stand barefoot on the kitchen tile, the cold seeping up through my bones, thinking about nothing in order not to think about everything. About whether I should wear the boots with better tread. About how the tires will slide over the unplowed side streets. About the sound of his breath the last time I saw him—thin, uneven, like a wick sputtering out.

The cigarette burns down too fast. I light another without thinking. Ash drops onto the table and I leave it there. The air’s heavy with the stale weight of the last dozen I’ve smoked, but it’s still easier to breathe than the air outside that room waiting for me.

It’s not that I don’t want to see him. It’s that I can’t stand for him to see me—eyes red, mouth unsteady, holding myself together with spit and habit. He always hated pity. I guess I inherited that.

When I was twelve, I found him in this same kitchen at four in the morning, the air thick with Marlboro smoke. He sat with one leg bouncing, elbow on the table, staring at the dark window like he could see something past his own reflection.

“Couldn’t sleep,” he said, his voice softer than I’d ever heard it.

The cigarette glowed faintly in his hand when he added, “Sometimes you just can’t.”

I thought it was about insomnia. I didn’t understand it was about nights like this—when you can’t sleep because something’s waiting on the other side of the dark, and you’re not sure you want to meet it.

I stub the cigarette in the crowded ashtray, pull another from the pack, light it before the old one’s even stopped smoking. My hands are steady now. That feels worse than shaking.

I tell myself this is the last one before I go.

At 3:39, I pull my coat from the hook, shove bare feet into boots. The snow on the stoop glows under the streetlight, a smooth, unbroken sheet. My car door groans open, the seat icy under me.

The streets are empty. Traffic lights cycle through green, yellow, red, their colors spilling across wet pavement no one’s driving over. My headlights catch the fine snow swirling like dust in an attic.

Hospice smells like lemon cleaner and warm plastic. The night receptionist looks up from a paperback, her face softening the instant she sees me. I’ve seen that look twice before and never wanted to see it again. She doesn’t ask if I’m ready—just stands and leads me down the hall.

The door’s half-open. The light from the lamp in the corner lays amber over the bed, shadowing the corners of the room.

He looks smaller than I’ve ever seen him, like gravity’s been pressing down on him for years and finally got its way. His skin is thin and pale, stretched over the bones of his face. His eyes are barely open, the pupils swimming in too much white.

“Dad,” I say. My voice splinters.

His gaze shifts, a slow drag upward to find me. I take the chair by the bed. His hand is cool in mine, the skin loose, the bones sharper than they should be.

I think of the things I could say—I’m sorry for taking so long, I love you for all the years I didn’t say it out loud, I’m here so he knows—but each one feels too late or too small. My thumb just moves over the ridges of his knuckles like I could memorize them in the time that’s left.

“You came,” he whispers. It’s hardly more than a breath.

“I’m here.”

The lamp hums. The clock ticks in a slow rhythm that feels too loud for the room. Every so often, his breath stutters, and I brace for the end, but then it comes again, thin but still here.

Finally, he says, “It’s okay, you know.”

“What is?”

“To go.”

His gaze is somewhere past me. The faintest smile touches his mouth. “Been a long night.”

I want to tell him I’m not ready. That I nearly missed it. That I hid behind a wall of cigarettes because I couldn’t stand the thought of watching him leave. But my throat closes around it.

Instead, I squeeze his hand. “I know.”

He takes one more breath—long, steady, like he’s holding it in his mouth for the taste—and lets it go.

The room changes. Not emptier. Just still.

I stay with him, my hand still around his, until the warmth fades. I don’t move when the nurse comes in. She pauses, then leaves without saying anything.

When I finally stand, the silence in the room isn’t pressing on me anymore. It’s just there, the way air is there—waiting to be breathed.

Outside, the snow’s still falling, thick enough to blur the street signs and car roofs. It softens the edges of everything, swallows sound until the world feels like it’s holding its breath.

I reach into my pocket for the pack. My fingers find the crumpled cardboard, the familiar weight. I stop. Not because I’m done. Just because the cold in my lungs feels better than smoke right now.

The horizon’s paling, that hour between night and morning when you can’t tell if the day is starting or ending. I stand there in it, breathing.