I went into the kitchen, made myself a cup of tea. There wasn’t anything good on television so I put one of Hank’s videos in the player, a Marilyn Monroe film I hadn’t seen before. It was a musical, light on the laughs and heavy on the dance numbers. Marilyn looked tired. As she danced, her feet kicked with a little less vigour and her eyes had lost some of their sparkle. I remembered a story about how when Norma Jean first became Marilyn Monroe she had to ask an autograph-seeking fan how to spell her own name. By the time she died she probably had no idea who she was at all.
It must have been some time during the movie that Hank slipped away. As the credits rolled and the screen went black I went into the bedroom to check on him. He was lying on his stomach, and even from the doorway I could see that he wasn’t moving. I picked up my heels, turned off the television, and left the apartment.
Downstairs Jake’s blinds were still drawn. I knocked on the door. I few moments later he appeared in tracksuit pants, eyes puffy, hair sticking up. I walked inside, walked to his bedroom, lay down on the bed. A second later he joined me, and together we slept, a sleep so sad and so deep I would have been happy never to wake up.