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any change?”
    She shook her graying head. “You’re the son who was in Seattle?”
    He nodded.
    She tapped at the keyboard and monitor next to his bed. “Your family should have already told you how it is.”
    â€œTell me again,” he told her. “Without the sugar coating. You know how families are.”
    She smiled at that, lines deepening around her eyes. “All right, then. Bluntly, all the medical signs indicate that your father has suffered brain death. There’s no response to a light shone in his eyes, and when we removed him briefly from the vent, he made no attempt to breathe on his own. None of the other tests have given us any indication that there’s any significant activity from the brain stem. Unfortunately, he was brought here to the hospital too late. If he’d been found earlier, or had been able to call for help when the event happened . . .” Dr. Pearse shrugged. It was a more telling statement than anything that she could have said. “In my opinion, and I’m sorry to say this, your father’s clinically dead at this point. The only thing sustaining his life are the machines. Your family needs to think of what his wishes would be in this situation. Did he have a Living Will, or had he talked to any of you or your mother about what he might want?”
    â€œI don’t know,” he told her. “I’ve . . . been away for some time.”
    She nodded. “I’m very sorry,” she told him. “I wish I had better news for you.”
    A few minutes later, she logged out of the computer and left the room. Colin turned back to his father. “Dad?” he said. “It’s Colin again. I’m here.”
    There was no answer except the hissing wheeze-and-thump of the ventilator.
    It wasn’t any better, even knowing what to expect this time. The noise of the machinery keeping his father alive and monitoring him contrasted ironically with the man’s silence and obliviousness to the world around him. It was hard to imagine the husk in the bed as the same driven and intense man who had shaped and manipulated Colin’s youth, with whom he’d had epic battles and arguments, whom he’d loved, hated, and feared—all at once. And that last time . . .
    Colin had entered into the conversation knowing what to expect, but he still hadn’t expected the vitriol that spewed at him from the volcano of his father . . .
    He’d met his dad in his office in the Loop. Outside the window high in one of the towers, Chicago was spread out around them, gleaming and bejeweled with lights in the evening, with a glimpse of Grant Park and the expanse of Lake Michigan between the buildings around them. Tom Sr. was standing at the window, with a glass of whiskey already in his hand. “There’s a bottle of Redbreast on the bar,” he said without turning. “Help yourself, son.”
    He did exactly that, figuring it might fortify his courage. He took a long sip as he stood next to his father. He could see his father’s reflection in the glass of the office window, staring outward almost possessively, as well as his own: torn jeans and T-shirt as opposed to his father’s gray, three-piece business suit; perfectly trimmed, salt-and-pepper hair against Colin’s hand-combed mop of brown. “So what’s up?” he asked Colin, still not looking at him. “You said you had something important to discuss.”
    Colin was sweating even though the office was cool. He pushed his glasses firmly up his nose, took a deep breath as if he were about to dive into cold water, and plunged in. “You know how interested I am in Irish folk and traditional music—right, Dad? Well, I’d like to go to Ireland. I want to get a visa and study music there. I could probably get approval for the visa pretty quickly.” He’d glanced up then, but his father