Excerpt from Counting Backwards by Binnie Kirshenbaum, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Tonight or Tomorrow

You sit at the edge of the bed watching your husband who looks as if he were sleeping.

Hooked up to a high-flow oxygen tank, he might be sleeping, but mostly he is dying. A high-flow oxygen tank is not a ventilator. When the subject of things such as ventilators would come up, apropos of nothing other than stories on the news, stories of lawsuits and family battles, Leo invariably said, "No matter what. No artificial means of life support for me."

You have the document: Do Not Resuscitate and No Artificial Means of Life Support.

You, on the other hand, said, "I want to be freeze-dried. Or maybe one of those long-term induced comas."

The oxygen will not prolong his life, but it eases the pain of breathing.

The pain of breathing.

The oxygen eases the pain.

For him, the oxygen eases the pain.

But to ease the pain does not mean there is no pain.

For you, there is pain.

The hospice nurse says that if he shows indications of suffering, if he winces or groans or, because not all suffering is externalized, even if you just sense that he might be uncomfortable, you can give him morphine.

Not all suffering is externalized.

You eyeball the vial of morphine tablets.

The hospice nurse tells you that he will, most likely, die tonight. Tonight, or possibly tomorrow.

The hospice nurse leaves. She has other dying people to visit.

You take your husband's hand. You lean over, stroke his cheek, run your fingers through his hair. Such hair. Full. Thick. Boyish, the way it flops over his forehead, but not boyish because it's white. Eighteen years ago, soon after his fortieth birthday, his hair started going white. Within nine months, it was all white. Prematurely white. "It's you," he teased. "Living with you turned my hair white."

White hair, disease, death, all of it premature.

Now, you say, "I'm sorry that I wasn't always good to you. But more than anyone, anything, ever, I loved you. Do you know that I loved you?" Loved. Past tense. He's not yet dead, and already, you are in the in past tense.

Tonight, or possibly tomorrow.

Hurry up, not all suffering is externalized, please hurry up.

Because, for you, there is pain.

Do You See What I See?

Leo is at the living room window, the curtain pulled to one side, and he's peering out, like the nosy neighbor trolling for dogs peeing on flower beds or clandestine affairs, or—the snoop's jackpot—some perv peeking into a woman's bedroom. Except Leo is the opposite of a snoop. Insofar as the private lives of other people are concerned, he's pretty much a So what? kind of guy. But, as of late, every night he's posted himself there at the window. "Come here for second," he says.

Across the street, cars are parked bumper-to-bumper, and a sleek bicycle is chained to the streetlamp on the sidewalk in front of the red brick townhouse that's been there since 1902. Come late April or early May, tulips and daffodils will sprout and bloom from the patches of dirt that ring the trees, but it's neither late April nor early May. It's mid-February. When summer rolls around, the full view of the townhouse will be eclipsed by the foliage of the silver maples.

"What, who, is it now?" you ask.

"Under the light," Leo says. "You don't see Gandhi?"

"Gandhi?"

Leo sees Mahatma Gandhi stirring lentils in a pot. An iron pot that hangs from a tripod.

You don't see Gandhi. "Is he wearing anything more than a dhoti? If that's all he has on, he must be freezing. You might want to bring him a coat."

Because Leo realizes perfectly well that he is hallucinating, that Gandhi is not out there on the sidewalk stirring lentils in a pot, you feel free to add, "You might want to give him a pair of thick socks, too. I'm assuming he's barefoot."

Excerpted from Counting Backwards by Binnie Kirshenbaum. Copyright © 2025 by Binnie Kirshenbaum. Excerpted by permission of Soho Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.