The Last Hour
June 1, 2015 fell on a Monday, the last day of Peter’s life, five years ago, just like today is a Monday. Matthew was supposed to come over for dinner. I had prepared a Thai salad. Peter had a trial going. After I set the table, I went upstairs to take a shower and get dressed. It was just before five o’clock. Court was over at five. I called Peter’s cell phone and left a voice mail. I told him I was taking a shower and asked him to please come straight home, just in case Matthew came early and I was still in the shower.”
When I came out of the shower, the answering machine was blinking. It was Peter’s number. I dialed it. A stranger answered. ‘’Sorry, wrong number,’’ I said and hung up. Immediately the phone rang. The stranger said , ‘’Mrs. Cooperman?’’ ‘’Who are you? Why do you have my husband’s cell phone? Did he lose it?’’ ‘’I am a policeman. Your husband is in an ambulance on his way to Jamaica Hospital. I can pick you up and take you there.’’
Everything went grey in that instance. Life was not the same anymore. While I was taking a shower, Peter left the courthouse with his heavy trial attaché dragging alongside him. He walked out of the courthouse alongside Queens Boulevard to his office building. He turned the corner to the garage underneath the building. He handed his parking receipt to the attendant and waited with the other attorneys for his car. As they waited they suddenly heard a loud thump. They turned around. Peter lay on the sidewalk blood oozing from the back of his head. He was no more. He was gone.
All day I have been reliving that Monday. At five o’clock, in my mind’s eye, I started walking out of the courtroom alongside him in my head. I felt the heaviness of that attaché case as he walked out of the courthouse towards his office. I began gasping for air as I imagined him dying in the middle of the street amongst strangers and no one who loved to tell him how precious and loved he was to all of us. No one to tell him how he was the sunshine of our lives. He died alone. We were not there for him. What a torture that is to me.