Part 1: Black Box

The first episode of this series is free, but to hear the whole thing, you'll need to subscribe to The New York Times, where you'll get access to all the serial productions and New York Times shows. And it's super easy. You can sign up through Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you're already a time subscriber, just link your account and you're done. Rachel McKibben's and her dad, Pete Kamacho, stop talking and resume talking many times over the course of her life. He could be generous. He could be mean and drunk. She learned how to be mean. She left California, moved across the country. She loved him when she could, and she never wrote him off. She made sure her kids knew the good version of him. When COVID started, Rachel and her father were in a barely talking phase, but a few months in, he emailed her, trying to find the email where he reached out. So I think the word was infusion, infusion meant he was sending money. Yep. Here we go. Infusion. That was right. She opened the email and it said, just want to be sure that my New York family is safe in all of this. Please, if there's anything you need, let me know. We are family after all. And I was like, okay, here's an olive branch. He sent $1,000 to her bank account, an infusion that saved the day. Rachel and her partner at the time, Jacob ran a bar in restaurant in Rochester, New York. It was closed, COVID. They were strapped. They had three kids at home, out of five. A year or so later, conversations with her father were very different. Her father was insisting that Rachel not vaccinate his grandkids, her children. He called it murder. When she pushed back, he'd ridicule her. Rachel stopped talking to him. She didn't bother telling her father when she, her two youngest kids, and Jacob all got COVID in the fall of 2021. Even when Jacob went into the ICU for five days, and the doctors told her to pray, she still didn't reach out to her dad for support. Four days after Jacob was finally released from the hospital and back home with Rachel and the family recovering at about midnight. My brother sent me a text that said, "I've been too distraught to tell you, but dad passed away today at 2.42 p.m. Because as a text, yeah." A text telling her that her father had been dead for hours. She figured car accident. She knew he'd been driving a lot looking for work. She called her brother, Peter Camacho, Jr. I said, "Peter, what is happening? What happened?" And he explained that they had gone to a funeral and he said, "I never should have let dad go to the funeral with all those vaxed people." Vaccinated people. Her brother believed that COVID vaccines weren't just dangerous for people who got the vaccine. Vaccinated people were dangerous to be around if you were unvaccinated, like him and his dad. They lived together. They'd been living together for years. And I was like, "I can't even begin this argument. I'm just going to listen." And he goes, "I should never have hugged any named a cousin." And he said, "I should never have let my dad hug any named the same cousin. They're all vaxed idiots." So he didn't say dad had COVID. No. He's just saying, "Okay." Right. He just starts what they never should have let him go to the funeral to hug vaccinated people. He said, "Because of all their shedding, they shed the virus." And it stopped me in my tracks and then I was like, "So what happened?" He had COVID and he said, "No, no." And he was having trouble breathing. He had pneumonia. Like Peter, all of his symptoms are COVID. You're saying at shallow breathing, you're saying he was fatigued. You're saying he lacked the strength to even eat. At one point, he was just sort of trying to pour milk, sorry, soup into the corners of his mouth and spraying him with water to get some level of hydration. And he said that his bed was covered in sweat. And then he said, "Dad would stare off and so I'd slap him." And then he'd look at me and that he just, he, like, he would say, "Hey, dad, are you okay?" And he'd go, "Yeah." Until the last time when he didn't. And he said, "Dad's eyes were just wide open and I slapped him and he was gone." Rachel was trying to take all of this in, trying to get information without letting loose on her brother, who was plainly grief struck from having just watched their father die in front of him. But he was telling her he had watched their father die in front of him for days. He didn't take him to the hospital, didn't call 9-1-1, didn't call Rachel to tell her their father was so sick he could barely speak. Then another thought hit her. I said, "Peter, you've been his nurse this whole time. How do you feel?" And he said, "Well, I mean, we both probably got sick around the same time, but, you know, I'm healthier than dad." And I said, "Peter, you understand you definitely have COVID. Can you take a deep breath? I need you to do it. Take a deep breath for me." And he did. And I go, "Okay. How do you feel?" He goes, "That was, I'm tired." And that's what I just lost it. And I screamed at him. And I said, "If you don't, you're his older sister." "Yeah, I'm his older and only sister." And I said, "Peter, I can forgive you for not taking dad to the hospital. I can find forgiveness somewhere in me. But I swear to you, if you don't go to the ER right now, I will not forgive you when you die. You are dying. I need you. I need you to go to the ER right now." Rachel stayed on the phone with her brother, heard him get into the car, the door slam, the engine turnover. He finally relaxed a bit when she heard Peter go inside the hospital and check in. He was 44 years old, six foot four, two twenty, never smoked, didn't drink, lifted weights. When COVID hit, he'd been on a cleanse. He had health insurance through Medi-Cal, California's Medicaid system. But Peter hadn't had a full-time job in years, he depended on his father. He didn't have his own bank account. His first text exchanged with Rachel from the hospital was about money. He asked, "How much was Jake's bill?" Meaning, "How much was Rachel's then partner Jacob's medical bill when he had COVID?" She texted back. "I said it seriously is the last thing you need to be concerned about right now. So just please, it doesn't matter. I'm so proud of you for taking care of yourself, Peter." He said, "103 temp, oxygen levels low." I said, "Yep, Jacob was at 83 when I brought him in. That's really, really bad." And he said, "They just better not put me on a ventilator." And I said, "Peter, you are a fighter. I need you to meditate on your living, on surviving this." And he said, "Thanks for getting me going on this. I wasn't going to get any better at home." And I said, "No, you weren't. If they want to put you on Remdesifer, ask them to pair it with Illumiant. It's a game changer." Remdesivir and Illumiant was the combination that doctors had given to Jacob the week before. That's how Rachel knew about it. She had just been through all this. If it isn't pneumonia yet, they need to put you on the monoclonal antibodies. This is you saying all this to him? I said this to him and he said, "I don't like these guys." Peter didn't like the guys at the hospital because they wanted to swab his nose for a PCR test to see if he had COVID. He told Rachel he thought the swab tests were a scam. The doctors got a $15,000 bonus for every swab they did that led to a positive COVID result. I said, "I love you, Peter. Let them help you get better." He said, "I love you too." A few minutes later, positive for COVID. Within three days, to Rachel's great surprise in relief. Peter told her he was on the mend. He went home to rest and she made plans to go out to Santa Ana, California where he lived and where the two of them had grown up. Peter asked Rachel a couple of times after he left the hospital whether their father's cause of death had been identified yet. She said COVID, even though she hadn't seen the death certificate because it seemed obvious to her and she turned out to be right. When Rachel got to Santa Ana, along with one of her older kids, Peter asked them over the phone not to come in the house, said he still felt too vulnerable because they were vaccinated. He believed, again, that vaccines make people shed the virus. and therefore vaccinated people are especially dangerous to be around for the unvaccinated. Rachel decided to give him some time. They would see him before they left. They could do it outside in masks in the backyard. She didn't push. He sounded tired. She wasn't surprised. After she'd had COVID she'd barely been able to open a jar for a week. Rachel kept checking in via text and phone calls. She was handling the paperwork into tales of their father's death. She was dropping off food at the front door. Food logistics. Love. You're hungry? Can I pick you up anything? I'm close. I'm two blocks away. It says can't think of anything right now. Those guys ever contact you. I say I called yesterday. They said they're super busy and the paperwork was sent to the crematorium on Thursday. That's one of their last texts. Peter died a week after Rachel got to Santa Ana. She never saw him. A long time neighbor found him. Rachel learned from the corner that her brother had not made a quick remarkable recovery and been discharged from the hospital to go rest at home as she believed. He had checked himself out of the hospital after two and a half days against medical advice. I was stunned. I didn't. I mean what it means is that he was lying to me. He knew what to say. He knew what to hide. I just I mean I was I was floating through my days. It felt like my brain had been wiped. Rachel was dumbfounded by how much she didn't know about her father's and brother's last month of being alive. Everything was gone. All the answers she'd put off trying to get from her brother about why he hadn't asked for help for their father gone. Her brother's recovery fake some kind of performance. She had no idea what he'd been thinking as he was fading away but he'd been doing instead of telling her the truth. And then Rachel made a discovery. A record of Peter's final days and she found out exactly what happened. From cereal and the New York Times, this is we were three. I'm Nancy uptake. Part one black box. COVID caught us while we were busy. Each person it found and each family was in the midst of their specific unfinished business. They're pre-existing fault lines and his connections. The fault lines are why I'm here. This is a story about a family and what COVID did to them what it destroyed but also what it revealed. Rachel lived thousands of miles away from her father and brother and she was used to stretch as a relative silence with them. But those quieter periods were always part of a rhythm that swung back. Even an angry silence was never permanent. Now the fact that she didn't have any idea what happened at the end. Rachel was tormented by this not knowing. The pain propelled her. She wasn't quiet with grief. She was vibrating with it. She had questions. The first person she called after talking to the coroner was her impetus cousin. Rachel and her brother were only a year and a half apart and the cousin was right around the same age mid-40s. The three of them had grown up playing together. Her cousin seemed just as baffled as she was by Peter's death. By the fact that he left the hospital against medical advice. She asked him a terrible question the coroner had asked her. Any chance this was intentional? Had her brother been suicidal? Rachel didn't think so but she also felt like what the hell do I know? She says her cousin said no way, no way. Peter wanted to live. At the house where Peter and her father had lived Rachel gathered up old photos and looked through them. These are all great photos and I want these but like wonder if they had any photos like of themselves like I don't even know what they looked like in the final years. I don't know and so I started charging their phones and then I heard blue, blue, blue, blue, like message message message. I'm like oh god I didn't think about like there's people checking in on my brother and I just started reading. Rachel looked at a text from the cousin she just talked to. His last text to Peter on the day Peter died. He said yo jacks please answer me man. And then before that are several TikTok links and I was like what are these and I don't have the app. I don't really know how to operate it. I'll be honest like I'm not interested in it and then I just scrolled up and I just couldn't help but just be invested in their conversation. Rachel kept scrolling up and up and up through the texts between Peter and their cousin until she was back in October when Peter was still alive and was texting with their cousin about what to do about Rachel and Peter's dad who was so sick with COVID at that point. He was having trouble lifting his arms. The cousin guesses that Peter's father might have myocarditis. Peter thinks maybe it's a bacterial infection of some kind. The night before Peter's father dies of COVID Peter texts his cousin and says do you or your mom or anyone in your house have antibiotics? A minute later the cousin writes back no and asks Peter how are you feeling? Peter 20 minutes later. Definitely not well yet. A fever that keeps bringing back to 103. Agitating dry cough and the squirts again. My dad has the same cough only 100 temperature and his shallow breathing pretty fast. I'm thinking the fever keeps coming back because it might be a bacterial thing. The cough is horrible. I'm beeping that because he wrote F and then a bunch of asterisks. The cough is horrible because it waits till we lay down to go to sleep and it becomes very itchy and we can't go to sleep because of it. We end up coughing all night. So we're both very sleep deprived. Cousin, that's bad. Cousin a few minutes later. Okay so tomorrow I'm gonna bring you guys to heal you guys. Peter, oh man, bring it. Cousin, I will. I just got to run to the store tomorrow morning and buy ingredients and make it. I also have an immunity kit that I just ordered from my old job. Keeping it like behind glass in case of emergencies. It's time to break the glass. Peter, sounds good to me. I'll tell pops. 15 minutes later Peter texts about him and his dad. We were already detoxing anyway two weeks prior so I thought our bodies were just following through in its own. I mean we gave it the bad food we were eating every day. Even coffee. Coffee dude, yes even that creamer. And then this comes on. It's like we try to do it right and then we get fucked. Cousin, dammit, you guys were too clean. Rachel saw over the course of her father's last day. Peter describing their dad hallucinating, coughing, grunting, losing control of his bladder and bowels, Peter giving him vitamins and probiotics. The Cousin dropped off a final round of soup on the porch in the afternoon. Seeing how her father's death had unfolded was awful. How he'd suffered. But Rachel also read those texts and everything Peter and her cousin wrote going forward with the helpless awareness of somebody watching a Greek tragedy knowing what the characters don't. All the horror that's to come. It's like the black box after a plane crash. It's like hearing ghosts speak of themselves. I mean I just responded with absolute rage and heartbreak. She saw the text exchange between her brother and Cousin at the moment her father died. Peter, I believe he's taken his final breaths and then a minute later he's gone. Cousin, what? Peter, what? Peter, I seriously don't know what to do now. This is when Rachel saw herself enter the conversation when her brother texted her that their father was gone. She saw in the texts how the shock of their father's death had opened up a window of opportunity with Peter. And in that window Peter had texted her and she'd convinced him to go to the hospital or as he put it in a text to the Cousin. Rachel demanded that I go to the ER so I'm going to the ER. Their cousin texted back. Keep me posted. That was when I understood that there were dual conversations being had, and that one was my attempt at saving my brother's life. And the other one was my cousin's version of an attempt at saving my brother's life. Rachel and Peter's cousin didn't respond to my texts, letter, and phone message requesting an interview with him. I'm not naming him because of that, and because I don't want strangers harassing him over this story. Rachel hasn't spoken to him since she found the text between him and her brother, and he hasn't contacted her. Peter in these texts back and forth with each of them is clearly scared for his life, and I don't know what people do in countries that have a functioning health care system, but in the United States, a lot of us, maybe most of us, seek out advice from friends and family in the midst of health crisis. The friends and family guidance is often supplemented by the internet, and then we're faced with a messy pile of anecdotes, jargon, and sales pitches to sift through. That messy pile may be all a person has if they don't have a primary care doctor. Peter didn't, but he did live close enough to a decent hospital that he was able to make it in time to be offered possibly life-saving care. At which point he began to worry, "Can I afford this?" Peter's mistrust of the medical system revolved around money. In his text with this cousin even before he and his father got sick, Peter kept returning to the idea that he didn't believe in the COVID tests and treatments, because people were getting rich from them. He believed there was a government plan that gave hospitals and doctors financial incentives to kill people and blame COVID. Peter was afraid of the wrong things with COVID. He was just incorrect, but the overall idea that the US medical system is shaped by profit seeking that is often at odds with good patient care? That's a fact. No one in America is wrong to be afraid of medical bills. In light of that reality and in light of Peter's earlier texts, it's a sign of just how scared he was when he texts Rachel from the hospital and says, "Thanks for getting me going on this. I wasn't going to get any better at home." And it was hard for Rachel to accept as she was reading through the texts that only 40 minutes after he wrote that to her, when he finds out the hospital will be giving him a nasal swab, Peter's resolve starts to falter. And so Peter texts their cousin, "They PCR'd me," cringe emoji, "too sick to get up and leave. No response from the cousin." An hour later, Rachel texts Peter. "I love you, Peter. Let them help you get better." Peter writes back, "I love you too." An hour later, the cousin texts him. Did the test come back yet? Peter, positive, of course. Peter texts the cousin that he's just been given some steroids in his IV. It was an anti-inflammatory dexamethasone, an inexpensive generic for anyone counting at home. A month earlier, before Peter's father had even gotten sick, the cousin had texted Peter that, quote, "Hospitals get a 20% bonus for administering Fauci's Poison Remdesivir." Now, the cousin texts Peter. "What was the steroid called?" And a couple minutes later, "Okay, I just read Remdesivir is not a steroid. Few." Peter texts the cousin an hour later, saying, "Rachel said, if they want to put you on Remdesivir, ask them to pair it with Illumiant. It's a game changer." No response from the cousin. The cousin, two and a half hours later, "Fuck that. Do not take Remdesivir. 54% chance it'll shut down your kidneys." Several hours later, Peter texts the cousin. They finally brought in a bag of Remdesivir, and I said, "I'll hold off on that," and he said, "Okay, that's fine." Had no problem with the nurse's assistance and the nurse, but soon as the doctor comes and makes a decision, you know it's the **** ones. The cousin a minute later. No, no, no, no Remdesivir. Peter texts him a photo of an IV bag. The cousin asks, "They're giving it to you?" Peter, "No, I told them I'll pass." The cousin, "Okay, I know you're tired, but keep an eye on those fuckers. Watch everything they're putting in those lines." I'd offer him advice and I'd see him go to our cousin to get like the second opinion, you know, and he would just always derail those efforts. It's just the most unfathomable absurd conversation to watch happen. Peter texts the cousin a photo of his dad at that family funeral he told Rachel about. Their dad is hugging a relative who was vaccinated as he'd mentioned to Rachel. He captions the photo, "The day my dad was killed." The next morning, Peter texts the cousin, "Tempe finally down 98.8. Still on oxygen because my oxygen levels are weak." The cousin, "I'm glad you're starting to improve. The sooner the better, they won't have a chance to kill you." Again, the cousin didn't respond to my interview requests. One of the things I know about the cousin, the very little I know from reading the full thread of his texts is that he's a father. Two of the family members who live with him are in their 70s and he worries about their health. He's a man with multiple heavy responsibilities, who is also up late and early for weeks worrying about his cousin, Peter, checking on him. I also know from Rachel that about 10 years ago the cousin lost another cousin, Jennifer, who was like a little sister to him after she went to the hospital. Unexpected, it didn't make sense. She was the youngest of the four of us cousins and her bladder had been nicked during a Sicilian and she had sepsis and she was young and had these babies and then she died. And the whole family was crushed. Rachel and Peter too. Jennifer was 32 years old, and Rachel says that for Peter, this medical error was one searing event in a lifetime of smaller moments that gradually transformed him from someone who had never trusted authority figures in general and didn't go to doctors. He believed he could take better care of himself with exercise and nutrition than some doctor to someone who saw doctors and hospitals as dangerous. And later, as actively seeking to deceive and harm and even kill people for their own gain. The day before he leaves the hospital, Peter texts the cousin. The doctor finally came down and asked why I won't take remdesivir. And he said you're not vaccinated and I said that's correct. He said that's the only treatment we have for COVID and that my lungs are going to deteriorate with the oxygen they keep ordering for me if I don't take the remdesivir. I said I'll think about it. And he said okay and left. Remdesivir might have reduced Peter's need for oxygen. Concentrated oxygen can harm someone's lungs over time, especially if they've been damaged by, for instance, COVID. The cousin texts back a few minutes later. Bullshit. That remdesivir is going to deteriorate your organs, especially your kidneys. You've been pumping ibuprofen all week. He's just trying to scare you so he can get his 20% bonus for using remdesivir. That same doctor will tell you the vaccine is good for you, which makes no sense because now that you're confirmed that you have COVID and you're covering, it seems like you'll have natural immunity for life. You won't need boosters. Just pray your oxygen level improves so you can get the hell out of there. As Rachel is reading the texts, she keeps glimpsing these moments here and there over the last weeks of Peter's life. When Peter acknowledges, this is COVID. But the idea of COVID is like a balloon that can't stay aloft. Peter texts a bit later. All I have to do is jog a little. I'll get my oxygen back up. Sitting in a hospital bed isn't doing anything oxygen wise. The cousin. Do the turmeric and mint leaf lung inhaling exercises at home. Yeah, you're not going to continue to deteriorate. He's a fucking liar. A few minutes later, Rachel texts Peter and they go back and forth about his oxygen levels and whether he has enough energy to eat and if he has a phone charger. Rachel asks him if he's heard an estimated timeline for them to discharge him. Peter texts. They made it sound like soon, possibly today or tomorrow. Rachel. Holy shit. Okay. I've talked to Rachel a bunch of times and from what I've seen, she doesn't like to let untrue things slide. She really doesn't like it. But in her texts with Peter, I can see her trying hard to be careful with him, trying to encourage him, support him, telling what she thinks is important in her big sister way, but not argue with him. This deliberate withholding of her full forcefulness is part of their relationship. Rachel feeling protective of Peter is built into her earliest memories. He's been physically bigger since he was 15, but she's always been tougher. Peter, later that afternoon, texts with a cousin and again brings up the idea that maybe this might be COVID. Peter, can you look up safe treatments for COVID? The cousin writes back, hang in there, I'm checking frantically. And then the cousin texts, monoclonal antibodies, convalescent plasma, or ibremectin. The first two options are usually only given while in the ER. Once you're admitted, the protocol changes to remdesivir. They only treat the vaccinate with ibremectin. So that way, when they recover, they can say, "See, the vaccine kept you from dying." The evidence about ibremectin is now overwhelming. It's not effective as either protection against COVID or treatment of it. And while we're here, natural immunity for life against COVID is not a thing. And vaccines don't cause people to shed the virus. But let's talk briefly about remdesivir. I spoke with a few doctors who've been treating COVID patients since the beginning. In clinics and hospitals, they were unanimous. Remdesivir has revealed itself to be not actually a very effective treatment against COVID. It isn't harmful in all the ways Peter's cousin kept saying it was. That was Remdesivir's strength. It was generally safe. Studies did confirm its modest usefulness in some patients. But as one doctor put it, "Remdesivir was a tool we used because we had so few tools." Even the drug combo Rachel recommended, Remdesivir plus Illumiant. One careful study showed patients who got the combo were less likely to die than those who got Remdesivir alone. But only about 3% less likely to die. For an advanced, severe case of COVID, there is no consistent game changer. So the medicine of COVID has been genuinely confusing. We can't know if Peter would have survived even if he did stay at the hospital. But it was probably his best shot. Two doctors I spoke with told me how important it was in their experience to just let a patient talk if they were reluctant to get treatment. For anything, don't try to convince them. Just ask them, "What has this been like for you?" Then listen. But the doctors were also frank about how often with COVID, they didn't have time for that conversation or energy. Before COVID, they'd seen plenty of people who were afraid to be hospitalized, who didn't want specific treatments. But with COVID, those conversations were different. People weren't just reluctant. Many were hostile, some got aggressive. One doctor said she had the experience over and over of patients she'd known for years, seeing her in a mask, and instantly distrusting her. The doctors both said that simply asking if a person was vaccinated would often stop the conversation cold. And each person's reasons for not wanting a particular COVID treatment were bespoke. Their own tightly held bundle of beliefs and fears that were extra resistant to change. A doctor might be able to tease out and address the contents of that bundle fast enough to help the person, or they might not. Anyway, we know what happened this time. Peter left the hospital. That's after the break. This is Sarah Canig, host of the serial podcast. If you're already hooked on this show, then maybe I don't need to say anything else here except if you want to hear the rest of it, subscribe to The New York Times, the end. But for those of you who have questions, chiefly, why? Why do I have to pay for this? I'm glad you asked. If you've listened to serial shows, you know our stories are inventive and expertly reported. Nobody makes them like we make them. But to make them like we do, it's pretty expensive. You need producers, reporters, editors, sound engineers, fact checkers, not to mention the software, the computers, the travel costs, everything. The way we used to pay for all that was with ads, which, great. But unfortunately, ad sales aren't always reliable and we just can't cover the full cost with ads anymore. So that's why we're asking you to directly support us with a subscription. With a subscription, you get a lot. You can listen to the entire serial archive, all our previous shows, plus early access to our new shows, and all the other shows and bonus content produced by New York Times Audio. There's an audio-only subscription, or if you want to go big, which I recommend, you can subscribe to all of The New York Times and get access to all the great journalism, plus the games, cooking, wire cutter, the whole thing. So please, subscribe to The New York Times. You can do it through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. When Rachel started reading through her brother's texts, she knew he had left the hospital against medical advice. She found that out from the corner. But she didn't know how it happened. Now she saw. Peter texts his cousin at 3.30 in the morning. I'm starting to wonder if they're ever going to let me out. And my cousin says, "They have to release you upon request." My brother says, "I so hope that's true." And then my cousin sent him discharge against medical advice, screen cap from verywellhealth.com that states a discharge against medical advice, usually just called an AMA requires that you sign a form of green, that you wish to leave, but that your physician thinks it's a bad clinical choice for you to go. And he says, "Legally, they can't keep you there. That's considered false imprisonment." And my brother responds half an hour later, "How should I say it?" Quote, "I need to be discharged." And my cousin says, "Are they currently giving you any medications?" My brother, "Nothing yet today." Actually, all they ever gave me were steroids in antibiotics. My cousin, "Okay, do you have an IV drip?" Peter, "No, just had me on oxygen." My cousin, "Hmm, is your O2 still at about or above 95?" My brother, "It's off right now. I was around 94. All I know is I'm not getting any better in here." So he says to me, "Thank you for convincing me to be here. I wasn't going to get any better at home." And tells my cousin, "I'm not going to get any better. I'm not getting any better in here in the hospital." My cousin, "How does your chest feel?" Peter, "Feels better than it did when I first came in." Which is a sign of the treatment working. That last part isn't in the text. It was Rachel venting her frustration as she was reading through all this again. She could barely contain her rage. By the end of this next part, she was sneering. My cousin, "Yeah, and the fact that they gave you antibiotics that means again it was bacteria and pneumonia, not viral. And the steroid helps with the inflammation. That's why the fever went down. And your lungs irritation went down as well. Now it's just a matter of getting over the cough, which is quite a linger for a few weeks. But you can probably handle that with a cough syrup because all they ever gave me was antibiotics. And a prescription for a strong cough syrup. Two minutes after, I believe you're out of danger now. Fuck their protocol. It's time to get probiotics back into your body. From the time Peter left the hospital, he lived another two weeks. All that time, Rachel was in a fog of coming to terms with their father's death. And she thought her brother was recovering, like most people who get COVID-Due. But Peter was texting with their cousin about his blood oxygen level. A reading between 95 and 100 is considered normal. But on different days, Peter says he's at 80, 88, 91, 85, 93, 82, 90, fluctuating from OK, but on the low side, to worryingly low. Rachel had no idea. Peter didn't tell her, and she didn't press him. A few days before Peter dies, their cousin texts. Yo, you good? My brother doesn't respond. 23 minutes later. Ouch, right in the slice. Meaning, ass crack, that's their language for that. And he sends, yet another TikTok link. Peter's response 10 minutes later is garbled. He's describing his own actions. But it comes out sounding more like a transcript of blurry half thoughts. Try to make things easier. Let's not go back and forth for anything. Go straight to the kitchen. Stay in that chair. Keep thinking of what you need that way. while you're doing all this, she might get fully winded. Major, most important thing of all, is that the chair in the kitchen is a roller chair. The roller chair is an office chair, Peter's using to get around. In a few days, Rachel is going to find that chair in the kitchen, soaked with urine. One last thing Rachel sees in Peter's texts is that she wasn't the only person trying to get him to seek medical help. One family friend was texting information just about every day, about clinics he could go to, a nurse who would talk to him. We also don't know what the cousin was saying to Peter and phone calls with him. And he did tell Peter, in one text, after Peter told him his blood oxygen reading was at 80, that Peter needed to go back to the hospital. Then Peter texted that it went back up to 88, which is still too low and should have sent him to the emergency room, but the moment passed. Peter's neighbor was checking in and leaving food on the porch for him. Four days before he died, Peter texted the neighbor. I was so exhausted looking at all that food. And the neighbor writes back, "Dude, you should go to the hospital, call an ambulance." Peter, oh f**k that. Peter's last text to his cousin is a sad emoji about the death of the actor William Lucking who started in Sons of Anarchy. The next day the cousin texted, "How you doing, Peter?" and got no reply. The day after that he wrote, "Yo, Jacks, please answer me, man." Rachel told me once about her brother and father and COVID that it was like they fell overboard during the pandemic and swam straight to the bottom, thinking it was the surface. When she finished reading the texts, she read them again. Her brain kept combing through them for weeks. She couldn't settle on any thought or any feeling. I would go from not being able to speak or to crying or to making fun of my brother. Like there's the survival mode person who just wants to clown you. You know, like the deep depths of like my hood-ness, where I'm from that particular street I came up on, we will clown you for how you died, because you're a f**king clown. Like, you played yourself homey. You know? And I would kill some innocent strangers to bring them back, you know? Or would I? I don't know. It's just one of those things where you just haggle. Like thinking, like who you would trade out on the street to get one more shot, but I'm like, you shot your f**king shot, dude. Rachel's a poet. That doesn't really cover it though. Rachel's a tractor beam. I can easily see how a person could hear her read her poetry at some event and then marry her four months later, which happened. I can understand a person wanting to tattoo her words on their arm, which also happened. A lot of Rachel's writing is about her childhood family, her, her father, her brother. The first poem in her first book is titled, "Epically." I forget who I said it to, but I remember how afterwards they looked at me as though I had driven a steak knife through their mother's hand. The poem itself goes, "I love my brother. He had the exact same child that I did, but he doesn't get credit for it. He isn't the writer. I'm the star of the violence. I expose my peter when he marries I will be so sad. No girl in the world deserves him but me." I see that poem, which I love, as a little box Rachel is daring her readers to open. Rachel's always seen her place in the world, in part, in relation to Peter, her younger and only brother. Her responsibility still somehow. She hadn't lived near Peter in almost 20 years, but far away is still somewhere. It's nothing like gone. What do you do when you've lost something important? You retrace your steps. Rachel remembers where she and Peter started, and now she knows where he ended, and she's going back over what happened in between, the things she saw because she was there, and the things she's finding out happened later, out of her sight. What did happen in between? What life did COVID land in? It's next time, in part two, of We Were Three.