Simon joked.

Between us lay the thing neither wanted to say too plainly: the treatments were becoming harder, and there were fewer reassuring answers afterward.

During his last few months, he began going out for stretches of time I could not account for.

He did not disappear every day.

That would have been impossible to overlook.

It happened between appointments, after a morning when he seemed a little stronger, or when someone else could help him travel.

“Where were you?” I asked when he came home one afternoon.