“She’s going to be okay,” I told him softly, though I had no way on earth of knowing it, saying it as much to steady myself as to steady him.

“Gemma is so much stronger than any of us ever gave her credit for.

Her whole life people have underestimated exactly how much she can survive.

She is going to surprise them one more time.” Gabriel nodded without opening his eyes, and I saw the tears leak out from under his pressed palms and run down the backs of his hands, and I remember thinking, watching him fall apart over my sister at one in the morning, that no man cries like this over a woman he does not love.

I want to say something here about what I was witnessing in that waiting room, because it matters to the whole shape of this story.