“I made your sister a solemn promise,” he said, and his voice cracked apart in the middle of it.

“Right before they took her back into surgery tonight, she grabbed my hand.

She was scared, Nora, she knew how bad it was, and she grabbed my hand and she said, if I don’t wake up from this, you have to tell my sister everything.”

“Tell me what, Gabriel?” I asked, and I felt a cold knot begin to tighten in my chest, some animal part of me bracing before my mind knew what for.

“Everything,” he said.