I prayed, without words, the way you do when you have run entirely out of anything else.

Sister Mary, without telling me, picked up the phone and called Bruce.

He was there in forty minutes. He came into the ward without his jacket, his shirt soaked through from the rain, his face gray with exhaustion, and he did not say one word about my leaving.

He crossed the room and knelt down at the side of Holly’s bed and took her free hand in both of his and held it, and only then did he look up at me.

“Please,” he said, very quietly. “Don’t ever again decide for me what I’m willing to give up for this family.”

“I was trying to save your foundation,” I whispered.