Rain had begun to tap at the hospital window.

I looked at the three empty chairs where my children were supposed to be, and then I looked back at the man they had never met, who had come across fifty years to sit with me instead.

“Why are you telling me this now?” I asked him.

“Today, of all days.” His jaw tightened.

“Because today,” he said, “was the test.” I stared at him.

“What test?” “I’ve suspected, for some weeks, what your children were preparing to do.