I simply had no idea how good, or for whom, or why.

There is a thought that comes to me sometimes, late at night, and it stops my breath a little every time.

It is the thought of how close it came to never happening.

Julian was dying when he found me; the cancer was already in his lungs.

If I had been assigned to a different wing of the hospice.

If I had not made a habit of stopping by the rooms of the patients no one visited.

If I had refused his strange request, as a more cautious woman might have, as I would have advised a friend to do.