“Speaking of which,” he said, “your star student is waiting for you upstairs.”

Chapter 26 — The Memorial Lecture

We walked up together to the hospital’s main auditorium, and it was full, every seat taken, first-year residents and nurses and attending physicians and specialists all gathered for the annual lecture given in Marcus’s memory.

And in the front row, sitting very straight in a crisp white coat that looked so much like the one her father used to wear that it stopped my breath for a moment, was Lily.

She is thirteen now, and she has grown so tall in these years, and her dark, thoughtful eyes and her steady, quiet smile are the very image of Marcus, so much so that some days it aches to look at her.