“Sit down, Clara,” he said gently.

But I could not sit down.

I stood there clutching the lunchbox to my chest like a shield, and I shook my head, and I said, “Just tell me.

Please.

Whatever it is.

Just say it.” David took a breath that shuddered on the way in, and he looked at me with more sorrow than I had ever seen on a human face, and he began to tell me the truth that my husband had spent six months keeping from me.

I have been in rooms since where doctors delivered terrible news to other families, because of the fund, because of the work, and I have watched their faces do the thing David’s face did in that small room, and I understand now what a heavy thing it is to be the one who says it.