Instead he had chosen, every single day, to get up and be useful to someone more frightened than himself, and he had done it in secret, seeking no credit, wanting no one to know.

It was the most quietly heroic thing I had ever heard of, and it was my own husband, and I had spent the whole time believing he was growing cold.

“Take me to him,” I said again.

And David opened the door.

Chapter 12 — The Garden Beneath the Dogwood

I did not walk.

I ran.

I went through the lower-level glass doors and out into the light, my heels striking the concrete path in a frantic rhythm, until I came around a corner and the courtyard opened up in front of me, a small secluded garden tucked into the heart of the hospital, green and quiet and full of afternoon sun.