I looked past him to the open doorway.

The hallway was impossibly ordinary — a supply cart rolling by, someone laughing softly near the nurses’ station, a paper coffee cup on a counter under the bright ceiling lights.

People going about their afternoons a few yards away, with no idea what was happening in this room.

Somewhere across town, Lucy was probably picturing her father standing beside me with flowers.

She was nine, and she still believed grown-ups told the truth about the people they loved.

On our last phone call she’d asked whether Daddy was helping the nurses take care of me, and I’d said yes, because I never wanted her to worry.