And I know you meant it as love, my son, I do know that.

But do you understand what it is to be dying in a beautiful room full of expensive strangers, and to have your own child stop by on his way to somewhere more important, and ask the nurse how you’re doing instead of asking you?”

I could not answer her.

There was no answer.

Every word of it was true, and I had spent eight months arranging my life so that I would never have to notice it was true.

“Juliet gave me her time,” my mother said.