That was the hardest thing to stand and watch, harder even than hearing my own name discussed like a line item.

My father knelt by that bed and pressed his forehead to the hand of a woman who was, at that exact moment, faking her own dying to rob him, and he wept with a completeness that only a man who truly loves can weep.

Every part of me wanted to cross the room and pull him up and tell him it was a lie, that she was fine, that he was kneeling to a performance.

I made myself wait.