She drove me home.

She sat in my kitchen for four hours afterward and did not say a single useless thing, and at one point she went out and bought me a specific brand of soup I had mentioned once.

She knew every number.

She knew the FSH values.

She knew what the third doctor said and how his office smelled.

She was, for twenty-two years, the person I told first.

Michelle’s own life was a series of near-misses.