So I did the hardest thing, which was to wait, and watch, and gather, and build something solid enough that no smile could wave it away.

Chapter 10 — I Won’t Let Them Kill You

I went back into Raymond’s room in the small hours, when the house was asleep and no one would see, and I stood over the bed and looked down at him, this man whom the world had already written off, this man who had spent weeks listening to his own funeral being arranged.

I reached out and took his cold hand in both of mine.