At Christmas she’d been frighteningly pale and bone-thin, complaining of severe migraines.

I told her to see a specialist. She’d just smiled and said, “Greg says you always think everything is medical, Mom.”

I should have pushed harder. I should have dragged her to a clinic myself.

By the time the plane touched down in Anchorage, it was nearly midnight. The airport was blindingly bright and eerily empty. I rented a compact car and drove out into the Alaskan night.

The air outside cut the lungs like shattered glass. I’d forgotten how brutal the cold up here felt—not just in temperature, but in its vast, isolating scale.

The Providence Hospice Center sat tucked into a quiet, snow-covered neighborhood on the edge of the city. The automatic doors slid open with a soft hum.