I used to wish, in those weeks, that just once one of them would walk through that door while she was still awake to see it.

Not for my sake.

For hers.

So that the waiting might, one time before the end, be answered.

Chapter 10 — The Pillow

One afternoon that last winter, she asked me to help her sit up in bed.

It was a small thing, an ordinary thing — I did it several times a day — and I came and slid my arm behind her and eased her up against the headboard, and I reached for the old pillow to prop behind her back the way I always did.

It was a terrible old pillow, if I am honest.