And he was giving this stranger’s child, breath by breath, hour by hour, the exact thing he had never been able to give his own: someone to sit with her in the fight so she would not have to face it by herself.

I looked at the clock on the wall. Eleven hours and forty-five minutes he had been in that chair.

Twelve hours. Clara had lived twelve hours. He was paying, to a baby who would never know it, a debt he owed to a daughter who was twenty years gone.

“I owe her twelve hours, Sarah.” He used my name for the first time, and his voice broke fully open on it.

“I owe her that much. That’s all I’m asking for. Just let me finish the watch. Please.”

“You’ll finish it.” I was crying now too, wiping at my face with the back of a sterile glove, past caring how it looked.