I don’t know if she’ll ever come in.

But if she does, I want to be there.*

I closed the notebook.

She had chosen the hospice because of me.

She had placed herself in my path and waited, with a patience I could not fully comprehend, for the universe to close the distance she was afraid to close herself.

I put the notebook in my bag.

I put the photograph beside it.

I drove to Hale’s office and placed both on his desk.

“Add these to the file,” I said.

He looked at them.

Then at me.

“She really did think of everything,” he said.

“Almost everything,” I said.

“She didn’t plan on how much it would hurt to find out all at once.”

He was quiet for a moment.

“Are you all right?”

I thought about it honestly.

Chapter 8: The Hearing

The courtroom was smaller than I expected.

I had imagined something grander — high ceilings, long benches, the full weight of institutional authority.