-END OF Chapter 3–I didn’t play the tape that night.
Or the next.
Daniel didn’t ask.
That alone told me therapy was beginning to change something.
Not dramatically.
Not magically.
But enough for him to endure uncertainty without forcing an answer.
Three days before my surgery, I found him sitting outside on the back steps.
He was watching the maple tree at the edge of our yard.
“Cold out here,” I said.
He looked up.
“Couldn’t sleep.”
I sat beside him.
He didn’t reach for me.
I noticed that too.
“How was therapy?”
He gave a humorless laugh.
“Apparently I’m extremely uncomfortable with the concept that I cannot prevent death through detailed record-keeping.”
“Expensive way to discover something your sister told you for free.”
That surprised a laugh out of him.
Then he grew serious.
“I told her about the nighttime checks.”
“What did she say?”
“She asked whether I knew you disliked them.”
