a traffic light.”
I laughed, and for a moment, she looked pleased with herself.
“Rebecca wanted pink,” I said.
“Rebecca was four. She wanted the entire world pink.”
Then Carol shifted against the pillow and winced, and the moment was over.
Two days earlier, a doctor had taken me into the hallway and explained that the treatments were no longer helping. I remembered watching his mouth while he spoke, waiting for a sentence that included something we could try.
It never came.
Now I sat beside the woman I had loved for almost four decades, talking about paint because I couldn’t bear to talk about goodbye.
Carol had found me during a miserable stretch of my life. She never demanded explanations when I went quiet. She brought dinner, asked about my day, and kept showing up until I began looking forward to the sound of her car.
Loving her had
