She sighs, rolling onto her back. “I was hoping I’d make it to fall.”
“Is that your favorite season?”
“No, I hate it. Pumpkin spice is the work of Satan.” Win folds her hands across her stomach. “You know, people who are dying always talk about the things they’ll miss. A spring day. Orange Popsicles. Seeing your grandkids grow up. No one talks about the other stuff that you won’t: shoveling your driveway or doing your taxes or getting arthritis…or pumpkin spice. But here’s the kicker: I’m actually going to miss those, too.” Win glances at me. “It feels like there ought to be a word for that feeling. Something long and German, likeschadenfreude. Or maybe your Ancient Egyptians had one.”
There is a Middle Kingdom text called The Dispute Between a Man and HisBa,in which a man argues with his soul, saying he wants to commit suicide. The soul counters by saying that we don’t really know what happens after death, so why take that risk? The text doesn’t judge the man for wanting to kill himself—it’s not about going to hell, or sin, or even a warning. It’s about missing out on the enjoyment of life on earth.
Win stretches out her hand, and I take it. Her bones are light and insubstantial. She is an hourglass, and there is so little sand remaining. “I have one regret, you know. That I didn’t get to meet you under better circumstances.”
I feel a telltale prickle of tears in my eyes. “Win, it has been a joy getting to know you.”
“I think we would have been friends,” she says.
“I think wearefriends.”
She nods. “That’s why I want you to leave.”
I look at her quizzically.
“To deliver my letter.”
I shake my head. “I promised you I would get it to Thane, but right now, you’re my priority.”
“And I’m asking you to go now, to do this. I know it won’t change anything. But I think it’s going to be easier for me to…leave…knowing that he’s thinking of me.” Win’s sentence ends in a whisper. “I trust you, Dawn.”
“But—”
“You told me you’d make sure that whatever I wanted at the end, or needed, I’d have. I need this. I want this.”
“Win,” I say clearly, carefully, “you may very well die while I’m off finding Thane.”
“I’ll have Felix, here.”
I nod, unable to speak for a moment. “I’ll make sure that my friend Abigail comes. She’s a hospice social worker.”
“That would be good,” Win says. “For Felix, too.”
I believe that there are five things we need to say to people we love before they die, and I give this advice to caregivers:I forgive you. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you. Goodbye. I tell them that they can interpret those prompts any way they like, and nothing will have been left unsaid.
I forgive Win for making me do this.
I hope she will forgive me for not being here, if she dies when I’m away.
I thank her for showing me a piece of myself I’d forgotten.
“I love you,” I tell her, pressing a kiss to her forehead.
When I meet her gaze, she is crying, too. “Goodbye,” I say.
She reaches up, which takes considerable effort, and holds on to my hand with both of her own, as if she, too, is having trouble letting go.
From a desk drawer, I take the rolled canvas, with its art on one side and my cramped handwriting on the other. Tied with a piece of string, it looks like the papyrus scroll of the Book of Going Forth by Day.
“Dawn?” Win’s voice reaches me as I am about to cross the threshold of the room. “I hope you find him.”
“Thane? I will. I promise.”
“Not mine,” she says. “Yours.”
