Maybe you should say goodbye, Cal.' 'No.' 'It might be important.' 'It might make her die.

The light is heart-breaking.

All I know is that I have two choices – stay wrapped in blankets and get on with dying, or get the list back together and get on with living.

Like a tree losing its leaves. I forget even the thing I was thinking.

Help me, Mikey, she wanted to say. I’m afraid. More afraid than you’d ever believe.’ And he’d take her hand and they’d fly across the rooftops and up into space and sit on some planet and watch a double sunrise or maybe a star being born or some other event that no human had ever seen, her head on his shoulder, his arm around her. And she’d tell him everything.

. . . my bones they'll burn or bury. It'll be my death.

I imagine horses in the engine, their manes flying, their breaths steaming, their nostrils flaring as they gallop.