No. Not dying. That’s not quite right. The doctor said years. Good years.
He was disappearing. Slowly. A little at a time.
And he hadn’t told me.
Since March.
Five months. Five months of dentist appointments. Five months of me nagging him about forgetting to pick up milk, about leaving the garage door open overnight, about calling Sophie’s roommate by the wrong name at Easter. I’d teased him. I’d called him an old man. I’d rolled my eyes.
He’d known.
He’d known the whole time, and he’d let me roll my eyes.
I wiped my face with the back of my hand and made myself look at the rest of the folder.
There was a spreadsheet called THE PLAN.
I opened it. It was so Mark it almost made me laugh through my tears. Neat rows and columns, the way he did his construction bids. Dates and names and phone numbers and dollar amounts.
