“That’s the same thing Katie said to me,” she said, and just like that, the realization of how similar they were made Tully ache all over again. “It’s quite a love story you two have.”

He turned to her, and in the pale moonlight she saw the tense line of his jaw, the tightening around his eyes. He was holding it all in, trying so hard to be strong for all of them.

“You don’t have to do it with me, you know,” she said quietly.

“Do what?”

“Be strong.”

The words seemed to release something in him. Tears shone in his eyes; he crumpled forward, saying nothing; silently his shoulders shook.

She reached out and took his hand, held it tightly while he cried.

“For twenty years, every time I turn around, you two are together.”

Tully and Johnny both turned.

Kate stood in the open doorway behind them, bundled up in a huge terrycloth robe. Bald and impossibly thin, she looked like a child playing dress-up in her mother’s clothes. She’d said things like this to both of them before; they all knew it, but this time she was smiling. She looked somehow both sad and peaceful.

“Katie,” Johnny said, his voice raw, his eyes shining. “Don’t . . .”

“I love you both,” she said, not moving toward them. “You’ll comfort each other . . . take care of each other and the kids . . . after I’m gone—”

“Don’t,” Tully said, starting to cry.

Johnny was on his feet. He gently picked his wife up and kissed her for a long, long time.

“Take her up to your bed, Johnny,” Tully said, trying to smile now. “I’ll sleep in the guest room.”

Johnny carried her upstairs with so much care she couldn’t help thinking that she was sick. He put her on her side of the bed. “Turn on the fire.”

“Are you cold?”

To the bone. She nodded and tried gingerly to sit up as he crossed the room and flicked the switch for the gas fireplace. With a whoosh, blue and orange flames shot up from the fake log, tinting the dark room with a soft golden light.

When he came back and settled in beside her, she reached up slowly, traced the outline of his lips with the tip of her finger. “You first ravished me on the floor in front of a fire, remember?”

He smiled; like a blind woman, she felt his lips curve with the sensitive pad of her finger. “If I remember correctly, you were doing the ravishing.”

“And what if I wanted to ravish you now?”

He looked so scared that she wanted to laugh, but it wasn’t funny. “Can we?”

He took her in his arms. She knew they were both thinking that she’d lost so much weight there was almost nothing left of her.

Nothing left of her.

She closed her eyes and tightened her hold around his neck.