The muscles at the corners of her jaw tightened, and it came to me that this small, frail, pretty woman was harder—tougher—than she’d seemed at first. “It would mean everything to me to be there when he does. But I don’t get to have that. I worked eight years on the cancer ward in Kingsward Hospital. I know the best-case scenario. I’m living it. Has treatment improved any in your time?”

“I think so,” I said.

“Well, then. I’m sorry I can’t hold on for fifty years. How’s my son doing in the next century?”

I felt a drafty, hollow feeling in my chest, but I think I was able to keep my face all but expressionless when I replied, “He’s never been more popular. They teach him. There have been movies based on the books.”

“Do I have grandchildren?”

I said, “Truthfully, I don’t know. I love his novels, but it’s not like I’ve ever Googled him.”

“Goo-gilled?”

“Oh. Uh. Looked him up. Google is like a twenty-first-century encyclopedia.”

“And he’s in it? He’s in the Google?”

“You bet.”

She looked very pleased at that. “My kid! Right there in the Google.” She considered me for a moment. “How is this happening? If it’s happening. I still expect to wake up on the couch any minute now. I doze off all the time these days. I get tired so easily.”

“It’s happening, but I couldn’t tell you how it’s possible.”

“And you’re not an envoy from the Lord? You’re not an angel?”

“Nope. Just a librarian.”

“Ah, well,” she said. “That’s close enough for me.”

And before I stamped her card, she leaned across my desk and kissed my cheek.

IT WAS DARK AND SNOWING briskly the night I knocked on a door marked 309 at Serenity Apartments. Voices murmured. Chair legs scraped across the floor. The door opened, and Ralph Tanner peered out at me. He had on a blue cardigan and a blue collared shirt and steel-colored denims—I assumed this was his idea of dressing down.

“What’s the password?” he asked.

I lifted the bottle in my right hand. There was a silver bow on the neck. “I brought bourbon?”

“Right the first time,” he said, and let me in.