“I felt such shame in that moment. Like I was some kind of dummy. I’ve done a lot in my life to be ashamed of, but that is something I can’t shake. I had never been to the ocean before then. I didn’t know.”

“Shame is difficult to navigate,” I said.

“These letters contain most of my shame.”

“When it comes time to write the one to yourself, I want you to set yourself free from the rest of it.”

I sat with him all afternoon, and when he dozed off I went and washed every dish and knife and spoon he had strewn across the kitchen. I cleaned the cups and wiped down the counters. I was overwhelmed with the desire to fill the apartment with loving-kindness.

I had to nudge him awake to tell him I was leaving, and he seemed disappointed.

“No night calls?” he asked.

“I don’t think that’s allowed.”

“I wouldn’t tell on you.”

“You just want me to watch you sleep?”

“I don’t sleep, really. Night is when I really know I’m dying.”

“The panic sets in,” I said.

“At a certain point the Xanax stops working and I have no choice but to ride it out.”

“I know,” I said.

“Will you come back?”

“Of course. We still have work to do.”

He rubbed at his face and I saw dry skin flake off. His temples looked rough.

I called Bethanny on my drive home and she commended me on the progress we had made. She said she would schedule a follow-up meeting with him and let me know when to come back.

25.

During the Saturday session I’d gone to, Bethanny told the room that she was going to be on a panel at an afterlife convention in a suburb of Phoenix. It seemed strange for her to mix with the lineup of capped-toothed psychic mediums I found on the convention’s website, but she said she wanted to clear up any misconceptions about what we were doing here and thought this would be as good a chance as any. Anyway, she had to make a living, and for five hundred dollars an attendee, I assumed there was more in it for her than just spreading our message of hope in dying. She said trainees could get a discount, so I used some of the money she’d given me for Daphne to pay for my ticket.