We were supposed to wait for an answer that felt sufficient. We’d wait as they stumbled through their approximation of what they believed would happen to them once they died. If they felt safe with us. If they were sure.

Lorraine told me she had just come off a difficult case. An aborted attempt. She said the client had chosen the hood. Bethanny worked with a woman who made them, fitted with a terry-cloth closure for comfort, and she ordered them from her custom-made with each new request.

“He was depressed,” Lorraine said. “We carefully vet our clients. There is so much paperwork—more than any doctor. The liability, you understand. We don’t just send out some simple questionnaire. We look at medical records. They write us a letter about their situation. Bethanny meets with them. I know she went through all of this with the trainees. But I want to reiterate how thorough we are.”

“She did,” I said as I sipped.

“Anyway, there’s what the client wants and there’s what the family wants, and often they don’t match up at all. There are interventions. That’s when you bring in Bethanny. It’s best not to take on that kind of turmoil. She’s seen it all.”

Lorraine’s story felt like it was part of a final test. I felt I should be taking notes.

“Do you know what cluster headaches are?”

I shook my head no. She told me about her client Mitchell, who was only thirty-five. It was hard with the young ones, Lorraine told me. She’d had only two clients under the age of forty, but they’d stuck with her.

“They’re worse than your worst migraine. Excruciating, consistent pain. Aural hallucinations. Nausea. He would have them for three months straight. Every day. Then he’d have a week or two reprieve before they’d come back again. He tried steroids. Doctors all over the country. Then he came to us.”

Mitchell’s cluster headaches had gotten so bad that he had ceased getting out of bed, but on the PSAC he was still hovering around 70 percent or 80 percent, depending on who you asked. The pain pills that had once incapacitated him now did nothing. It was his time to go, he decided, and most of his family tacitly supported him. His mother asked if he’d see one more specialist, but he demurred. His family had seen the pain he’d been through, the poking and prodding, the middle-of-the-night heaving and moaning. They often said they didn’t know how he had endured this long. Lorraine had brought the family waivers to sign after Bethanny had given her the go-ahead.

“You spend weeks with these clients, getting to know them, making them comfortable, and preparing them to leave us with no regrets and no unfinished business. And through that, you know who is truly ready to go, and who is not.”

“It’s voluntary,” I said.