The doctor whistled and shook his head. “Well, I’ll have to look into how that trial turned out, because something sure as heck did the trick for you, Mr. O’Reilly. But I do recommend that you follow up with the cancer center at Summerlin, just to be sure. If you don’t want to go there, I could recommend other places.”

Megan nodded. “I’ll make sure he gets there.”

Frank looked down at the tears in her eyes. The sight broke his heart. “Fine. I’ll go whenever they’ll take me.”

Frank shook hands with the doctor and said, “Thanks for everything, Doc. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I hope not to have to see you anytime soon.”

The doctor laughed and clapped his hand on Frank’s shoulder. “Good luck, Mr. O’Reilly, and best of health.”

As Frank and Megan walked out of the office, he wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “Why don’t you and I go out to eat for a change? It feels like a time to celebrate.”

She gave him a one-armed squeeze. “I’d love that.”

###

The sun was already up when Nate passed the cemetery that marked the midpoint of his five-mile morning run. A cool late-winter breeze felt refreshing as he jogged along the manicured path toward his wife’s gravesite.

A familiar old woman looked up from her spot in front of her husband’s grave. She visited every Tuesday.

Nate slowed to a stop and approached the old woman, who, as always, wore black when she visited her husband. “How are you Mrs. Jacobsen?” He nodded toward the fifteen-passenger van from Sunnyvale Retirement Home parked across the way. Its driver was behind the wheel, reading a magazine. “Are they all treating you well?”

The wrinkled face of the octogenarian beamed at him, her blue eyes a contrast to her otherwise dark complexion. “Oh, they’re all right, I suppose.”

She spoke with a southern drawl that was becoming less common in these parts.

She lifted an unsteady arm and pointed toward his wife’s grave. “I left your Madison some daisies. I recall you saying that she was partial to them.”

Nate glanced in Madison’s direction and spied a few tiny white flowers strewn on her grave. “Oh, ma’am, that’s very kind of you. I’m sure she’s looking down and happier for them.”

Mrs. Jacobsen peered up in the sky, then looked back down at the grave in front of her. “Warren didn’t much care for flowers. His true love was whiskey.” She pulled a silver flask from her coat pocket and unscrewed the top. She nodded at Madison’s grave. “The flowers I understand.” She held up the flask, took a swig, and grimaced. “This stuff… heaven forbid. Every week I try to understand what he saw in it, but I still can’t appreciate it. It’s awful stuff.”