Every time I used to imagine the moment I returned, I told myself I wouldn’t take it for granted. I would spend the rest of my days taking each breath like that first one back. I would be human to the fullest. Touch and smell and see everything; spend at least ten minutes a day with my hand on my heart, just to feel it beat. But there is more to the heart than that, isn’t there? And while I knew love—or the pit love leaves behind—was a rewarding weapon, I had forgotten why.

I forgot just how good it felt.

When that came crashing back into me—and crash it did, emotional defibrillation—it was like seeing for the first time with all the colors.

I was the one who had been stupid. You had it right the whole time.

So when he came for me, I was ready.

—

“HOW CAN I HELP you today?”

I looked up and laughed. It startled him, but I didn’t mind. The tables had been turned. Literally, I thought as I slid my palm along the edge of my dining room table. It was the same one as in the New Hampshire house.

Humans and your sentimental attachment to things.

I didn’t recognize him, but that wasn’t surprising. Between his time and mine, he could’ve been transferred, bumped back down, or just in a different hallway. I recognized his pressed shirt—too much starch—and striped tie. I recognized the plastic of his smile. The way he tried to breathe as deeply as he could without being obvious.

I wanted to tell him to take it all in, to enjoy it. I could wait.

But I couldn’t.

What Cal had said was true. My daughter was dying in the room next door. I could feel it inside me, like my heart was in her weakening fist. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? This human love. It wasn’t that she held my heart, something taken from me. It’s that my heart was nothing if not for the container of her hand.

My final memory of Mickey, wet and empty, came flooding back to me, and I had to grip the table. She didn’t even exist yet, and the loss of her took up more of me than I did.

“You said you wanted to make a deal,” he said, tapping his pen. I wanted to tell him he’d get a tablet soon, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except this.

“Yes,” I said. “I do. Me for my daughter.”

“We can do that,” he said, pulling out a manila folder.