When we reviewed her imaging, swirling shapes and patterns on a black-and-white screen, she was trying hard not to appear overwhelmed.

This is a lot to take in. What are you most worried about? I asked, as I always do.

She hesitated, looking down before she asked what had been roiling in her mind.

I can still have kids, right? I mean, down the road. At some point.

We spent twenty minutes discussing fertility options. We did not discuss the chances of her being alive in five years.

I hope we won’t one day sit here for that other conversation, the one in which I admit that anything more I do is just as likely to harm as it is to help. Those discussions are like handing someone a ball of brown clay and telling them they are free to shape it to their liking. Some people stare at the lump a good long while because they don’t know what to make of it. Others can’t seem to pinch or pull the ball in any way that gets it at all close to what they’ve imagined. Eventually, everyone realizes the clay is actually a ball of excrement that will never turn into something they want to hold in their hands.

I want to fight, some say. That means I cut wider, deeper, taking bigger risks to keep them alive for one last visit from a sister coming from their homeland, for the birth of a first grandchild, or maybe just one more Super Bowl. Finish lines are arbitrary inventions. Others listen to the options I offer, thank me for my time, and ask their misty-eyed children or spouses to take them home.

Just as I slip my phone into my armband, I hear a chime. It’s a text message.

It’s been three days, Aryana. Please say yes. I promise it won’t even be the biggest decision you’ll make today.

My fingers hover over the screen. I want to reply, but I can’t think of what I want to say. And that’s the problem. I tuck the phone back into my armband and begin to jog. The evening air is still, making hardly a whisper as it slips through the leaves.

I know it’s been three days.

I reach the half-mile marker. The signs are small red squares nailed into the wood post fence. Green would have been a better choice. It’s so basic that even preschoolers know it. Green means go. Red means stop.

Go.

Stop.

If life came with road signs or mile markers, Adam would have his answer by now and I could run without these thoughts knocking around in my head.

But life doesn’t come with road signs or mile markers.