She wouldn’t let me stay in the room with Amelia—the reporter who also happened to be my childhood friend. But I stood at the door. I could make out only snippets of the conversation. When I showed Amelia out of the house, I could tell she was shell-shocked. I’d known her since I was born. She was so quiet. “I’m sorry” was all she managed as she engulfed me in a familiar hug.

I nodded. “Me too.”

That was it, but maybe it was all we needed.

Back in the house, I found Greer in the shower, and I climbed in behind her.

I kissed her, quite intent on making love to her right then and there. In that simple gesture, something as familiar to me by then as brushing my hair, I finally broke down. Sobs escaped me, and, naked as the day I was born, I wept on the black-and-white marble floor of our walk-in shower.

“Babe,” Greer said calmly, “what is the matter?”

I pulled her down onto the floor with me, holding her in my arms. “I can’t know it’s the last time,” I said, pressing my face into her neck. She didn’t smell like death yet. She still smelled like her, like Shiseido shampoo and rose body oil.

She ran her fingers down my back, laying her head on my shoulder, the water dripping around us. “What do you mean?”

“I can’t have it planned, G. I can’t know when you’re going to go. I can’t know that it’s the last time I’m going to make love to you, or kiss you, or feel you in my arms.” I paused, catching my breath. “I know all that is coming, but it has to be a progression. I can’t know ahead of time.”

My dying wife was the one consoling me. I thought I was tough, but she was stronger. I expected her to argue with me. Instead, she whispered, “Okay.”

I looked up at her. “Really?”

She nodded sadly. “I wanted to get it over with for you. I didn’t want you to have to watch me go downhill. But if that’s what you need, if that will help your healing process, then that’s what we’ll do.”

“It’s like a really bleak ‘Gift of the Magi,’ ” I said, kissing her.

“I always thought that story was pretty bleak anyway,” she joked, trying to make me smile.

She got up, washing the soap out of her hair like we hadn’t just had one of the most emotional scenes of our lives. She pulled me up and said, “Parker Thaysden, you are the best decision I ever made, and I will love you for all eternity. Even when I’m not here.”

I kissed her again. “No man has ever loved a woman the way I love you.”

She smiled. “I agree wholeheartedly.”

The shower is where most people go to think. But for me, now, the shower is memory central. There isn’t a single morning I step in that I don’t think about that night. I feel guilty about it, but I stand firm in my decision. We had more time than we were told we would. I cherish every moment of it, even the bad parts.