She was angry, my friend. She was very angry, she wanted to smash everything in sight, she said. Not at God. She wasn’t angry at God, of course not, she didn’t believe in God, she said. And certainly not at her doctor, she adored her oncologist, her whole medical team, she said, they had done everything they possibly could for her, and they had been kind. At whom, then? At herself, she said. My first instinct was right, she said. I should have obeyed it. I should never have put myself through all that torture, the vomiting, the diarrhea, the fatigue—horrific, horrific—and, in the end—

False hope, she said. I should never have given in to false hope. I can never forgive myself for that, she said. Pause. Never: as if that could still mean a long time.

And now here we are, she said. And what have I got? Months, maybe. At most a year. But probably not that long.

I’m trying not to panic, she said. I’m trying to keep my head. I don’t want to go out kicking and screaming. Oh no, not me! Not me! Lashing out in rage, drowning in self-pity. Who wants to die like that? Half-demented with fear.

On the other hand, make no mistake, she said: she was no stoic. She did not want to go through excruciating pain. Pain was something that did terrify her. Pain was the thing that terrified her most. Because you can’t be self-possessed if you’re in agony, she said. In that kind of pain you can’t think straight, you’re a desperate animal, you can think of only one thing.

It wasn’t as though she were old and frail, she said. All her life she’d taken care of her health, and now she was thinking that all that care, all that regular exercise and healthful eating, would only make things harder. My heart is strong my doctor said, she said. What if that means that my body will keep trying to fight, that I’ll have to suffer and suffer up to my last breath.

Like her father, she said. The doctors had given him days but it turned out to be weeks, he had hung on and on, by the time he died he was completely insane. A terrible death, she said. Barbaric. Nobody should have to die like that.