I said she didn’t have to figure out everything all in one day. I asked her if she’d thought about how—if she was really sure about not doing any more writing—she wanted to spend her time after she left the hospital. And where. Was there someplace she wanted to go, I asked, aware that travel was at the top of most people’s bucket list, a term I had heard her object to vehemently long before her diagnosis: Could they have come up with an uglier term?

She didn’t know, she said. She waved a limp hand in the air. It’s a paradox that I’ve noticed, she said. I know I’m dying, but when I lie here thinking, especially at night, often it’s as if I had all the time in the world.

That must be eternity, I said without speaking.

The nearness of eternity, she agreed silently.

Sometimes I even catch myself wishing the hours would move a little faster, that the day would end sooner, she said. Adding: Oddly enough, I am often bored.

How will you ever get through this, I thought.

I really don’t know, she thought back.

Wouldn’t that be something, she said to me, if dying turned out to be a bore.

Her phone rang: her daughter. Her plane had landed, she would be there soon. Was there anything she could pick up for her mother on the way?

I used the interruption to try to calm my emotions by deep breathing.

Oh look, she said. Outside the hospital window it had begun to snow, and because the sun was just going down the snow was tinted a sunset pink.

Pink snowflakes, she said. Well. I’ve lived to see that.

—

He’s still a kitten, my host said in a tone suggesting enormous pride in him for this. He can be really rambunctious and mischievous, and he tends to roam at night. Make sure your door is closed tight so he won’t bother you.

The same paperback mystery on top of the same pile on the nightstand.