I know what you’re thinking, she says. You’re thinking, I can’t believe we’re having this conversation! It’s a big thing I’m asking, I know. A huge responsibility. You don’t have to give me an answer now. Unless, of course, you can?

I shake my head. Seeing how hesitant I am, she says, Oh, come on. Where’s your sense of adventure?

To which I can only shake my head again.

All right then, she says. I’ll be going home tomorrow. I’ll call you when I get there.

As we are walking out of the bar I stop and say I’d better go to the restroom.

Are you going to be sick? she asks.

Maybe, I say over my shoulder.

Do you want me to hold your hair?

—

It’s down to two places, she said. One was a summer house on an island off the southern Atlantic coast. It belonged to the family of a cousin of hers who wasn’t planning to use it till later in the season. She and this cousin had never known each other well, but when he first heard about her illness he was kind enough to offer it for a little getaway. She’d been there once, many years ago, for a wedding, and she remembered how beautiful the house and the beach were, but even this early in the season the island was likely to be full of tourists, she said, and it was not so easy to get to, and besides, she said, I don’t want to spend the last days of my life in a red state.

So she was leaning toward the other place, the New England home of a retired couple, former college professors who now spent most of their time traveling and used Airbnb to book short-term renters whenever possible to help finance their trips.

We could have it for a month, she told me over the phone. Not that I think I’ll need that much time.

Would I ever get used to this kind of talk? Even as I wondered what to do about my mail—let it pile up, have the post office forward it or hold it for me—I found it unthinkable to ask how long I should plan to be gone.

It’s not like I’ve picked a date, she said. Though, as I say, I am ready to go. You could even say I’m impatient to go, which comes partly from my having already given so much thought to dying but also from having reached the limits of what I think I can bear. But I don’t know what my body will do.

Though she’d been feeling much better since she went off chemo, her symptoms could change from day to day, and the meds she was taking to suppress them had some side effects too.