I’m sending you photos, she said, and shortly after we hung up they arrived. Half a dozen shots of the house, inside and out. One of the yard at autumn’s red-and-gold peak, another in pristine snow. I stared at them in a kind of stupor. I did not care what house, what town we were in. How much she cared was almost unbearably poignant to me.

She had just a few more things to do at home, she said. A few more drawers to empty, a bit more paperwork, some people to see one last time.

A week had passed since we met in the bar.

Start packing, she texted.

I was mechanically layering clothes in a suitcase when she texted again: Thank you for doing this.

When I had told her the answer was yes, that I would do whatever she needed me to do to help her die, her relief had been so great that she began sobbing.

Seconds later, she texted again: I promise to make it as much fun as possible.

PART TWO

Death is not an artist.

—Jules Renard

Chapter I

The house was as advertised. Gracious, clean, and orderly, with a few special welcome touches: flowers in the bedrooms, the kitchen stocked with coffee and tea, juice, yogurt, bread, and other basics. Extra pillows, extra blankets, wood for the fireplace—everything appeared to have been thought of by the hosts (awarded by Airbnb the status of Superhosts), who before leaving for Europe had sent us directions to the house and the code to unlock the front door.

There were no photographs, we noticed right away—we assumed they’d been put into storage with other private belongings and documents—but the living room was dominated by a painting of a woman who we figured must represent the lady of the house in her youth. A life-size oil that brought to mind John Singer Sargent’s portrait of Madame X. In fact, the painting might have been just that: an imitation of Sargent. A white swan of a woman with an impossibly long neck in a simple black décolleté dress that exposed the top halves of her—to mix bird metaphors—ostrich-egg-like breasts. One hand rests on the back of a chair, and in the other she is holding a lily. A coy mix of the erotic and the austere.

If it really is her, my friend said, I don’t see how she can stand it. How can her husband stand it. I mean, living every day with this glaring reminder of how young and hot she used to be.

I shrugged. You know how it is when you live with something every day, I said. They probably don’t even notice it anymore.