“I’ve known her all these years and I can tell you no one would ever have called that woman easy,” I said. “I was so worried about what being with her would be like. As it turns out, we get along so well, it’s like we’ve always lived together. What?”

“Nothing.”

“That look on your face—”

“You just brought me back, that’s all. It was a long time ago, but if you don’t remember, you once said that to me.”

“I don’t remember,” I said. Though I did.

“Right after we started living together,” he said. “That first studio apartment. After a week or so, you said it was like we’d always been together. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to change the subject. Will it be much longer, do you think?”

“No. Soon. Any day.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I can just tell.” Again, how to explain it? “I’ve become attuned to her in the most incredible way. I’ll be just about to ask her if she wants something to drink and she’ll say, Would you mind getting me some orange juice? I reach for the remote and at the very same instant she says, Can we change the channel?”

It happened all the time. Every day the atmosphere in the house was a little different, a little more charged in some indefinable way, and I had learned to read it. Any day now. I couldn’t explain it, but I could tell.

“I know we’ve already discussed this,” he said, “but you do need to remember to take some precautions. She has to leave a note.” (In fact, that note, already composed, lay in a drawer of her nightstand, lacking only the date. All part of her meticulous planning.) “And there shouldn’t be any evidence that could be construed as your having been part of the plan, or of having assisted in any way. No one knows, right, besides the three of us? Make sure it stays that way. She’s right, maybe it’s good that you had this little ‘run-through.’ You’ve got to keep it together. Don’t go spilling your guts when the police arrive. They’ll check out the house very carefully. They’ll ask you questions. You stick to the script. And you should call the police first, before you call me.”

“I have to call her daughter too,” I said. “I should call her before I call you.”

“All right. But be careful what you say.”

“This is insane.” My eyes and throat were stinging. “I don’t understand why we have to go through all this, as if we were criminals, for God’s sake. Why shouldn’t dying people have the right to end their own lives?”