I Married a Dying Stranger Because It Was His Last Wish—After His Funeral, His Lawyer Revealed He Had Known Me My Entire Life
I Married a Dying Stranger Because It Was His Last Wish—After His
Funeral, His Lawyer Revealed He Had Known Me My Entire Life
PART 1 — THE MAN IN THE LITTLE WHITE HOUSE
Three times a week, I volunteered with a hospice support program in
Asheville, North Carolina.
I was thirty-four, divorced, childless, and working from home as a book
editor.
The volunteering had started after my grandmother died.
During her final months, strangers had shown up with meals, clean
sheets, patience, and kindness.
I never forgot them.
So years later, I became one of those strangers.
That was how I met Daniel Mercer.
His file said he was forty-two.
Stage four pancreatic cancer.
No spouse.
No children.
No close relatives listed.
He lived alone in a small white house at the edge of town.
The first afternoon I visited, he opened the door before I knocked.
“You’re Hannah.”
“Yes.”
“You’re late.”
I checked my watch.
“By forty-three seconds.”
He smiled.
“I’ve been abandoned.”
I laughed.
That was Daniel.
Even sick, he made people comfortable.
Within weeks, our visits stopped feeling like volunteer assignments.
I brought soup.
He complained about my soup.
I cleaned his kitchen.
He accused me of reorganizing his entire civilization.
We played Scrabble.
He cheated shamelessly.
And sometimes we simply sat by the window drinking tea.
There was something strange about how easy he was to talk to.
It felt as if I had known him much longer than I had.
PART 2 — THE QUESTION
Three months after we met, Daniel became weaker.
One rainy afternoon, I found him sitting beneath a blanket by the
window.
We played half a game of chess.
Then he stopped.
“Hannah.”
“What?”
“Marry me.”
I stared at him.
“Excuse me?”
He smiled faintly.
“I know how it sounds.”
“Do you?”
“I’d like to die knowing I wasn’t alone.”
My chest tightened.
“Daniel, we’ve known each other three months.”
“I know.”
“This is insane.”
“Probably.”
“You don’t even know if I squeeze toothpaste from the middle.”
“You do.”
I stared.
He laughed.
“You left your toothpaste here after staying late during that storm.”
Despite myself, I smiled.
Then his expression became serious.
“I knew what kind of person you were the moment I met you.”
Something about that sentence felt heavier than it should have.
“I don’t want money,” he continued. “I don’t want care beyond what you
already choose to give. I don’t want you trapped. I just want one day in
my life when someone chooses to call me family.”
I cried.
Then I said yes.
PART 3 — THE WEDDING
The next afternoon, we married in Daniel’s living room.
A local minister officiated.
A hospice nurse named Maria witnessed.
Daniel’s attorney, Samuel Price, served as the second witness.
No flowers.
No music.
No expensive dress.
I wore a cream blouse.
Daniel wore a navy jacket that had become too large for him.
When the minister asked whether Daniel took me as his wife, his voice
was weak but clear.
“I do.”
When it was my turn, I looked into his tired eyes.
“I do.”
Daniel smiled.
It was the happiest I ever saw him.
PART 4 — TEN DAYS
We were married for ten days.
Not ten romantic movie days.
Real days.
Medication.
Nausea.
Quiet mornings.
One argument because he refused to call the nurse.
Two Scrabble games.
Three sunsets on the porch.
On the eighth night, Daniel said:
“Promise me something.”
“What?”
“Don’t turn me into a saint after I’m gone.”
“You’re safe.”
He laughed.
Then coughed until he couldn’t.
I held his hand.
On the tenth morning, Daniel died.
I was beside him.
PART 5 — THE FUNERAL
The funeral was small.
That surprised me.
Daniel had always seemed like a man who had lived a larger life than his
little house suggested.
Yet only a handful of people attended.
Hospice workers.
His attorney.
Two older men I didn’t recognize.
A woman who stood at the back and left before the service ended.
I placed my hand on Daniel’s coffin.
“Goodbye, husband.”
The word hurt.
PART 6 — THE KNOCK
That evening, someone knocked on my apartment door.
Samuel Price stood outside.
Daniel’s attorney.
He held a leather folder.
“Mrs. Mercer?”
“Hannah is fine.”
He nodded.
“Daniel gave me very specific instructions.”
“What instructions?”
“To wait until after his funeral.”
My stomach tightened.
“Why?”
Samuel looked exhausted.
“Because he believed if you learned the truth before he died, you might
marry him for the wrong reason—or refuse to marry him for the wrong
reason.”
I stared at him.
“What truth?”
He handed me an envelope.
“Daniel made me wait until today to tell you who he really was.”
PART 7 — THE LETTER
I sat on my couch.
The envelope had my name in Daniel’s handwriting.
Hannah.
Inside were six pages.
The first line read:
My dear Hannah, our meeting was not a coincidence. I have known who you
were since the day you were born.
I froze.
Then the second line:
Your mother did not abandon you. She died protecting me, and I have
spent thirty-four years trying to repay a debt you never knew existed.
My knees gave out.
I slid from the couch onto the floor.
PART 8 — MY MOTHER
I barely remembered my mother.
Her name was Rebecca Lane.
According to the story I grew up with, she had been troubled,
unreliable, and disappeared when I was a baby.
My grandmother raised me.
Whenever I asked what happened to Rebecca, Grandma said:
“Some people aren’t ready to be mothers.”
I assumed she was alive somewhere.
Then, when I was twelve, Grandma told me Rebecca had died years earlier.
No details.
No funeral.
No grave I knew about.
Now Daniel’s letter claimed she had died protecting him.
PART 9 — SAMUEL
I looked at Samuel.
“What did Daniel mean?”
“I can explain some of it.”
“Some?”
“There are things he wanted you to discover through documents rather
than my interpretation.”
“Was he related to me?”
“No.”
“Was he my father?”
“No.”
“Then how did he know me?”
Samuel hesitated.
“Your mother worked for his family.”
PART 10 — MERCER INDUSTRIES
Daniel Mercer was not the lonely middle-class man I thought I had
married.
He came from the Mercer family.
Mercer Industrial Holdings had once owned manufacturing plants, shipping
facilities, and commercial properties across three states.
Daniel’s grandfather founded it.
His father expanded it.
By the time Daniel was twenty-five, family assets were worth hundreds of
millions.
I stared at Samuel.
“Daniel lived in a two-bedroom house.”
“By choice.”
“He bought generic tea.”
“He was very stubborn.”
“Why would someone like that be alone?”
Samuel looked down.
“Because money and family are not the same thing.”
PART 11 — REBECCA LANE
My mother worked as an accounting assistant for one of the Mercer
companies.
She was twenty-three.
Daniel was eight.
She sometimes babysat him when his parents traveled.
According to Daniel’s letter, he adored her.
Rebecca taught him card games.
Made grilled cheese.
Took him to the library.
He called her Becca.
Then she discovered irregular financial records.
Not some cinematic suitcase of cash.
Invoices.
Shell vendors.
Duplicate payments.
Transactions that did not make sense.
She reported concerns internally.
That decision changed everything.
PART 12 — THE FIRE
One night, a fire broke out in an administrative building connected to a
Mercer warehouse.
Daniel, eight years old, had been waiting inside an office for his
father.
Rebecca was there working late.
Smoke filled the corridor.
She found Daniel.
She got him out.
Then went back inside.
She never came out.
I stopped reading.
My hands shook.
My mother had not disappeared.
She died in a fire.
PART 13 — WHY WAS I LIED TO?
I looked at Samuel.
“My grandmother told me she abandoned me.”
“I don’t know exactly what your grandmother was told at first.”
“Daniel knew.”
“Eventually.”
“How?”
“His family controlled much of the information around the incident.”
The words made me cold.
“Are you saying they killed her?”
“No.”
Samuel answered firmly.
“The surviving evidence does not establish that. Daniel was adamant that
nobody turn suspicion into fact.”
That sounded like him.
Careful.
Fair.
Even from the grave.
PART 14 — THE INVESTIGATION
The fire was officially attributed to an electrical failure.
But years later, Daniel discovered records suggesting important
financial documents had disappeared around the same time.
That raised questions.
It did not prove arson.
Daniel spent decades trying to understand what Rebecca had uncovered.
He never found one perfect answer.
He found enough to know she had been afraid before she died.
PART 15 — MY GRANDMOTHER
After Rebecca’s death, my grandmother, Evelyn Lane, took me.
She was terrified.
Someone connected to the company offered financial assistance.
She refused most of it.
Then she moved.
She changed our phone number.
She stopped discussing Rebecca.
Daniel believed she thought silence would keep me safe.
I understood fear.
I did not understand the lie.
PART 16 — DANIEL WATCHED FROM FAR AWAY
Daniel learned my name when he was a teenager.
He found an old photograph of Rebecca holding me as a newborn.
On the back:
Hannah Grace, six weeks old.
He began asking questions.
His father ordered him to stop.
Daniel didn’t.
Over the years, he quietly kept track of major public milestones.
My high school graduation.
College.
My first job.
My marriage.
My divorce.
Not through illegal surveillance.
Mostly through public records, mutual community contacts, and occasional
updates from a trust administrator who had once known my grandmother.
Still, the knowledge unsettled me.
PART 17 — WHY DIDN’T HE CONTACT ME?
Daniel’s letter answered.
I was ashamed.
At first I thought my family had destroyed yours.
Then I feared that contacting you would only force you to carry
questions I could not answer.
Years passed.
Cowardice can disguise itself as caution for a very long time.
I stopped reading.
That sounded exactly like Daniel.
PART 18 — THE HOSPICE PROGRAM
Our meeting had not been coincidence.
But it had not been fully staged either.
Daniel knew I volunteered with the hospice program.
When his doctor suggested support, he specifically requested that
organization.
He asked whether volunteers could be assigned based on availability.
He did not request me by name.
But he knew there was a chance.
When my coordinator assigned me, Daniel recognized my name immediately.
I felt betrayed.
PART 19 — ANGER
“He manipulated me.”
Samuel did not argue.
“He created the possibility of meeting you.”
“He knew who I was.”
“Yes.”
“And pretended he didn’t.”
“Yes.”
“I married him without knowing.”
“Yes.”
My grief became anger so quickly it frightened me.
“Why would he do that?”
Samuel handed me another page.
Daniel had anticipated the question.
PART 20 — HIS APOLOGY
The letter read:
If you are angry, you should be.
I told myself I wanted you to know me without the Mercer name between
us.
That was partly true.
The uglier truth is that I was afraid.
I wanted a few ordinary weeks with the daughter of the woman who saved
my life.
I wanted you to judge me as Daniel before you judged me as a Mercer.
That was selfish.
I am sorry.
I cried.
Because apologies do not erase manipulation.
But honest apologies matter.
PART 21 — THE SAFE-DEPOSIT KEY
Samuel placed a small brass key on my table.
“What is that?”
“A safe-deposit box.”
“What’s inside?”
“Daniel instructed me not to say.”
“Of course he did.”
Samuel almost smiled.
“He knew you’d say that.”
PART 22 — THE BANK
The next morning, Samuel accompanied me to a private bank.
The box contained no mountain of diamonds.
No stacks of cash.
It contained history.
Rebecca’s letters.
Photographs.
Copies of company records.
Daniel’s childhood diary.
A cassette tape.
And a sealed legal folder.
On top was a photograph of my mother.
She was laughing.
Holding a baby.
Me.
It was the first photograph I had ever seen of us together.
PART 23 — REBECCA’S LETTER
One letter was addressed to my grandmother.
Mom,
If anything happens, please don’t let Hannah grow up believing I left
her.
I stopped breathing.
My grandmother had done exactly that.
Then I read further.
Rebecca wrote that she had found accounting discrepancies.
She was frightened.
She intended to meet an outside attorney.
But she also wrote:
I may be overreacting. Please don’t accuse anyone without proof.
Even frightened, my mother understood the difference between suspicion
and fact.
PART 24 — THE TAPE
The cassette was transferred carefully to a playable digital format.
Rebecca’s voice filled the room.
I had never heard my mother’s adult voice.
I cried before she finished saying hello.
She had recorded notes for herself.
Vendor names.
Dates.
Concerns.
Then, near the end:
Daniel was here again today. Sweet kid. He beat me at cards and then
confessed he cheated.
I laughed through tears.
Daniel had been telling the truth about cheating at games his entire
life.
PART 25 — THE LEGAL FOLDER
Then I opened the legal folder.
Daniel’s estate plan.
I immediately closed it.
“I don’t want his money.”
Samuel said:
“You should read before deciding.”
“I married a dying man ten days before he died. Do you understand how
this looks?”
“Yes.”
“I look like I took advantage of him.”
“Daniel anticipated that.”
PART 26 — THE MEDICAL EVALUATIONS
Daniel had arranged independent evaluations of his decision-making
capacity before proposing to me.
Multiple physicians documented that he understood his decisions.
His estate plan had been executed well before our marriage.
The marriage did not suddenly create the plan.
That mattered.
Samuel explained:
“Daniel wanted to protect you from the accusation that you influenced a
dying man.”
“What did he leave me?”
“Not everything.”
I was strangely relieved.
PART 27 — THE TRUST
Years earlier, Daniel established the Rebecca Lane Foundation.
Its purpose was workplace safety, whistleblower support, and emergency
assistance for families affected by industrial accidents.
He had funded it quietly.
My mother had given him his life.
He built part of his legacy around hers.
Then Samuel showed me another trust.
This one named me.
PART 28 — WHAT HE LEFT ME
Daniel left me the small white house.
A personal investment account.
And an income-producing trust worth several million dollars.
The larger Mercer fortune did not go to me.
Most went to charitable entities, existing trusts, and long-term
philanthropic work.
I stared at the numbers.
“I can’t accept this.”
“You don’t have to decide today.”
“Why me?”
Samuel pointed to another letter.
PART 29 — DANIEL’S REASON
Daniel wrote:
This is not payment for your mother’s life.
No amount of money could purchase what she did.
It is not payment for marrying me.
You gave me something money never could.
You sat in my ugly living room and argued about Scrabble.
You brought terrible soup.
You treated me as a man who was dying, not as a fortune that was
disappearing.
Use what I left you to make choices.
That is all.
PART 30 — THE OTHER HEIRS
I expected a legal war.
There was conflict.
Daniel had cousins.
Distant relatives.
People who had not visited him in years suddenly had opinions.
But his planning was careful.
The documents predated our marriage.
His capacity had been independently documented.
I still hired my own attorney.
I refused to rely solely on Samuel.
That was one of the first decisions I made for myself.
PART 31 — THE WOMAN AT THE FUNERAL
I remembered the woman who stood at the back of Daniel’s funeral.
Samuel identified her.
Claire Mercer.
Daniel’s older sister.
I had not known he had one.
“She wants to meet you.”
“Why didn’t she speak at the funeral?”
“They were estranged.”
“Why?”
“Your mother.”
PART 32 — CLAIRE
Claire met me in a café.
She was fifty-one.
Elegant.
Controlled.
She looked at me for a long time.
“You have Rebecca’s eyes.”
I hated hearing that from a stranger who had known my mother.
“What happened between you and Daniel?”
“He blamed our father for hiding information after the fire.”
“Did your father cause it?”
“I don’t know.”
That answer surprised me.
She continued:
“Daniel spent years wanting certainty. He never got it.”
PART 33 — THEIR FATHER
According to Claire, their father had absolutely concealed financial
misconduct within the company.
That was supported by later settlements and internal records.
But whether that misconduct caused the fire was never established.
Daniel believed Rebecca’s concerns were connected.
Claire believed Daniel had allowed guilt to consume him.
Both perspectives could coexist.
PART 34 — THE THING CLAIRE GAVE ME
Claire slid a small envelope across the table.
Inside was a photograph.
Rebecca and Daniel.
He was eight.
She had one arm around him.
On the back, Rebecca had written:
My favorite little troublemaker.
I smiled.
“He kept a copy of this beside his bed,” Claire said.
I cried.
PART 35 — MY GRANDMOTHER’S LIE
I became angry at Grandma too.
She had raised me.
Loved me.
Worked two jobs.
Sat beside me through fevers.
Paid for school clothes.
Taught me to drive.
And lied about my mother.
I had to learn that gratitude and anger can occupy the same heart.
Grandma probably believed silence protected me.
But protection without truth can become another kind of wound.
PART 36 — THE GRAVE
Samuel located Rebecca’s grave.
It was two hours away.
My grandmother had known where it was.
I had not.
I drove there alone.
Rebecca Lane.
1961–1995.
Beloved Daughter and Mother.
I sat on the grass.
“You didn’t leave me.”
The sentence broke something open inside me.
PART 37 — DANIEL’S GRAVE
Then I visited Daniel.
“You liar.”
Wind moved through the trees.
“You kind, ridiculous liar.”
I sat beside his grave for an hour.
“I don’t know whether to forgive you.”
Of course, he didn’t answer.
PART 38 — THE FOUNDATION
Months later, the Rebecca Lane Foundation invited me to attend a board
meeting.
Daniel had given me the option of serving.
Not a requirement.
I attended as an observer first.
They helped workers obtain independent legal advice after safety
complaints.
They funded emergency housing.
They supported families after workplace disasters.
I saw my mother’s name on the wall.
I cried in the restroom.
PART 39 — MY DECISION
I accepted a limited role.
Not because Daniel wanted me to.
Because I did.
I also kept editing books.
I continued volunteering.
The inheritance did not turn me into someone else.
It gave me time.
That was the greatest luxury.
PART 40 — THE HOUSE
For months, I could not enter Daniel’s house.
Then one afternoon, I unlocked the door.
His chessboard remained on the shelf.
His chipped mug sat in the cabinet.
I expected the house to feel haunted.
Instead, it felt quiet.
I made tea.
Then sat in his chair.
PART 41 — THE FINAL ENVELOPE
Inside the desk, exactly where Samuel said it would be after the estate
process reached the appropriate stage, was one final envelope.
Hannah,
If you’re reading this, you came back to the house.
Good.
Please water the plant.
I looked at the dead plant.
“Too late.”
I laughed for the first time in weeks.
PART 42 — HIS LAST TRUTH
Daniel’s final letter contained no new fortune.
No hidden sibling.
No shocking confession.
Just truth.
He wrote:
I did not ask you to marry me because Rebecca saved me.
I asked because somewhere between the burnt soup and the third time you
accused me of cheating at Scrabble, I fell in love with you.
I did not tell you because love spoken by a dying man can feel like a
burden.
You owed me nothing.
You still owe me nothing.
PART 43 — WHAT I FELT
Had I loved Daniel?
I didn’t know when he was alive.
I had cared deeply.
I had felt connected.
I had agreed to marry him because his loneliness broke my heart.
After he died, I understood that love does not always arrive with enough
time to identify itself properly.
Sometimes you recognize it only by the shape of the absence.
PART 44 — ONE YEAR LATER
A year after Daniel died, I organized a small gathering at the
foundation.
We announced a grant program for families caring for terminally ill
workers.
I named it the Daniel Mercer Community Care Fund.
Claire attended.
Samuel attended.
Maria, the hospice nurse, attended.
Afterward, Maria hugged me.
“He would have hated the speech.”
“I know.”
“Too sentimental.”
“Absolutely.”
We laughed.
PART 45 — THE SCRABBLE BOARD
I kept Daniel’s Scrabble board.
One evening, I opened it.
A folded piece of paper fell from beneath the tray.
His handwriting.
For the record, “qi” is a legal Scrabble word.
I stared at it.
Then laughed until I cried.
PART 46 — WHAT THE MONEY COULD NOT BUY
People who heard pieces of the story became fascinated by Daniel’s
wealth.
They asked how much I inherited.
They asked whether I had suspected.
They asked whether marrying him had “paid off.”
I hated that phrase.
Ten days of marriage did not purchase a fortune.
A dying man made estate decisions over years.
A woman named Rebecca died saving a child.
A grandmother raised another child while carrying fear and secrets.
Money sat at the edge of those lives.
It was never the center.
PART 47 — WHAT I WOULD CHANGE
If Daniel were alive, I would tell him he should have told me sooner.
I would tell him arranging the possibility of our meeting without
revealing our history was unfair.
I would tell him I deserved informed choices.
Then I would make him tea.
And beat him at Scrabble.
Both things can be true.
PART 48 — MY MOTHER’S VOICE
I still listen to Rebecca’s recording sometimes.
Not the sections about invoices.
The ordinary parts.
Her laugh.
Her irritation.
The moment she tells eight-year-old Daniel to stop stealing cookies.
Those fragments gave me a mother more real than the vague ghost I grew
up imagining.
Daniel’s greatest gift was not the house.
Not the trust.
Not the foundation.
It was evidence that my mother loved me.
PART 49 — THE HOSPICE PROGRAM
I never stopped volunteering.
My coordinator once asked whether the experience with Daniel made it too
difficult.
It did.
But difficult and worthwhile are not opposites.
I still bring meals.
Still clean kitchens.
Still sit beside people whose families live far away.
I no longer assume I know the entire story of anyone’s life.
Daniel cured me of that.
PART 50 — THE LITTLE WHITE HOUSE
Eventually, I decided not to sell Daniel’s house.
With advice from the foundation and local organizations, I converted it
into a small respite residence for families traveling to care for
terminally ill relatives.
Nothing enormous.
Nothing named after a billionaire.
Just a little white house.
A kitchen.
Two bedrooms.
A porch.
A place where someone exhausted could sleep.
PART 51 — THE SIGN
There is a small plaque inside.
It does not mention Daniel’s fortune.
It says:
IN MEMORY OF REBECCA LANE AND DANIEL MERCER.
FOR THE PEOPLE WHO STAY.
That felt right.
PART 52 — TWO YEARS
Two years after Daniel died, I visited his grave on our wedding
anniversary.
I brought tea in a thermos.
Ridiculous, perhaps.
But grief creates its own rituals.
I sat beside the stone.
“You got your wish.”
The cemetery was quiet.
“You didn’t die alone.”
Then I smiled.
“But you also ruined my understanding of basically my entire childhood.”
A bird landed nearby.
“You would find that funny.”
PART 53 — THE FIRST LINE
I still have Daniel’s original letter.
Sometimes I reread the first line.
Our meeting was not a coincidence.
For a long time, that sentence made me angry.
Now I understand it differently.
He created an opportunity.
Chance did the rest.
I could have been assigned to another patient.
I could have disliked him.
I could have refused his proposal.
I could have walked away.
He did not control every outcome.
None of us do.
PART 54 — THE SECOND LINE
The second line changed my life.
Your mother did not abandon you.
Those six words repaired something money never could.
I had spent thirty-four years believing I had been unwanted.
I wasn’t.
My mother had gone into a burning building after saving a child because
she believed there might still be someone inside.
She never came home.
But she had not left me by choice.
PART 55 — WHO DANIEL REALLY WAS
Samuel had told me:
“He made me wait until today to tell you who he really was.”
At first, I thought that meant wealth.
The Mercer name.
The companies.
The trusts.
It didn’t.
Who Daniel really was could not be found on a balance sheet.
He was the frightened eight-year-old my mother carried through smoke.
The guilty teenager who found my baby photograph.
The stubborn adult who spent years investigating questions without
inventing answers.
The sick man in the little white house.
The terrible Scrabble cheat.
The stranger who knew my history before I knew his.
The husband I had for ten days.
PART 56 — MY ANSWER
Would I marry him again if I knew everything?
I have asked myself that question many times.
I don’t know.
Maybe that is the most truthful answer.
I might have been too angry.
Too suspicious.
Too overwhelmed.
That was exactly what Daniel feared.
But fear did not give him the right to decide what I could handle.
Love did not erase that mistake.
Still, I am grateful we met.
PART 57 — THE LAST WISH
Daniel told me his last wish was to die knowing he wasn’t alone.
For a long time, I believed I had fulfilled it.
Eventually, I realized he had fulfilled something for me too.
I had spent my life believing my mother left me.
Daniel gave me the path back to her.
Not cleanly.
Not perfectly.
Not without anger.
But truth rarely arrives wrapped neatly.
PART 58 — THE PORCH
Sometimes I sit on the porch of the little white house after visiting a
family staying there.
I can almost see Daniel across from me.
Blanket over his knees.
Tea in his hands.
Smirking because he has invented another impossible Scrabble word.
And I remember the day he looked at me and said:
“Marry me.”
I thought I was giving a dying stranger dignity.
I thought I was granting one final wish.
I had no idea he had known my name for decades.
I had no idea my mother had once carried him out of a burning building.
I had no idea he had built a foundation in her name.
I had no idea the man dying alone in that little house had spent most of
his life carrying gratitude, guilt, questions, and a photograph of me as
a baby.
Ten days after our wedding, I buried my husband.
One day later, his lawyer handed me the truth.
And although Daniel left me money, a house, documents, and
responsibilities I never expected, the inheritance that changed me most
was only six words long.
Your mother did not abandon you.
For thirty-four years, I had lived inside the opposite story.
Now I knew better.
And every time I unlock the door of that little white house for another
exhausted family, I think about my mother.
I think about Daniel.
And I think about the strange ways people save one another.
Sometimes through fire.
Sometimes through truth.
May you like
Sometimes by sitting beside someone who is afraid to die alone.
THE END
