Part 1: The Request

The morning the doctor said David had only weeks left, our home seemed to lose all sound.

For fifteen years, we had built a steady marriage and raised two children. I believed I knew him completely. But after the diagnosis, David became distant, staring at the ceiling with a fear deeper than his illness.

Whenever I asked what was wrong, he said he was tired.

Three weeks into hospice, he reached beneath his pillow and handed me an old photograph. A solemn sixteen-year-old girl stared back at me.