Immediately I give her the strength of my body. I wrap an arm around her waist, holding up her slight weight. As we walk through the galleries, I feel a prickle at the back of my spine, a magnet that twists my gaze to the right.

Through the entryway I can see the wooden models that came from the tomb of Djehutytnakht and his eponymous wife. If I take three steps in that direction, I will be able to see the coffins, nestled into the case against the wall. The wavy lines of the Book of Two Ways drawn against the wall of one of them.

I wonder who looked at that and first thought it was a map.

Then I see him, crouching in front of the glass.

I gasp, and the man stands up. Younger, then. Less blond. A stranger, not a ghost.

“Dawn?” Win says, her voice a frayed thread.

“I’m right here,” I reply, and I help her move forward.

* * *

—

YOU CAN ARGUE that all fear is related to death. Fear of spiders? You’re really afraid of being bitten and killed. Fear of heights? Falling to your death. Fear of flying? Crashing. Snakes, fire—you get it. Jerry Seinfeld even says that people are more terrified of public speaking than dying, so if you’re asked to give a eulogy, the person inside the coffin is better off than the one giving the talk. Why are people so afraid of dying? Well, that’s easy. Because it’s hard for us to conceive of a world without us in it.

As Win’s health deteriorates, she becomes more anxious and she can’t sleep. Felix tells me she is eating less, and I can see her fear eating away at him, too, like termites at the foundation of a house.

“What did you do before to relax?” I ask her.

“Every now and then I’d take a Xanax,” Win answers. “But I’d rather not sleep away the limited amount of life I have left.”

“We can try magnesium, if that doesn’t interfere with your meds,” I suggest.

She grimaces. “No more pills.”

“How about more holistic methods? Meditation, aromatherapy, massage, sound bath—”

“You know what?” she interrupts. “I want to get stoned.”

Pot is legal in Massachusetts, which makes it simple. I have a choice of weed, lollipops, CBD pills, even milkshakes. In the end, I bring gummy bears.

I have no plans to partake, but Win—who has, amazingly, never tried pot—is so anxious about the possibility that it is negating all the benefits. I finally say I will be right there with her, and she makes me chew the gummy bears in front of her like she is Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I settle down next to her on the couch, letting the corners of the room go pleasantly furry, feeling my eyelids grow heavier.

“How long have you been married?” Win murmurs beside me.

I slide my glance to her. Her arms are crossed over her chest, in the archaic position of death. I decide not to mention it. “Fourteen years,” I say.

“Why did you get married?”

That follow-up makes me blink. Usually, you ask how or why someone fell in love; how you knew he was the one. I’m reluctant to answer, not just because I don’t feel like poking at an open sore, but because in this relationship with Win, I’m supposed to be helping her, instead of the other way around.

Then again, I’m getting stoned next to my client.

“It was right. At the time,” I reply. Trying to steer the conversation onto neutral ground, I add, “Did you know that modern Egyptian women pinch the bride for good luck?”

“That’s unfortunate.”

“There are all kinds of superstitions around weddings. Veils protected the bride from evil spirits. Bridesmaids confused the Devil, if he came to snatch the bride. And a long train made it harder for her to run away.”

“Wow. Those are some grooms with seriously low self-esteem.”

I laugh. “The reason we ‘give the bride away’ was because she used to be a property transfer.”

Win twists her wedding band around her finger. “When Felix and I went shopping for this, Felix asked the difference between platinum and white gold. The saleslady said that as it got older, platinum would go a little gray at the edges. Felix pointed to me and said, Oh. Like her?” Win looks down at her hands, as if she does not recognize them as being part of her own body. “I’m not going to get gray at the edges, am I,” she muses. “I’m not going to last that long.”

I sit up, aware that there are people for whom pot does nothing; there are others who feel paranoid instead of relaxed. I don’t want this backfiring for her. “Win,” I begin, but she interrupts.

“I’ve been trying to figure out what this disease is teaching me,” she says slowly.

“About death?”

“No. About life.” Win runs her hand over the couch, making the nap of the suede stand on end. “I mean, life is supposed to make us grow, right? To become better? If that’s the case, what is death going to do to me?”

“Death doesn’t just happen to us. In fact, there’s no passive voice in the English language for it. It’s an action verb. You have to die.” I shrug. “Three hundred sixty thousand babies are born every day while a hundred and fifty thousand people die. On a micro level, the body’s sloughing off skin and brain cells while we’re still alive. Even after the heart stops pumping, the cells still have enough oxygen to be considered alive for a little while, even after the doctor pronounces us dead. Life and death are heads and tails. You can’t have one without the other.”

“Maybe in order to grow and become better, part of us has to die to make room for that new thing,” Win says slowly. “Like a broken heart.”

I turn to her. She has tears in her eyes.

She dashes them away with her hand, giving a little embarrassed laugh. “Here’s some breaking news: it’s harder to face the death of someone you love than your own. Go figure.”

I thread my fingers through hers and squeeze. “Win. I will make sure that Felix has all the grief counseling he needs. I will be with him through the funeral, and I’ll check in with him afterward. I swear to you, he will not be on his own until I know he’s doing all right.”

She glances up, surprised. “That’s good to know. But I was talking about Arlo.”

Her son. The one who died.

“I’d like to hear about him, if you feel up to it,” I say.

She sinks deeper into the cushions of the couch. “What can I tell you? He came a month early. His lungs weren’t strong enough, and he had to be in the NICU for weeks. But he came into this world laughing. I know they say babies can’t do that, not for weeks, but he did. He laughed all the time. When he pulled himself up in his crib; when I gave him his bath; when I sang to him. And, honestly, my singing makes most people cringe.” A smile ghosts over her lips. “He laughed all the time, until he started to cry. We didn’t know what was wrong. Neither did Arlo. It was too hot, or too cold. The tag on his shirt hurt. The teacher didn’t understand him. The other kids didn’t like him.” She hesitates. “It was always someone else’s fault. There were some days when he would crawl into the closet and sob until he fell asleep. And then there were other days when he broke every window in the house with a baseball bat.”

She draws in a breath. “We took him to a psychologist. Family therapy, the whole nine yards. Arlo was diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder. You know what that is?”

I had heard the term before, applied to a little girl in Meret’s elementary school class who had been adopted from an orphanage in the Ukraine, and who just never seemed to settle into her new family. She bit and scratched and sobbed. “Doesn’t it have something to do with not being able to form an attachment?”

Win swallows. “Yeah. Imagine how that made me feel. It was three weeks in the NICU, and I was there every day. Every day. No one loved Arlo like I loved him.” She leans forward, elbows on her knees. “Nothing worked. Not reward systems, not time-outs, not even—I’m sorry to admit—spanking. I used to pretend that my real boy had been taken by faeries; that this…this creature I didn’t understand…was just a temporary replacement. I know, ridiculous. But it was easier than admitting that there were times I wished Arlo had never been born. What mother can admit that, and still call herself a mother?