IN 2003, ON the day that we found the rock dipinto, everyone else living in the Dig House had taken the day off. We were alone because they’d gone to visit Tell el-Amarna, the city where Akhenaton ruled with his queen, Nefertiti. It is only eight miles from us, thirty minutes, and it’s remarkable that I have never actually been there, because Akhenaton is one of the most fascinating kings in ancient Egypt. A New Kingdom pharaoh from the 18th Dynasty, he is known for two things: for being the father of Tutankhamun, and for changing religion during the course of his reign.

There’s no question that deities—plural—were important to ancient Egyptians. Many Egyptian gods seemed to clot into threes or multiples of threes—from Atum, Shu, and Tefnut to Amun, Re, and Ptah; from Osiris, Isis, and Horus to the Ennead—the nine main deities worshipped at Heliopolis. Temples in Egypt were stages for processions. The Egyptians would have come out to watch, and after the gods had sucked up all the spiritual sustenance from the offerings, the literal food was given to the masses. Feast days then were like Christmas now.

But when Akhenaton became king, he was the Grinch. He shut down the temples and the festivals. Instead of celebrating many gods, the Egyptians now had to celebrate one—the Aton, or sun disk—but Akhenaton wasn’t a monotheist. Instead, he inserted himself into theology, rounding out a new trilogy with himself and his royal wife, Nefertiti. Every day in Amarna, his shining golden city, there were festivals celebrating himself, his wife, and his daughters. He was accompanied by a military escort at all times. It is the only era in Egyptian history where there are representations of people bowing all the time to their king.

He didn’t just cancel Christmas, though. He also canceled the afterlife. Although he was a New Kingdom pharaoh, his tomb—unlike the tombs in the Valley of the Kings—depicts no funerary rituals involving deities like Re and Osiris, because that would negate the concept of Akhenaton as a creator god. By definition, none of those other deities could exist yet.

Wyatt and I are quiet on our way to Amarna. We stop first at the boundary stele, and then we continue to the necropolis.

Wyatt has been here often. The guard knows him by sight and hands him the key so that we can explore on our own. As we descend into the Royal Tomb, I breathe in the sweet, smoky smell of bat guano. Immediately, I am drawn to the images on the walls, which are so different from the art at Deir el-Bersha or anywhere else in Ancient Egypt.

Nefertiti and Akhenaton are hard to tell apart, because the figures do not look male and female. They are carved with elongated heads and round tummies, like the androgynous creator deities of Ancient Egypt. Their daughters are depicted, too, with the same alienesque heads and bellies, as if they, too, are eternally frozen at the moment of creation. In ritual temple scenes and private tombs, Akhenaton only portrayed his daughters, because a creator god could have as many female manifestations as he wanted, but the minute there was another male, the primordial clock was marching forward.

Suddenly I understand why Wyatt has brought me here. Akhenaton tried to turn back time.

“I didn’t say anything to Anya,” Wyatt confesses, “because I realized I had to speak to you, first.”

Slowly, I face him. Wyatt stands in front of a sunrise scene depicting the royal family. His bright hair is exactly at the level of the sun disk, and for some reason, this makes me want to cry.

“Stay with me, Olive. Publish this tomb with me. It’s not too late to start over.”

It is so enticing to imagine that my life might have been different. That it still could be. But even as Wyatt reaches for my hand, I know what I have to tell him.

Like Akhenaton, we can pretend. We can squirrel ourselves away in Deir el-Bersha, just the two of us. We can spin an epic story of how we were always meant to be. But also like Akhenaton, we will never really be able to go backward.

I pull away, escaping into another chamber of the tomb as I press the heels of my hands to my eyes. I can’t do this. I can’t walk away from him twice.

I hear him come into the chamber behind me. I am in the room where Meketaton, the second daughter of Akhenaton, was buried. She died near the thirteenth or fourteenth year of her father’s reign. In the scene carved into the plaster on the walls, she is lying dead on a bier, as Akhenaton and Nefertiti hold each other and weep over her body. It is the most breathtaking portrait of grief.

A second scene shows Akhenaton and Nefertiti again tearing out their hair in the act of mourning—nwn—in front of Meketaton’s standing mummy or statue. In this image, a baby is being led away by a nurse.

When I was studying Egyptology, there was a lot of discussion about that baby, and who it might be. Some scholars said this proved Meketaton died in childbirth—and that the father was her own father, Akhenaton. But Meketaton died at age eleven, which was likely too young to be pregnant, even then. Some said the baby was Tutankhamun (then called Tutankhaton), although there was a question about a nearby determinative hieroglyph, which may show a seated female rather than a seated male. Others believed it was Meketaton herself, reborn under the healing rays of the Aton—the only way to show an afterlife, since there was no reference to Osiris or Re during Akhenaton’s rule.

Although, academically, that baby is most likely Tutankhaton, I prefer the last analysis. Depending on your point of view, Akhenaton might be seen as a king, a narcissist, a visionary—but he was definitely a grieving father. In his heart, he would have wanted his daughter resurrected. To me, this is the only interpretation that hints at hope.

When you have a child, you will do anything for her. You may not do it well, but you will kill yourself trying. You will trip over obstacles as you clear them out of her path. You will give her the choices you didn’t have.

I move closer to the image of Meketaton’s parents, bent with sorrow. This is the remarkable part of history. As different as my life is now from that of an Egyptian pharaoh, I know what it feels like to wake up in a world where I have a daughter, and the next day, to face a future where I may not.

It’s why I can’t stay here.

The most difficult job I have ever had as a death doula was also the shortest. I was hired by a couple who knew that they were having a baby that would be born without a brain. You would think this was a fresh level of hell—having to carry to term a fetus that wasn’t going to survive. But in this case, you’d be wrong. The mom used to love her OB visits, because hearing that heartbeat was the time she got to spend with her daughter. She said that when she had to get up at 2:00 A.M. to pee, she pretended those were her daughter’s ornery teenage years—she was just living through them now.

I told this couple that I didn’t want their birth plan—I wanted their life plan. If the baby survived five minutes, what was most important? Who would be in the delivery room? If the baby survived five hours, who could visit? If the baby survived five days, would they want to bring her home?

They said they wanted to celebrate every major holiday, in the time they had. They wanted her first year, in a matter of moments. So I hired a photographer. We took pictures of the baby in a Santa onesie, and with a Baby New Year sash, and with a little paper Valentine’s heart. We knew when her grandparents could hold her, what music they wanted playing, when their priest should come in to administer last rites. The baby’s name was Felicity. She lived for thirty-seven minutes.

I have told this story to many people who ask me how I can possibly work with those who are dying. There is beauty and grace at the end, I tell them, even for babies like Felicity. She never experienced war, heartbreak, or pain. She never struggled to make ends meet. She didn’t get bullied in school or find out she had been passed over for a promotion or get left at the altar. She knew nothing in her short life but love.

I don’t know why, when it comes to death, we say we lost someone. They’re not missing or misplaced. They’re whisked away from the tightest embrace.

In a world where some parents don’t get the choice to keep their children close, I can’t leave mine just so I can have a second chance with Wyatt.

I turn around, knowing that he is waiting. “You know what’s the hardest part of watching someone die? The people who are left behind.”

“That’s why you should stay, Olive,” Wyatt interrupts. “I love you.”

“I know.” All these years, and here I am repeating myself. Tears stream down my face. “But you’re not the only one I love. Even if I could leave him…I couldn’t leave her.”

“Your daughter.”

“Yes. Meret.” I take a deep breath. “After Meretseger.”