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THEY DECIDE TO KEEP me another night at Southampton Hospital.

Sam Wylie says it’s strictly precautionary.

I tell her before she leaves that I’m sorry, but I have to call BS on that.

When you are living with cancer, when that’s your reality and your world, you don’t think any part of the process is precautionary.

If your life were a movie, you’d be sure that in the very next scene somebody would be coming through the door with a gun.

“Dr. Gellis wants to wait until tomorrow and back up the CT scan with an MRI,” Sam says.

“Why does he want an MRI, too?”

“Because he wants to be sure,” she says.

“Of what?”

“Of all the things we need to be sure of before we tell you where we are,” she says, and promises me that they will fast-track the results as soon as the tests are finished in the morning, or several people at Southampton Hospital will be ripped a new one.

I tell her what I always tell my sister, Brigid, whom I spoke to from Switzerland a few hours ago, where she’s hooked up to her own machines, and undergoing more tests of her own, because we’re both a couple of lucky ducks.

“And people think you’re the nice one,” I say to Sam Wylie.

She gives me a kiss of her own on the forehead then and leaves me with Ben.

When it’s just the two of us I say, “I’m scared about tomorrow.”

“I know.”

If his chair were any closer, he’d be in the bed with me.

Neither one of us speaks then, for several minutes. He just sits there and holds my hand and seems content to do it all night. Somehow this good man has made me more comfortable with unspoken thoughts, and silences like this, than I’ve ever been in my life, with anyone.

“At least you’re done with Rob Jacobson,” he says eventually. “That has to make you feel like you’ve been given a brand-new lease on life.”

“Hardly,” I say. “But at least we know what happened to the Carsons. And to the Gateses. And I have some sort of understanding why those two sociopaths made it happen.” I turn my head so I’m looking directly at him. “But is that justice?”

“Maybe on that one,” he says, “you need to do that thing you’re always talking about.”

“Which thing is that?”

“Let God sort the rest of it out.”

I am able to manage a smile. Not much of one. I can only imagine what I look like at this point. But I can still feel the smile.

And somehow manage to feel safe.

“I’ve sort of been busy asking Her to do that for me the last couple of days,” I say. “Not to keep making this all about me.”

“Hey, kid,” he says. He gets out of his chair and kisses me lightly on the lips. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s only about you.”

Before cancer the end of a trial had always felt like crossing the finish line, like finishing some sort of marathon no matter how long the trial had lasted.

And before Rob Jacobson—a different kind of malignancy—came into my life, the end of a trial had been cause for celebration, for Jimmy and for me.

Just not now.

After what feels like hours, I can feel myself starting to fall asleep, the pill they gave me finally starting to work, feeling as if I’m waiting for another verdict to be handed down.

I pray then.

And tonight don’t dream about anything at all.