The president got angry first, demanding to know what had happened on that ship that had taken the fire out of her in just a day. He resorted to begging in the end, first for her to stay and then for her to tell him why she was so sure it was the last time they'd see each other.
She still had the cabin by the lake where her family spent the summers of her childhood. Her plan to go there and die alone hit a hiccup when her devoted young assistant announced, right along with his own resignation, he'd known she had cancer the moment she walked out of the doctor's office.
You saw how it was for your mother. You'd never have wanted her to go through that alone. Don't force me to imagine you suffering up there in those woods.
She protested at first, asking him to trust her when she said he didn't want to watch her die, but in the end she was grateful he insisted on moving into the guest room across the hall. It was Billy who kept her company during those first months, when her body hadn't quite realized it was dying, and Billy who hired the nursing aides and sat by her bedside for hours on end when it did.
One morning she woke up and knew it was the day. She wasn't sad or regretful or anything she'd expected. She'd had enough pain, enough of being a burden, enough of imagining everything she'd never been able to do or be in her life.
"I think I want to be out on the patio today, Billy," she managed to rasp when he came in with her chamalla laced tea.
Her vision had dimmed but she didn't miss the way he blinked back tears. Over these past few months they'd discussed many things, so many but never enough, and the way she wanted to spend her final hours was one of them.
For his sake she tried not to cry out when he gently lifted her aching body and carried her to the porch swing. She sighed her gratitude when he tucked a mountain of blankets over her withered frame and assured her he'd be at the nearby table if she needed anything.
She nodded and looked out into the woods, desperate to take it all in one last time.
Her father's face lighting up with laughter as he galloped with her on his back toward the treeline.
Her mother's teacher voice carrying with the breeze down to the stream, calling her and her sisters in for dinner.
The blissful silence at the bottom of that stream, the feel of tears hot on her face despite the cool water when she'd jumped in naked after burying the last of her family.
The fear didn't set in until she opened her eyes and realized she could no longer see the trees.
"Billy," she called painfully. Her chest was so very tight now, each breath a triumph. "I can't see the woods anymore."
She heard him come to her side and felt his hand grasp her fingers as he settled down on the wooden slats.
"They're there, Laura. There are two rabbits chasing each other up that tree where you carved your first boyfriend's initials. A mother doe is nudging her baby to the path to the stream, the one where the grass never grew because your dad rode his four wheeler over it so many times. And the birds, Laura, they're finally getting used to that box of your mother's you had me refill. It's a family, I think..."
She listened to her almost son's voice fade into a soothing murmur and suddenly the fear departed, taking along with it the chill in her bones and the ache in her chest.
So much life.