Laura had loved fireworks, and as I watched the display, a familiar melancholy made its way through my veins like a soporific. I could see her face in my mind’s eye, like a child’s, lit up by the fireworks, yes, but with an inner light, too, shining out of her. She had looked like that at the very end as she lay dying, holding my hand, before the light was extinguished, quoting one of her favorite poems. “Don’t feel sad, my love. I am already ‘half in love with easeful death.’ ”
