I thought about the day it first occurred to me that, should she die, there would be no one in the world I truly loved. You can, I think, love someone a very long time before you realize this, notice it in the way you note a facial flaw, a speech impediment, some imperfection which, once recognized, can never again be unseen. Are you just now realizing that people die, Leah had said to me when I voiced this thought, tucked up beside her on the sofa with my knees pressed tight into the backs of hers. Not people, I had said, just you.
