Room 14 smelled like ginger ale and a body slowly shutting down. Frank Mooney had four days left, maybe five. He grabbed Dana's wrist with the last of his strength. "Find my son," he said. "Bring him here before I go." Dana had volunteered at the hospice for two years and never arranged a visit she didn't believe in. Then a nurse pulled her aside and told her what Frank had done to that boy: three hospital stays before the kid turned twelve.

Dana decided to find the son before she promised Frank anything. The old paperwork gave a name: Eli Mooney, now thirty-one, living two towns over. On her day off she drove there and knocked on his door, not sure what she'd even say.

Eli opened the door. When Dana said the name Frank Mooney, his face went flat and cold. "He's dying," she said. Eli laughed once, with no humor in it. "Good," he said. "Is that all?" But he didn't close the door.

"He wants to see you," Dana said. "He says he wants to apologize." Eli leaned on the doorframe. "An apology has a half-life," he said. "It gets weaker every year you wait. His ran out a long time ago." Still, he asked which hospice.

Eli stood at the foot of the bed. "Why?" he asked. "Why did you do it?" Frank's eyes filled. "I was drunk and angry and you were small," he said. "There's no good answer. I know that." It wasn't enough. But hearing him admit it loosened something Eli had carried for twenty years.