"Why did he ask for you first?" Elena asked. "After everything."
Carmen looked down at the perfume. "Because I was the unfinished thing. He said he had made peace with you in his mind a thousand times—your success, your marriage, your child. He said he could imagine your life continuing without him and it hurt but it made sense. With me he could only imagine the door he had left open and the wind coming through. He wanted to close it properly. Or open it properly. He was not always clear. Heart medication makes poetry strange."
Elena almost smiled. Then the almost became an ache.
"I need to see him," she said.
"I can take you. Or Marco can. Or you can go alone. Whatever you need."
"I will go with you," Elena said, and surprised herself. "Not because I have forgiven you. Because he asked for both of us, and I will not let my pride edit his last requests."
Carmen cried then, quietly, into a diner napkin. Elena did not reach across the table. She also did not leave. That, for now, was the shape of mercy she could afford.