“Yes,” I said quietly. “I think it is time.” The woman let out a breath that sounded like a sob. “We will be there in an hour,” she said. “Please tell him not to be afraid. Please tell him we all got his letters.” She hung up before I could ask who she meant. I turned to Mr. Warren, and he was smiling at the ceiling, tears slipping into his pillow.

By five in the morning, the elevator doors started opening. A man in a suit. A woman in scrubs. A young mother with a toddler on her hip. A tall man in a firefighter’s jacket. They did not speak. They walked silently down the hallway to room 412 and stood in a line outside his door. Twenty, then forty. I stared at them, and the first woman in line looked at me and said, “You must be Imani.”