James continues, thinking out plans. Robert's still in the hospital. It will be better if I wait until he's home and settled at Bank Street. Of course it will. Hospitals are infantilizing—the gowns, the pans. Robert would be at a disadvantage. Bank Street is the seat of their power. Which leaves me as a petitioner. One hopes to get into an enchanted kingdom, or to get out of it, if things go badly. You don't visit an enchanted kingdom to forgive the sorcerers.

"I want it to go well," James says. "Your meeting. There's a sweet spot, with the medications. When he's lucid but also sort of beatific. It's the release from the pain."

I think a deathbed reconciliation is probably a good arrangement for the dying, who are soon to be free of all burdens whether you assist them or not. It's the living who need to stumble on, heaving from arm to arm the weight of all those wasted years and now grief too.

"Carlisle." There's a pause and for a moment I think I see James very clearly, standing by the small table at Bank Street, holding the phone. "I don't know what happened," James says. "I mean, he's never told me exactly what went on between you. But I know whatever caused the break is not what kept it going. It's him, it's how he is. I don't know if you can forgive him. I don't know if you should. I'll understand if you don't want to come."

I try to picture Robert, find his body in space and time. I feel a burning in my own chest, not in the heart but in the lungs, the ribs, spongy cartilage, bones. Bred in the bone. What's bred in the bone will come out in the flesh. That's from the Bible? Shakespeare?

Blood of my blood. Flesh of my flesh. I'm his daughter. He is my father.

I close my eyes.

"Of course, I will come," I say. "Of course."

Excerpted from They're Going to Love You by Meg Howrey. Copyright © 2022 by Meg Howrey. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.