Douglas declined quickly once the fighting was finally over, as though the sheer will that had carried him through the board vote, the competency evaluation, and Calloway's endless legal attacks had been the only thing holding his failing heart to its schedule, and once there was nothing left to fight for, it simply stopped trying.
He spent his final two weeks mostly in his own bed, refusing the hospital entirely this time, insisting he'd rather spend whatever remained of his life somewhere that felt like his own rather than somewhere sterile and unfamiliar.
We took turns sitting with him. Sarah spent long afternoons reading to him from books he'd loved decades earlier. Nathaniel sat with him most evenings, the two of them talking quietly about things I only caught fragments of, memories
