But he knew instinctively what he suggested was impossible. She'd been through so much, and held her tears back for so long, that Royce doubted that anything could force her to shed them.
Is this what comes at the end, I wondered? Maybe death is the great equaliser, the one big thing that can finally make strangers shed a tear for one another.
The last class of my old professor's life took place once a week in his house, by a window in the study where he could watch a small hibiscus plant shed its pink leaves.