Then he surprised me by asking for my phone. “Take a picture of us,” he said. I told him I looked terrible and that this wasn’t the time for photographs.
Robert smiled weakly and answered, “Look at me. I’m not exactly ready for a magazine cover either.” I laughed through my tears, leaned against him and lifted the phone. When he asked me to smile, I told him I couldn’t.
Robert looked into my eyes and said, “Please. When you see this picture later, I don’t want the last thing you remember about me to be dying.”
So I smiled.
That became our last photograph together.
For the next few hours, Robert kept asking me about our life. Did I remember our first apartment? Our first Christmas? The night our car broke down in the snow? At first I thought he was simply saying goodbye, but then he asked something strange.
