Evelyn is going to die when she wants to.

And she wants to die now.

“Evelyn,” I say. “What are you . . .”

I can’t bring myself to say it or even suggest it. It sounds so absurd, even the thought of it. Evelyn Hugo taking her own life.

I imagine myself saying it out loud and then watching Evelyn laugh at me, at how creative my imagination is, at how silly I can be.

But I also imagine myself saying it and having Evelyn respond with a plain and resigned confirmation.

And I’m not sure I’m ready to stomach either scenario.

“Hm?” Evelyn says, looking at me. She does not seem concerned or disturbed or nervous. She looks as if this is any normal day.

“Nothing,” I say.

“Thank you for coming today,” she says. “I know you were unsure if you would be able to make it, and I . . . I’m just glad that you did.”

I hate Evelyn, but I think I like her very much.

I wish she had never existed, and yet I can’t help but admire her a great deal.

I’m not sure what to do with that. I’m not sure what any of it means.

I turn the front doorknob. All I can manage to squeak out is the very heart of what I mean. “Please take care, Evelyn,” I say.

She reaches out and takes my hand. She squeezes it briefly and then lets go. “You too, Monique. You have an exceptional future ahead of you. You’ll wrangle the very best out of this world. I really do believe that.”

Evelyn looks at me, and for one split second, I can read her expression. It is subtle, and it is fleeting. But it is there. And I know that my suspicions are right.

Evelyn Hugo is saying good-bye.

AS I WALK INTO THE subway tunnel and through the turnstiles, I keep wondering if I should turn back.

Should I knock on her door?

Should I call 911?

Should I stop her?

I can walk right back up the subway steps. I can put one foot in front of the other and make my way back to Evelyn’s and say “Don’t do this.”

I am capable of that.

I just have to decide if I want to do it. If I should do it. If it’s the right thing to do.

She didn’t pick me just because she felt she owed me. She picked me because of my right-to-die piece.

She picked me because I showed a unique understanding of the need for dignity in death.

She picked me because she believes I can see the need for mercy, even when what constitutes mercy is hard to swallow.

She picked me because she trusts me.

And I get the feeling she trusts me now.

My train comes thundering into the station. I need to get on it and meet my mother at the airport.

The doors open. The crowds flow out. The crowds flow in. A teenage boy with a backpack shoulders me out of the way. I do not set foot in the subway car.

The train dings. The doors close. The station empties.

And I stand there. Frozen.

If you think someone is going to take her own life, don’t you try to stop her?

Don’t you call the cops? Don’t you break down walls to find her?

The station starts to fill again, slowly. A mother with her toddler. A man with groceries. Three hipsters in flannel with beards. The crowd starts gathering faster than I can clock them now.

I need to get on the next train to see my mother and leave Evelyn behind me.

I need to turn around and go save Evelyn from herself.

I see the two soft lights on the track that signal the train approaching. I hear the roar.

My mom can get to my place on her own.

Evelyn has never needed saving from anyone.

The train rolls into the station. The doors open. The crowds flow out. And it is only once the doors close that I realize I have stepped inside the train.

Evelyn trusts me with her story.

Evelyn trusts me with her death.

And in my heart, I believe it would be a betrayal to stop her.

No matter how I may feel about Evelyn, I know she is in her right mind. I know she is OK. I know she has the right to die as she lived, entirely on her own terms, leaving nothing to fate or to chance but instead holding the power of it all in her own hands.

I grab the cold metal pole in front of me. I sway with the speed of the car. I change trains. I get onto the AirTrain. It is only once I am standing at the arrivals gate and see my mother waving at me that I realize I have been nearly catatonic for an hour.

There is simply too much.

My father, David, the book, Evelyn.

And the moment my mother is close enough to touch, I put my arms around her and sink into her shoulders. I cry.

The tears that come out of me feel as if they were decades in the making. It feels as if some old version of me is leaking out, letting go, saying good-bye in the effort of making room for a new me. One that is stronger and somehow both more cynical about people and also more optimistic about my place in the world.

“Oh, honey,” my mom says, dropping her bag off her shoulder, letting it fall wherever it falls, paying no attention to the people who need to get around us. She holds me tightly, with both arms rubbing my back.

I feel no pressure to stop crying. I feel no need to explain myself. You don’t have to make yourself OK for a good mother; a good mother makes herself OK for you. And my mother has always been a good mother, a great mother.

When I am done, I pull away. I wipe my eyes. There are people passing us on the left and the right, businesswomen with briefcases, families with backpacks. Some of them stare. But I’m used to people staring at my mother and me. Even in the melting pot that is New York City, there are still many people who don’t expect a mother and daughter to look as we look.

“What is it, honey?” my mom asks.

“I don’t even know where to start,” I say.

She grabs my hand. “How about I forgo trying to prove to you that I understand the subway system and we hail a cab?”

I laugh and nod, drying the edges of my eyes.

By the time we are in the backseat of a stale taxi, clips of the morning news cycle repeating over and over on the console, I have gathered myself enough to breathe easily.

“So tell me,” she says. “What’s on your mind?”

Do I tell her what I know?

Do I tell her that the heartbreaking thing we’ve always believed—that my father died driving drunk—isn’t true? Am I going to exchange that transgression for another? That he was having an affair with a man when his life ended?

“David and I are officially getting divorced,” I say.

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” she says. “I know that had to be hard.”

I can’t burden her with what I suspect about Evelyn. I just can’t.

“And I miss Dad,” I say. “Do you miss Dad?”

“Oh, God,” she says. “Every day.”

“Was he a good husband?”

She seems caught off guard. “He was a great husband, yes,” she says. “Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know. I guess I just realized I don’t know very much about your relationship. What was he like? With you?”

She starts smiling, as if she’s trying to stop herself but simply can’t. “Oh, he was very romantic. He used to buy me chocolates every single year on the third of May.”

“I thought your anniversary was in September.”

“It was,” she says, laughing. “He just always spoiled me on the third of May for some reason. He said there weren’t enough official holidays to celebrate me. He said he needed to make one up just for me.”

“That’s really cute,” I say.

Our driver pulls out onto the highway.

“And he used to write the most beautiful love letters,” she says. “Really lovely. With poems in them about how pretty he thought I was, which was silly, because I was never pretty.”

“Of course you were,” I say.

“No,” she says, her voice matter-of-fact. “I wasn’t really. But boy, did he make me feel like I was Miss America.”

I laugh. “It sounds like a pretty passionate marriage,” I say.

My mom is quiet. Then she says, “No,” patting my hand. “I don’t know if I would say passionate. We just really liked each other. It was almost as if when I met him, I met this other side of myself. Someone who understood me and made me feel safe. It wasn’t passionate, really. It was never about ripping each other’s clothes off. We just knew we could be happy together. We knew we could raise a child. We also knew it wouldn’t be easy and that our parents wouldn’t like it. But in a lot of ways, that just brought us closer. Us against the world, sort of.