Martin was dying. He had, in point of fact, amyloid neural degeneration, partial spinal paralysis, liver damage, and kidney nephritis, all of which had led through the usual complex paths of metabolic decline to a state his records neatly summarized as "insupportable." Mia, of course, had read his prognosis carefully, but medical analysis was a product of its terminology. Death, by stark contrast, was not a word. Death was a reality that sought people out and put its primal stamp on every fiber of their beings.