Myers continued to hold her, even as they lay on the floor with their backs against the fridge. "I'm sorry. But we know she's going to a better place."

"I'll say." Laura snapped her head back and began laughing, infecting Myers with her mirth in the process. "To spend all your life struggling to succeed, then learn that your whole life is just a stint in a cosmic kindergarten."

"Then it's true," Myers observed.

Laura found her lips near his stubble. "What's that?"

Myers looked not at her, but up at the tiny television screen on the kitchen counter. "Everything I needed to learn, I learned in kindergarten."

At this, both laughed until their lips met. It was at the moment of impact that the doorbell rang.

"The ambulance. Aunt Astrid." Laura pushed herself up off the kitchen floor, and dusted her skirt.

"We can try again," Myers was already crawling back to his patient, "but it'll have to be quick."

############

"Sorry again."

Laura snuggled against Myers's shoulder, and absently looked across his chest at another television set suspended in a corner of the hospital waiting room.

"It's not your fault. Her time came."

"About the tape. It must have fallen out of my pocket when we took that spill in the hallway."