Loving You Was Dying, Leaving You Is Living

Three years into her cancer battle, Fiona Thorne returns to the old apartment complex where she grew up, intending to slip away quietly. At the gates she runs into Aaron Hayes, her ex-husband of eight years, and the two exchange distant greetings. She has shaved the long hair he once loved and hides her bald head under a hat; he no longer wears the woven bracelet she made him.

Aaron still lives next door, and when she finds nothing hidden beneath the flowerpot, he offers to walk her to the factory office for a spare key, just as he did in high school. A stranger mistakes them for quarrelling lovers, and Fiona, swallowing blood, explains they are long divorced. Divorce, she says, usually happens for the same few reasons: she once found him in bed with her best friend, Olivia.

Seventeen years of shared history bind them, yet the red brick complex remains while the people have changed beyond recognition. Fiona has come back to keep her final moments for herself, and for the once happy little home she had.