He didn't sign the claim. Instead, he did something no Blakeley had ever done. He closed the book and walked to the hearth.

The client, a woman whose grief hung around her like a heavy coat, nodded. "It’s the last time I saw my father clearly. Before the illness took his mind. I can feel the edges of the day fraying, Robert. The smell of the grass, the specific shade of his sweater... it’s going grey."

The conflict came on a Tuesday, when a man named Elias entered. Elias didn't want to insure a memory. He wanted to collect on a policy.

And for the first time in his life, he was perfectly fine with that.

"You want to insure the afternoon of July 14th, 1998?" Robert asked, his voice a low hum.

"If I fulfill this claim," Robert said softly, "you will feel a drive so intense you will forget to eat. You will forget the people who love you. You will become a ghost obsessed with a goal that died fifty years ago."

Robert looked at the ledger, then at the flickering fireplace. He saw his own life reflected in the ink—a man who had spent forty years living other people’s highlights while his own remained unwritten.