Epilogue and Acknowledgements Summary and Analysis

Belkin notes: "This book is about making choices - and living with them." (262). She wrote the book four years after the events took place. The epilogue updates us on her characters' conditions after October. Armando is fairly happy at Bart's, and while his new wheelchair ultimately doesn't suit him, he finds peace in the care facility. Armando continues to maintain that he wants to live. He says his life has value, that he sees his family and spends time outside. And he's happy to be alive because he knows that if he hadn't gotten shot he would have died some other time. But over time, his cost of care increases beyond Hermann's ability to pay, even at Bart's. Hermann gives Bart's one month to train Armando's family how to take care of him. Armando goes home, where...